A resident of Victoria reflects on Movement Mayhem in Victoria. Accidents Waiting to Happen?
The Context Behind the Story
Victoria may be the capital of British Columbia, but its Mayor and Council are not above making short-sighted and even foolish decisions when it comes to implementing changes that profoundly alter the landscape and lives of people residing in this island city.
The unprecedented inflow of financial investment into infrastructure and residential development is creating a paradise of plenty for a minority of asset managers and property owners, and growing wealth inequality. This process is transforming the city into an exclusive safe haven for the affluent while pushing second-class property-less citizens beyond its heritage façade in the town centre and outside its “character” neighbourhoods.
Luxury condo towers and new segregated bike lanes emerge in the downtown core, sprouting like mushrooms after a rainfall. Politicians, planning professionals and their business boosters all rely on fanciful myths about the “highest and best use of land”. They tout the benefits of unlimited growth to justify every change, even if the consequences prove harmful to the health and well-being of those who make this city their home.
With shelter valued not as an essential human need but as investment and even retirement vehicle, it’s not surprising the home-ownership dream is promoted by every level of government – even if unsustainable debt-levels, and increasing displacement, homelessness, and destitution decry the promise of social and economic progress for everyone.
Every inch of space is being transformed into a perpetual money-making machine by financial institutions. There is little to no concern for the depletion and damage to natural and human resources. What is clear is the fact that private interest trumps the public interest as citizens see few real long-term benefits from unlimited growth.
Public space is fast disappearing as private interests encroach ever further into parks, and onto sidewalks and rights-of-way in the name of providing more options for consumers. In fact, public space is at a premium as more users compete for a piece of public property they can temporarily command for their private use.
It is estimated by city planners that 10 to 20 per cent of urban land is typically devoted to roads, sidewalks and parking in high car ownership areas, and more than 50 per cent in commercial centres. Where land costs are high in urban centres, multiple modes of transportation are competing for the same public right-of-way space whether its private and commercial vehicles, bus/mass transit, ride-sharing, cycling and walking. What most planners seem to forget is the fact that for the most part transportation modes conveying single-occupants are space intensive users. The most effective use of roadways for people movement is bus/mass transit system with walking as the primary mode connector.
The much-hyped advent of “disruptive” technology, peer-to-peer online platforms, and the “sharing” economy have all created ever larger unregulated conglomerates like Airbnb (the world’s largest home-sharing company), Uber and Lyft, (the cheaper ride-hailing taxi alternative), not to mention Bird and Lime, (the latest e-scooter micro-mobility device operators), with Google and others vying for control of the artificial-intelligence designed and operated autonomous, driverless, “smart” vehicle market.
Putting more people into compact smaller unaffordable, energy-consuming amenity-rich housing units downtown with expensive underground storage places to park private cars in a “walkable” livable city defeats the purpose of establishing climate goals to reduce congestion and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Likewise the City’s new “Go Victoria” mobility strategy will not magically eliminate green houses gasses in the Emerald Green City, and offer a safe “shared” cycling, pedestrian, and driving experience for everyone who traverses the Yellow-Brick Roads of this quaint colonial theme-park playground for aging snowbirds, cruise ship day-trippers, and affluent overseas visitors.
Is Victoria really solving the housing affordability and transportation congestion problem?
The City of Victoria is spending more than $40 million to construct its new segregated bike lanes and ‘shared’ streets as its contribution to enhancing the value of a multi-billion dollar residential real estate market in one of Canada’s most expensive cities in which to live and work.
The lion’s share of this multi-modal transportation investment comes not from development cost charges but rather from taxpayers through fossil fuel and property taxes. Roadway improvements, including the introduction of taxpayer financed segregated bike-lanes throughout the high-value downtown land area increase the property values of adjacent residential development.
No wonder developers are only too happy to throw in bike-racks, a secure storage area, a car-share subscription among other amenities in their high-priced downtown condos and rental properties or ‘gentle density’ multiplex units in neighourhoods to win approval from planners, politicians, and prospective occupants. And, since the city is throwing out the welcome mat for millennial age, high-income, high-tech professionals wanting to live close to their co-share tech hubs – why not make it easy for them to hop on a bike, an e-scooter or a hail a ride from Lyft to a nearby choice of brew pubs and tapas bars on every street corner, which also doubles as an ‘outdoor’ living room for cube-dwellers.
Judging from the heated responses appearing in newspapers and in the social media from residents, not everyone is convinced that “action” is favored over adequate data gathering and planning in a complex and rapidly transforming urban environment without considering the positive and negative consequences is the most prudent way to proceed. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to consider applying the precautionary principal of doing no harm before building things that may exacerbate an ever more profoundly complex and conflict-driven urban environment to satisfy personal needs over the collective public interest.
The City talks about “public engagement” and the need to undertake an education program to acquaint residents and visitors about how to understand and adapt to ‘shared’ public rights of way. But their words disguise the fact that pilot projects take too long to plan and implement. And frankly, written policy guidelines are a waste of time and paper unless they will add head count to the planning department.
So what’s their best option? Make decisions behind closed doors with input from vested interests to win favor from the few who matter and then answer questions from the public in town hall meetings and public hearings.
Let’s face it, politicians have perfected the art of smiling and nodding when necessary while begging forgiveness after the fact when inevitable glitches and major pitfalls occur. They have had plenty of practice in handling the fallout from a multi-million budget over-run and multi-year delay on the construction of multi-modal bridge, or a multi-million dollar multi-user harbor pathway and rehabilitate public plaza over contaminated foreshore lands. The lesson here is that growing public service costs, transportation and environmental costs are never fully considered nor are the deleterious health and well-being impacts of this ‘unlimited growth’ philosophy.
In the absence of any integrated transportation plan, the City gave carte blanche to one dockless bike-sharing company two years ago. The result: a plethora of devices deposited on sidewalks and boulevards throughout the city, and an increase in riders without helmets, another example of accidents waiting to happen to unsuspecting visitors – hardly a great tourism promotion story. And now pedestrians and cyclists take their life in their hands transiting Victoria’s new two–way bike lanes intersected with pedestrian crosswalks along the waterfront, or exiting from the Johnson Street Bridge into the ‘shared’ streets of the downtown core.
Too many questions and no answers!
Who has priority on these multi-mode transportation corridors, drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, e-scooters, and other tourist transportation modes – pedi-cabs, rickshaws, and horse-drawn carriages?
Who’s monitoring the multi-modal traffic volumes, the signal system giving advance movement to transit vehicles?
Where is the city’s risk management plan regarding transportation missteps resulting in increased litigation costs?
How many accidents and fatalities have occurred between multiple users since the City introduced its segregated bike lanes?
How does the city plan to regulate heavy truck transportation routing in the city given the high risk associated with transportation of dangerous goods/volatile fuel for floatplanes and helicopters in the downtown and hospital industry area?
How does the city plan to regulate and mitigate negative consequences and conflicts associated with increased traffic congestion in the downtown area and James Bay associated with tour buses, taxis, and now the new provincially approved ride-hailing services in the city, not to mention movement of people in tourist-transportation modes: horse-drawn carriages, pedi-cabs, and rickshaws?
If mass transit moves people more efficiently and cost effectively, why did the City agree to subsidize only residents under the age of 19 and not everyone?
Why does the City favor single-occupancy transportation devices (private cars, scooters, bikes etc.) over high-occupancy transportation vehicles for work and city-living purposes?
Conclusion:
If the city values so little the use of its public roadways such that it protects free storage for private vehicles in every neighbourhood. And, it allows the use of street space as a low-cost repository for construction staging, and film crews seeking a ‘royal treatment’ in B.C.’s capital city. Perhaps it should the ‘highest and best use’ of public property and consider use of the public rights of way for alternative and higher value uses such as mobile tiny homes for those displaced by unaffordable condo development, or public amenity locations for more community gardens and even local museums, or pop-up artisan and entertainment spaces for the city’s talented and creative youth.
Clearly, the jury is out on whether the City of Victoria’s development and transportation plans are aligned with the broadest interests of its residents, or whether they are in the service of the development and property investment interests.
When all is said and done, perhaps taxpayers and multi-modal users should ask who the decisions of council favor and who they penalize? In whose interests is the city being transformed – investors, business, tourists, or those who live and work and contribute to its present and its future?
Additional Reading:
“Transportation Cost and Benefit Analysis II – Roadway Land Value”, Todd Litman, Victoria Transportation Institute. https://www.vtpi.org/tca/tca0507.pdf
“Wharf Street Bike Lanes Pros and Cons, Letters to the Editor, Times Colonist, August 24, 2019. https://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/letters/letters-aug-24-wharf-street-bike-lanes-pro-and-con-1.23925683
Comment: Lanes on Wharf Street put cyclists at risk, Michael Murray, Times Colonist, 21 August 2019. https://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/op-ed/comment-lanes-on-wharf-street-put-cyclists-at-risk-1.23921609
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