2024 Cycling Summit Reflections – Part 1 of 4

Evening Keynote with Ian Lockwood

On April 24 & 25 2024, the Peterborough Bicycle Advisory Committee held a Cycling Summit with the theme Safe Streets for Everyone. For a cycling group, this may seem like an unusual theme because it is not specifically bike oriented. We chose this theme because:

1. 1. cyclists are vulnerable road users, meaning that, along with pedestrians and motorcyclists, they are more likely to sustain serious injuries from crashes.
   2. we see the merits of streets that are people-centred and want to see these benefits come to our community. Benefits include increased health, higher quality of life, draw for new business investment and better accessibility.
   3. we want to reduce the number of people injured on our streets. Crashes can change the course of people’s lives forever, impacting livelihoods and families.

In the early stages of planning the summit, one of our newest members, Steve McMurtry, shared a podcast episode of Strong Towns with me. The guest was Ian Lockwood, a consulting engineer known for his successful street designs. As soon as I heard the podcast, I thought, we want this guy at our Cycling Summit!

We are pleased that we were able to bring Ian Lockwood to our Cycling Summit as the keynote speaker to open our event. Ian captivated the sold out audience with a presentation showing case study after case study of street projects that have changed cities. The projects use traditional, people-oriented designs that immediately draw people in. The amazing part is that the street projects always attract private developers who invest in the area, turning cities around.

If you want to hear Ian’s keynote talk again or missed it, have a listen!

Many of the cities that Ian works with are a similar size to Peterborough, but are American cities that are quite destitute. It was surprising to see how the projects changed these cities. Ian, who originally hails from Ottawa, also does some work in Canada. What he finds is that Canadian cities are not as destitute as many of the American cities, so they are complacent, losing opportunities to improve the quality of life and the tax revenues. 

What did Ian say about Peterborough?

Ian was impressed with the street layout of the majority of Peterborough, save for the newer subdivisions. With our good starting base, Ian thinks that our potential lies in:

1. 1. turning our one-way streets to two-way streets – this will make the streets easier for all people to use, slow down vehicle speeds and attract private investment.
   2. ‘stopping the (tax dollar) bleed’ of road and intersection widenings – Ian explained that many cities use traffic demand modeling to guide investments in their streets. The modeling assumes that the highest priority of streets is moving vehicles quickly and often overestimates vehicular demand. It is heavily weighted to vehicular needs without the context of what drives prosperity and quality of life. When traffic demand modeling is used as the primary tool for transportation planning, it causes investments in widenings rather than street improvements that make the city better. Ian sees, for example, that widening Chemong Road to 5 lanes is a lost opportunity to instead create a street that people would like to go to, one that would draw investment. Can you picture a revitalized area called Brookdale Village with new mixed use developments?
   3. adopting a two lane road approach – Ian has worked with another city bigger than Peterborough and they have adopted a two lane road policy, leading to streets that are less stressful and more enjoyable to use, while keeping transportation capital expenses relatively low. Four lane roads in an urban setting are often not desirable because they encourage speeding, lead to long red lights to accommodate pedestrians across the wide intersections associated with four lane roads and have higher rates of collisions with injuries.

Our organizing team spent many hours conversing with Ian. We learned so much and will use the knowledge shared by him when we participate in transportation project public engagements in the City and County of Peterborough.

Written by
Sue Sauve, Chair
Peterborough Bicycle Advisory Committee

Georgie Horton-Baptiste opening the Summit. Photo: Bryan Reid

Jean Greig introducing Ian Lockwood. Photo: Bryan Reid

Ian Lockwood giving his keynote address. Photo: Bryan Reid

2024 Cycling Summit Reflections – Part 2 of 4

Speakers: The Word on Safety

In real estate, they talk about location, location, location. From our two speakers on the second day of the summit, we learned that in transportation safety, the most important factors are speed, speed and speed. The images below are from the World Bank Guide for Safe Speeds: Managing Traffic Speeds to Save Lives and Improve Livability (English).

Difference in Outcomes for Pedestrians Hit by Vehicles at Different Speeds

Difference in Peripheral Vision of People Driving at Different Speeds

From Dr. Whitehead we learned that no matter where the city is located, the same features that make urban streets safer for everyone — more compact road space for cars, separated facilities for pedestrians and cyclists, slower vehicle speeds in denser business and residential areas — also make our cities more liveable and our downtown businesses more prosperous.

Valerie Smith, Director of Programs at Parachute, talked about the concept of Safe Systems Approaches, speaking to the successes and challenges faced by municipalities at different stages of Vision Zero adoption, implementation, and evaluation. She provided relevant insights from the frontlines.

After digesting the presentations from Dr. Whitehead and Ms. Smith, we are more committed than ever to advocate for safe transportation systems that benefit our community in a multitude of ways. One of the Bicycle Committee’s primary activities is commenting on transportation projects and plans the City and County are developing. We are enthusiastic to include in our submissions content on safe systems approaches that use evidence-based measures to improve our streets.

Written by
Sue Sauve, Chair
Peterborough Bicycle Advisory Committee

Summit participants. Photo: Bryan Reid

2024 Cycling Summit Reflections – Part 3 of 4

Group Walking and Cycling Tours

To ground what we learned at the summit and to provide food for thought for the design workshops, small groups headed out on bicycle and on foot to experience different parts of our City and County on the morning after Ian Lockwood’s keynote address.

Bridgenorth Ramble

County consultants, staff, Ian Lockwood and interested community members took a bus to Ward Street in Bridgenoth. With reconstruction on the horizon, the County was keen to get input into how to transform Bridgenorth’s main street into one that still serves the vehicles that pass through while giving the street more of a main street feel that is attractive and welcoming to all road users. Not surprisingly, the group found that the street does not feel comfortable for people walking and cycling along it in its current configuration. Ideas were generated that were then discussed at the afternoon design workshop.

A Neighbourhood Walk

Age-friendly Peterborough’s Jayne Culbert led a walk/roll through the neighbourhood near the McDonnel Street Community Centre to experience active transportation infrastructure from a variety of perspectives. The tour also explored the little known gateway to Parkhill Road and the west end of the City at the end of Middleton Drive.

Participants were permitted to try out a mobility scooter to see how it feels to go over bumps and curbs and navigate intersections. People were surprised at how difficult it was to get up ramps at intersections and how vulnerable they felt on Bonaccord Street with no sidewalks and rough road edges.

Walk/roll through the neighbourhood near the McDonnel Street Community Centre. Photo: Bryan Reid

Bethunescape and Its Connectors

Cycling tour of Canada’s first purpose-built bicycle-priority street. Photo: Bryan Reid

Trails of Today and Tomorrow

AAA (all-ages-and-abilities) facilities are an integral part of our City’s Ultimate Cycling Network. Photo: Bryan Reid

2024 Cycling Summit participants on Day 2. Photo: Bryan Reid

Written by
Sue Sauve, Chair
Peterborough Bicycle Advisory Committee

2024 Cycling Summit Reflections – Part 4 of 4

Design Workshops

Small community groups working together in design workshops is a great way to build community consensus on priorities for street design.  At the Summit design workshops, otherwise known as charrettes, community members worked together to develop design solutions for Ward Street in Bridgenorth, the Reid-Rubidge corridors and Romaine Street as a neighbourhood greenway. There were at least two tables for each project and the results can be used to create momentum for action. The Ward Street project is an active, real-life project that the County of Peterborough is leading. The other two are projects that are not in the works, yet, but we chose them because they have potential to change the neighbourhoods they serve in a good way.

Reid and Romaine Streets

We picked the one-way sections of Reid and Romaine Streets to stretch our imaginations. Knowing that this pair of one-way streets could better serve our community, we asked summit participants their ideas. This series of images shows some of the results.

Sketch of Rubidge Street at Murray Street showing the section north of Murray Street closed to vehicles and converted to a multi-use trail.

Sketch of Reid and Rubidge Streets in the church district showing raised crosswalks, redevelopment of some of the land to high density residential housing and the conversion of Rubidge Street to a two-way street. It also shows a multi-use trail replacing a vehicle lane on Rubidge Street and vegetated boulevards providing a buffer between the sidewalks and the curb.

Romaine Street

Romaine Street is a sleepy road paralleling Lansdowne Street, providing easy access to side streets that cross Lansdowne Street. In this way, it provides a hidden gem of a route to destinations along Lansdowne. Design workshop participants came up with ideas to make Romaine Street more of an obvious cycling route, using the principles that guided the Bethune Street redevelopment. These images show some of the ideas generated.

This sketch includes post-it notes with ideas for Romaine Street including a narrowed, raised crossing for Crawford Trail users, speed humps, bulb-outs to narrow intersections, and lateral shifts in parking to create a winding, slower road.

The ideas for Romaine Street on this sketch include realigning the intersection at Monaghan Road, a new treed boulevard between the sidewalk and the street, and cycling tracks.

This image zooms in on the west end of the sketch above. It shows parking bays in the vicinity of the cafe with bulbouts to create a narrower street.

Written by
Sue Sauve, Chair
Peterborough Bicycle Advisory Committee