When Jerry Dobrovolny turned 50 a few years back, three doctors told him he was old, out of shape and overweight. At that point, Dobrovolny made a decision that led to him losing 50 pounds and cycling to work every day, one hour in each direction from his home in New Westminster to his job as city transportation director at Vancouvers city hall.
Dobrovolny is just one example of a significant cultural shift that has taken place in this city in the past 40 years where people have changed their views about how they travel. Call it the new normal.
If you can cite any single event that kicked off the trend that led us to where we are today, it was the decision to stop the construction of a cross-town freeway through Vancouvers downtown. That was in 1972.
Three years later in 1975, the city introduced its transportation plan. At the time, 90 per cent of city trips were by car.
Back then, most cities in North America relied on freeways or rapid transit to move people. Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»had neither. But ultimately the city and the region opted for rapid transit. In a fundamental way it would define who we are.
In little more than a decade, the first SkyTrain line was built in the lead up to Expo 86. There was also the growing realization that you cant build your way out of traffic congestion. New roads simply attract more cars.
It was the beginning of a focus on what has come to be known as active transportation. That includes walking, cycling and public transit.
Over the next two decades while the costs of car travel continued to escalate primarily because of rising fuel costs, local governments were joining together to advance a livable region strategy. And citizens were increasingly concerned about the livability of their neighbourhoods and the impact cars were having on them. Those concerns were reflected in the citys 1997 transportation plan which advanced the proposition that population growth would have to be accommodated by walking, cycling and public transit.
Meanwhile, habits and expectations were changing.
Just look at cycling over the Burrard Bridge as one example. In 1996 when then-NPA councillor Gordon Price convinced his buddies who had the majority on council to allow a trial bike lane on the bridge, it ended in a few days amidst chaos and massive motorist protest. Some 15 years later, a second trial was set up with Vision Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»in power. TV satellite trucks rolled in to catch the disaster caused by angry motorists caught up in traffic congestion. But there was nothing except a bunch of happy cyclists.
That so-called trial continues today.
And it has been added to by separated bike lanes on Hornby and Dunsmuir. They, too, were controversial. But consider the last election a referendum on the expanding strategy of active transportation. The party opposed to those bike lanes went down to defeat.
In 2010, the city appointed engineer Dale Bracewell as its first manager of active transportation and this year it bundled together its citizen advisory committees that dealt with pedestrian safety, public transportation and cycling.
In the past 15 years (discounting population growth), transit use has increased 15 per cent, walking is up 44 per cent and cycling has soared by 180 per cent while car use has declined. In the downtown area, it has been reduced by 20 per cent.
There is, as well, a growing emphasis tying together active transportation and health.
Well hear more about that as the city is set to target about 50 per cent of the population who say they are willing to give cycling a try, but want it to be safer.
That strategy will start to be rolled out next week when Dobrovolny and his staff lay out Transportation 2040, the latest plan to support the cultural shift that now defines Vancouver.
And incidentally, next week is bike to work week.
