Copenhagen in New Westminster? The Mayor of New West says YES!

New Westminster Mayor Patrick Johnstone answers the $4 billion question: What would happen if the BC government spent as much on active transportation as it is does on one tunnel crossing?  Answer: Castlegar would have a full bike and pedestrian network, and New West would be Copenhagen.

Johnstone makes a passionate case for why this level of spending is needed to meet BC’s CleanBC transportation goals, which would also solve the "congestion problem". He also explains why road pricing (to finance transit and active transportation) seems to be the eternal third rail of BC politics, even though people really want bike lanes and transit -- especially the Rad e-bike moms of New West!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:05

Welcome to BikeSense, the BC Cycling Coalition's podcast where we talk about all things related to cycling advocacy, education, and safety in BC. I'm your host, Peter Ladner. I'm the chair of the board of the BC Cycling Coalition. I hope you enjoy the show. My guest today is Patrick Johnstone, who's the mayor of New Westminster. And just before we get into talking with him, I want to say that we work on it, we're going to cover what I consider to be the biggest question in active transportation in BC today, which is how do we get the funding for doing it the way everybody seems to think we have to do it, but we're nowhere near doing it. So how do we cross that gap? But first, welcome Patrick. Thank you, Peter. Glad to be here. Patrick, you are not just the mayor, but you're also on the TransLeak Mayor's Council. You're the vice chair of the Climate Action Committee at Metro Vancouver. And I know that you were born and raised in the Kootenis. Where were you born? Where were you raised? Castlegar, beautiful sunny Castlegar. And did you really come to New Westminster because it has great transit?

SPEAKER_00: 1:20

This time, yes. I mean, I think uh when I was 18 years old, I came down and rented a really crappy little apartment right by City Hall here, uh, you know, as a teenager trying to find my fortune in the big city, um, still looking for it. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think at the fact that it was two blocks from a skytrain station was part of my decision making at the time because I was working in Burnaby. And then when we, and I moved around a bit, went to college and stuff, and um, when we came back and settled in New Westminster back in the early 2000s, um, absolutely, transit access was a major part of it. The fact that we were uh two blocks away again from uh from a skytrain station, and we wanted, you know, New Westminster is one of those cities that has incredible transit service, and it's great that and it's great to know that you're 20 or 20 minutes from anywhere by a skytrain uh in New Westminster. That's a huge addition. We didn't realize until we moved here that actually there was so much going on in New Westminster, we didn't actually have to use that skytrain so much. But uh yeah, it's that's a big reason why I'm here.

SPEAKER_01: 2:16

And just for clarification, 20 minutes from anywhere doesn't include Castlegar.

SPEAKER_00: 2:20

No, it does not include CastleGar. The transit access to CastleGar is still a little limited.

SPEAKER_01: 2:24

And I loved in your bio that you're you told your wife, if we're gonna put down a down payment on the house, you better be prepared. I'm gonna get involved in the community. And by 2013, you were a citizen of the year. Then you were on council for a couple terms. Did you get into politics because of your passion for active transportation?

SPEAKER_00: 2:42

I think so. Yeah. I think between um environmental activism and active transportation activism, those are the things that really got me involved in the community, got me involved in, you know, it got me in front of council, asking for things. It got me involved in that way in the community. Um, I was doing a lot of blogging and a lot of as people did in the early 2000s. And I was talking a lot about um, I mean, I think it came from environmental activism and active transportation, and then it became into its natural place, which is urbanism, talking about urban areas and talking about how urban areas need to be developed in a way that makes them more livable.

SPEAKER_01: 3:16

So now that you're on the other side of the of the desk or the podium or whatever it is, what have you done? Oh boy. Just some high. What are some of the what's what's something you're particularly proud of or you think has a has had a particular impact for the promotion of active transportation?

SPEAKER_00: 3:33

Well, just recently in the last couple of years, um, we've I brought a motion to council a couple of two years ago now to to really ramp up our active transportation network in New Westminster, recognizing that we are not keeping up with some real leadership cities like Victoria on this. And after having a talk with the mayor of Victoria, um, I sort of talked about how uh the former mayor, Lisa Helps, how she managed to accelerate a lot of action in Victoria around active transportation. So um through a motion at council, we got a plan to get a um uh what we're calling an active transportation network plan. We're actually developing, instead of building bike lanes, we're actually developed a full network for the city. What will it look like if everybody has is within 400 meters of an active transportation route and has an active transportation route getting to all of their destinations?

SPEAKER_01: 4:20

Did you say 40 meters or 400? 400 meters.

SPEAKER_00: 4:24

400 meters. So so you know, every every fourth road is an active transportation route. And um and then through that, we are now getting that into the capital plan. So we now have a plan to get that active transportation network into our five-year capital plan. So we actually have a timeline to get it built. Instead of just doing one-off bike lanes projects, we're actually planning all of those projects around a network plan that is funded. Um, that's I think a big step for a city.

SPEAKER_01: 4:49

Well, interesting you mentioned that because uh one of the projects of the BC Cycling Coalition is it's something we call Safe Roots Now. And we are mapping and tracking the active transportation plans in municipalities around the province. And many of them have these plans. And the one back of the envelope calculation we've managed to do so far is to roughly add up the 54 communities, which is not it's about half the province that we've tracked, and the total budget required to implement their transportation plans, their active transportation plans, is around$2.5 billion. The amount of money that the province is giving this year for active transportation infrastructure municipality is 20 million. I'm not too good with all my decimals, but that's sort of in the nature of 1% or 0.1% or something of what is needed. Um, I was attracted to talking to you when you speculated, well, what if we had numbers of that magnitude, two and a half million, a billion for active transportation. Tell me your vision and just imagine what some of the smaller municipalities would look like were that to happen.

SPEAKER_00: 6:00

Well, where I came into this is, I mean, I obviously appreciate the fact the province has put uh I think it's$116 million over the last 20 years into active transportation given directly to cities, uh local governments to build active transportation, and they've ramped that up now to$20 million a year. So I appreciate that funding. I do. It's really it's great and it's important for us. It's a baseline for us to get our work done. But um, when I compare that to the Highway 91, Highway 17 upgrade that's being completed right now, that single transportation upgrade is$260 million. The Highway 1 up interchange at Lyn Canyon cost the province almost$200 million. Like this, the scope, the magnitude of spending on projects like that compared to the active transportation budget is is off scale. It's it's not the same. And I got to thinking about the$4 billion project to replace the Massey tunnel. Um and I'm not gonna speak for or against that project. It doesn't matter, you know, transportation projects are important, they're an important investment in the province. But I tried to imagine what would do, what would happen if MOTI, the Ministry of Transportation, committed$4 billion to active transportation over five years. The amount of money they're putting into solving a single traffic bottleneck, which is an important traffic bottleneck, but if they spent the amount of money on that amount of money as well on active transportation province wide, that would be a gigantic, that would be a mode shift for the entire province. Um thinking about four billion dollars, the opportunity cost of that, that is eight hundred dollars for every resident of British Columbia. So if they gave that to local governments on a population basis, that's$70 million for the community of New Westminster. That would be that is my entire active transportation network plan, plus um significant increases to other in other safety things like improving our sidewalks and improving our our our lights and our crossings and everything. It would be transformative to New Westminster. Think what Sanit could do with$100 million, or Castlegar, my hometown, with for$7 million. You know, they could Castlegard could build a full bike and pedestrian network in their city. Um, you know, Vancouver would be Copenhagen with that kind of funding level. Like that's just the way to just it it would be that big. And it sounds like a pipe dream, but recognize this is the amount of money they're spending on a single traffic backup. Like that, like the scope should not be out of, should not be, it should we shouldn't be thinking about that as a crazy amount of spending. We should think about that as this is what we're spending to address a need, a recognized need. And I would go so far as to say I haven't seen the clean BC, the um the what they're calling the clean transportation action plan, which the province is going to be putting out imminently to address um how the transportation mode is going to be addressed under Clean BC. But I'm going to suggest that they are not going to meet their Clean BC goals for transportation mode shift unless they invest at that level. This would be the one tool they could use that could actually get the province, that the province could apply that would actually get them to their mode shift goals for Clean BC.

SPEAKER_01: 9:10

Let's talk a little more about that. The goals, as I understand them, are a 25% reduction in vehicle kilometers traveled between 2017 and 2030. So we're about kind of halfway there. Are we 15% down from uh the shift already? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00: 9:29

Oh no, no, no, no. We we are i it's actually going up. It's actually VKT is going up right now. And um that is an interesting target, mostly because I don't know what the tools, what tools the provincial government has to make that target happen. Um you know, historically, if you look around the world, there's only a couple of examples of that kind of VKT reduction happening. And I think one would be the Copenhagen model, which is massive investment in public transit, massive investment in active transportation, and road pricing in order to incent that move. Or the other model would be Detroit, which is you completely haul about your city. You know, you reduce your population in half, you reduce your VKT. I don't think we want to do the Detroit model. Um I think the and I think the um the Copenhagen model is difficult for us in British Columbia because road pricing is apparently the third rail of public policy in in British Columbia.

SPEAKER_01: 10:27

Aaron Powell Also known as congestion pricing or um bit distance-based taxes and so on.

SPEAKER_00: 10:33

Or call the or call it bridge tools, if you want to call it. That's the model. But I mean I think there's the political decision has been made on that. That's why I don't think that's a tool available to us.

SPEAKER_01: 10:42

I think this is a really important thing to explore because, in my uh estimation, there's something built into the DNA of our current NDP government where they actually won the first election that they got power recently by saying get getting rid of all the tolls on the Portman Bridge, and they they out out uh rewarded the suburban drivers compared to the then BC Liberals. And I suspect there's somewhere in their thinking they think we don't dare offend these suburban drivers because they are our swing vote power brokers. Do you think that's true? Where will we when will we come to the point where the excitement about AT and transit surpasses that about more cars?

SPEAKER_00: 11:25

Oh, I don't know when that's gonna happen. Um I will I mean it's not just the NDP. I don't think there's any party in in British Columbia who's ready to step up and say it's time for us to adopt road pricing. I think it's political, I think it's political for third rail right now. I don't think it's viable. This is a challenge for us as we as um we are going through a long discussion at Translink right now about how we're gonna fund the transit system uh in a sustainable way. And I think that with that being off the table, we have to come find other more creative uh funding sources.

SPEAKER_01: 11:54

Um But let's go back to the supply of AT infrastructure. You you said investments in transit and and active transportation. What do you think are the most telling um points that would garner political support for that, particularly outside the lower mainland, where let's be honest, everybody kind of needs a vehicle or thinks they do, and uh transit is hard to finance and justify the cost of, and AT has to go alongside highway shoulders, which is difficult.

SPEAKER_00: 12:28

Um, I don't think it's a political I don't think it's a challenge with the public. I think that frankly, the governments have to catch up with the public. I think the public wants public transit and they use public transit. When it's available to them and it's reliable and it works, they use it. I live in a city where we have a really, really high mode shift because we have tri-high transit service. Um people knew it our Translink has the highest return to ridership of any transit system in North America after the COVID, uh, after the COVID reductions. Um, we now have more riders than we did before COVID. Like we've actually exceeded. We're over 100% ridership again. But this is people want public transit. And people, and I'll say people also want active transportation. People want um when bike lanes are built, they are used. Go to Victoria and see what what Lisa Helps' network looks like. I know in Vancouver there was a lot of jokes being made about Gregor Robertson's bike lanes, but um, you know, and I'm gonna call them Lisa Helps' bike lanes because they're getting used. I am amazed to go to Victoria now and see that Victoria is catching up to Montreal in how the bike lanes are there, usable, and so people are using them. There is there's getting to be traffic congestion on some of the bike lanes downtown now as people are shifting to that mode. People want these things. People want safe roads, they want safe sidewalks. Um, but like everything else that people want, people don't want to pay for it. And so that's the challenge we have to get by. We have, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 13:56

And yet, if you look at the benefits of a relatively small investment in safe cycling infrastructure compared with the benefits of, say, the large investment in the Linn Valley exchange, I don't know what measurable outcome there is from the Linn Valley one. Is there no more congestion on the North Shore? I don't think so. But if you were to expand bike lanes, I think you'd have quite a quite a direct impact for a lot less money.

SPEAKER_00: 14:20

Yeah, I don't think that Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure in BC has that magic sauce that no other transportation agency in the world has found. The magic sauce that says if you build highway capacity, it solves congestion. That that's never happened in the history of building roads to solve congestion. Um and I can't wait for someone to find me an example of where it has worked for more than a year or two. Um, building roads causes congestion, that's clear. Um, but we do know that giving people alternatives does help with congestion. If we do simply if we if we achieve that clean the clean BC goal of 25% VKT reduction, that solves congestion. That that fixes it. If we reduce the 20% congestion, isn't caused by um the majority of cars on the road, it's caused by that small percentage of cars on the road that get us past the capacity ability, right? It's that last 10% of cars on the road that cause congestion. If you can reduce VKT by 25%, um that that is the biggest solve of congestion that we could possibly have.

SPEAKER_01: 15:23

Do you think that e-bike rebates that stimulate the already growing uh popularity of e-bikes will create enough demand from the kind of people who vote that they would say we need a safe place to ride my our e-bikes?

SPEAKER_00: 15:41

I think e-bikes, yes. I'm not sure that e-bike rebates are the best use of money. And I'll say I'll tell I'll say why. I think that e-bike takeup will eventually reach a wall where we don't have this infrastructure for safe usage for people to use it. E-bikes are amazing because they open up cycling to people who don't look like me. They open up cycling to older people, to people with who aren't as strong or don't or have uh you know some mobility disabilities. It opens it up to moms who are carrying kids. It opens it up to people who are not comfortable using unsafe road infrastructure. So I would rather the the governments invest that money in building safer infrastructure. Um, and then e-bikes will come. E-bikes will come, and they already are coming. One of the activist groups in our community um are the rad moms. They are literally a group of moms with kids who get around on rad bikes, and they are asking us for better cycling infrastructure in New Westminster because they've discovered how easy it is to get around with active transportation because of their e-bikes.

SPEAKER_01: 16:44

Well, that that gets me to this question of uh attracting people to uh whether you can create the demand first or the supply first. Because politically, I've been around when you build a bike lane and there's starting off not too many people on it, and the car drivers go crazy and they say, Why are we spending this money? There's nobody on these bike lanes. Whereas if you had a bunch of pent-up mums with e-bikes, they'd be all over it and you'd fill it up.

SPEAKER_00: 17:10

Yeah, it has to do with network demand. Again, we have to build these network plans and we have to. We built a pretty expensive bike lane in New Westminster recently in Agnes, on Agnes Street in our downtown. Um, it's beautiful. Uh, we probably overbuilt it a little lot, made it made a lot of public spaces around it, green spaces around it, did a really good job on it. Um, but it doesn't really connect yet to anything at either end. When the Petulo Bridge is done, it will be connected to that. You know, we're building a connection into downtown. And unfortunately, you have to build pieces, right? You have to build pieces at times just because that's what budgets allow. But there has, you're right, it'll never see proper usage until we have a proper network and people can get from where they need to, where they are to where they need to be on the network. We um and again, we don't build roads or railways the way we build bike lanes. We don't build a road for three blocks and then have nothing at either end. Um, that's that's part of the problem with how we think. And this is a little bit of my lessons from talking to Mayor Helps. It was about um I mean, the idea that if you build a block or three blocks of bike lane, you're gonna get pushback from the community because it's a change and people are concerned about change and it impacts the way people normally live their lives. They have to make adjustments. But if you build five kilometers of bike lane, you're gonna get exactly the same amount of pushback. You're not gonna get more. Um, so so build a lot at once. You know, build as much of the network as you can every year instead of just building little pieces because you're because that way um you start to demonstrate the value of it a lot quicker. And um yeah, and it just ends up being easier to build and more politically um supported when you actually build a proper network.

SPEAKER_01: 18:54

I want you to cast your mind back to or out to CastleGar and think of the fact that the reason that biking is popular in Copenhagen, let's say, is not because people are virtuous or they want to stop greenhouse gas reductions. It's cheaper, more convenient, and uh a better way to go. It gets you there faster. How can that those attributes be built into an active transportation route in a smaller community?

SPEAKER_00: 19:23

Oh, that's tough. They've they have built, I mean, Cassagar is an interesting example because it's kind of a one-road town. It's a city, it's one of those cities that has, you know, a main a main street that goes through the length of town. So it's a very long linear town along the river. Um, Columbia. It's called Columbia. And uh, you know, I remember riding my bike up and down that road every day, every day when I was a kid, right? Like that's what that's how I got around when I was young. Um on the sidewalk, of course, beside Columbia, because the road wasn't safe. Um but Castigar has invested actually in a bike lane down the most of the length of Columbia now, and they did get some money from the provincial government, and they've used that to build a bike route along the entire length of Columbia. Um so um the challenge, of course, is yeah, it doesn't reach, it's hard in a small city to fund, to fund building bike routes to all the neighborhoods, um, especially in a city like that that doesn't really have a grid network. It's got a bunch of cluster neighborhoods, you know, stretched along this one long chain. So it's funding. It's really hard funding for a city of 7,000 people to invest um, you know, the kind of money they need to invest to build a proper network, which is why I guess senior government money is important. I think about Powell River is another incredible example. They've got a really big dream to make Powell River a really walkable, really great active transportation community. And they have a great dream and a good plan, but it's really hard for a community that size to fund the kind of networks they need when it's the Ministry of Transportation's got a highway running through the middle of their city, right?

SPEAKER_01: 20:53

Well, let's talk about funding. We're now at about 20 million a year. We just you just dreamed about$4 billion a year. We're not we're not gonna get to$4 billion very soon. But don't give up yet, Peter. No, I just said very soon.

SPEAKER_00: 21:07

Uh okay, okay. I don't think we need four billion dollars a year. I think we need to be four billion dollars over because the cities won't be able to spend that. Of course, of course. Like that needs to be over 10 years or something, and it needs to be something that we say, okay, we're gonna do a one-time big investment.

SPEAKER_01: 21:20

But okay, sorry, I'll I'll won't just So if you were the the BC Cycling Coalition or any any active transportation advocate, uh, what would you say if you got an audience with the Ministry of Minister of Transportation? What would you say we want, we need, what's next? What would make sense? What can cities reasonably digest and deliver on right now?

SPEAKER_00: 21:43

I I think the key to any government advocacy is telling the government that you've got the solution to their problem. And I think that you've got the solution to their problem, which is how do they meet their clean BC goals? How are they going to meet this goal that that frankly they have to meet? You know, like it's not, it's um, you know, COP28 just had its global its global stock take, and we are not making it. And um I the Clean BC plan is ambitious and it's it's it's the kind of thing we need to do as a province. Um I'm very much in support of it, but I don't know what tool they have to get to that goal. And I think that active transportation investment is probably a major, a major piece of that. It may be the entire piece. I mean, if they fund it to the level which they could fund it, um active transportation could be the major piece of that, of that VKT reduction goal.

SPEAKER_01: 22:40

How would you recommend cycling advocates um got together, campaigned, framed their ask, whatever they'd have to do from that side, from building up the grassroots support? And you sit on on councils and so on, you maybe see these senior bureaucrats and politicians face to face, but the rest of us are out there waving from the sidelines or from the uh sidewalks. Um, how could we be effectively making an impact and getting towards the goals that we've just been discussing?

SPEAKER_00: 23:10

Oh, um the the the activist play, I don't know what the activist playbook is anymore in the era of social media. Um it's um I'm I might be the wrong guy to ask because I used to be an activist, but now I'm someone who's being activisted too all the time.

SPEAKER_01: 23:24

Okay, so when people are activist to you, what are the what are the messages that work?

SPEAKER_00: 23:29

Um I think that like to me, I think about the active transportation, like specifically active transportation activism that I've heard. Part of it is um we again, what I said earlier, we have the solution to your problem. You have a problem, you have a goal you're trying to achieve. This is going to help you get to your goal. And I think you should, this is as a tool, and we will help you, and we will support you, and we'll be standing behind you, cheering you when you achieve your goal through these means. Um, the other part with especially I think active transportation um discussions is broadening the tent. A lot of cycling advocates look like me. Uh uh relatively healthy, middle-aged white dudes. Um, that's who we that's what a lot of cycling activism looks like. And I think the rad moms coming, um, you know, um having people with disabilities coming and talking about saying that cycling is actually opens up transportation options to people with to some people with disabilities. Disabilities are obviously a broad spectrum. And there's some disabilities for which cycling actually opens up opportunities for them to get independence and traveling around. There's also challenges, and some bicycling infrastructure causes challenges to some other people with disabilities. So I think, but including a diversity of people in that conversation helps government understand that it's not just um Pat Johnstone and his cycling buddies, it's not just the middle-aged men in LyCra asking for this stuff. In fact, the middle-aged men in lycra aren't asking for this stuff. We'll be riding our bikes whether we get safe infrastructure or not. That we'll we'll do that. We need to um it's the people who are getting on the e-bikes and are discovering active transportation for the first time. Um it's those are the people who we really need to get elevate their voices and and and speak for them.

SPEAKER_01: 25:21

It's interesting you mentioned the mums because in our last podcast we had Kate Teshke on, a UBC professor who specializes in safety. And she pointed out that of all the transportation modes, cycling is very gender unequal. There are equal numbers of women and men who walk on the sidewalks and who take buses and who drives, but not cycling. And as you just mentioned, women who are concerned about safety, particularly, would be a useful addition to the to the voice. Another one I want to ask you about is cycle tourism, because that attracts the interest of economic development, people, the hospitality industry, chambers of commerce. Is that a realistic goal for the province that we could become a cycle tourism place and thereby justify investments in AT?

SPEAKER_00: 26:05

Yes. I think that's, I mean, my own personal life as a middle-aged uh middle-aged man in Lycra, um, I do cycle tourism all the time. So being able to take my bicycle with me and ride in places that I visit is a major part of like what I look for in a destination when I'm traveling. Um, but it's it's but even not even internationally, just thinking about locally and regional uh tourism. Um you want as a business area, when you're attracting people, you want people coming through your business area on bikes. If you're traveling through an area in a car, you're rolling down your window and looking out at it, or you're looking for parking. People who travel through business areas on bicycles stop. They stop for coffee. They stop at the shop that they see as they're going by. They are that's what, and and they have money in their pocket to spend. I mean, that that is kind of, you know, the the the cyclist on the street should be, you should be trying to attract that if you want to have a prosperous business area. This is one of those discussions. I mean, the downtown uh BIA in Vancouver discovered this. Obviously, they were initially very, very resistant to the idea of bike lanes in downtown Vancouver. And then once they arrive, they realize, oh no, this is actually really good for our businesses, and they are one of the biggest advocates for better cycling infrastructure in their community because yeah, that the people on bikes stop and they shop.

SPEAKER_01: 27:22

So you've given me an interesting thought here. When I think about cycle tourism, I think about a nice circle route between Vancouver and Power River and Comarch's and back down or whatever. But you're pointing out that there's cycle tourism within communities. And I'm reminded of the Kelowna has a hotel that has uh scooters available for the people who come to that hotel. And they can scoot around town and use the local bike routes just close by. It's not a big long journey.

SPEAKER_00: 27:48

I mean, the only reason I go to Fort Langley is when I'm riding my bicycle there. I mean, that like that's why and I spend my tour, I spend tourism money in Fort Langley because I ride a bicycle there. You know, I choose, I my the time I spend in Vancouver, our New Westminster's Western suburb, Vancouver, the only time I spend there is when I'm riding my bike through there, right? And that I think so regional and intra-regional cycle tourism should be part of the discussion as well. Absolutely. If we build a bike infrastructure, we build bike highways between our communities in the region, that is actually going to draw people to around to spend money internally.

SPEAKER_01: 28:24

Well, I think of the Penticton Fondo, which I've written, and perhaps you have two, where thousands and thousands of people show up and stay and spend money and so on.

SPEAKER_00: 28:33

Yeah. And Whistler, and the Whistler Fondo is the same in the Valley Fondo. I mean, it's yeah, you see how that that drives local, that drives a ton of money to the local economy.

SPEAKER_01: 28:43

Do you think that that attraction also applies to the non-ummal type cyclists and the racing, you know, the fancy bike people? But what about you're just your your average person with an e-bike or a senior who wants to just total around a little bit, take it a bit easier? Are they also customers for cycle tourism? Do you think?

SPEAKER_00: 29:00

Yeah, that's an interesting idea. I mean, I think maybe the fondo is not the right model for that. I think the fondo specifically appeals to mammals. Um I think that, but I have I took part this year in the ride for the cure in the Fraser Valley, which was uh a two-day cycle tour to raise money for uh for cancer research. And you know, that community that is a diverse and incredible community of people because they're not riding fast. They're riding slow and they're taking time and they're seeing the community and they're doing a community activity together, right? And that's um so I think that type of ridership I think appeals to people on e-bikes, people who are yeah, riding slow and just riding a bike for the fun of it, not to get somewhere.

SPEAKER_01: 29:42

Well, Patrick, I've covered pretty much what I wanted to ask you. Is there anything you want to add that you think our listeners would need to know?

SPEAKER_00: 29:49

No, thank you for doing this. I I guess I would say talk to your MLA. And what would be I guess I mean that that's where the activism starts. Talk to your MLA and say, you know, I can't. about active transportation and I think the province I think the Ministry of Transportation's mandate is to is to make sure that it's built and I think that um I think that the province should be supporting my local government in getting active transportation built in my community. That's if you can send that message to your MLA it matters.

SPEAKER_01: 30:18

Thanks so much Patrick this has been fantastic. I love your enthusiasm and uh your success in New Westminster and your vision for a better future rather than just arguing about why people should not have should have to get out of their cars or not.

SPEAKER_00: 30:33

Rather look at what other what a great life well let me just ask you to just elaborate besides the the convenience of getting around just tell me the other things that happen when people are more active oh I mean of course you um you see your community you meet your neighbors you are healthier like like like never mind the health benefits of just getting around under your own power walking or cycling if you can um or rolling you know however you can get around um under your own power the health benefits of that is are so huge but you meet your community when you drive through a neighborhood you don't get to meet the people who you live near when you walk or roll or cycle through your community you meet your neighbors and that it just builds that's a value that you just can't um you can't put a price on um it adds it just adds active transportation adds to the quality of your life in a way that um cars we we think we think that cars add to the quality of our life and they do in a way um but they also take away they don't give us freedom necessarily they can give us freedom unless we have to rely on them. Anything that you rely on isn't giving you freedom. So I have a car I don't drive it that often I use car share um it's about having options and right now we have a lot of options to drive we don't have a lot of options to get around safely through other modes and that's what I want people to have options to do.

SPEAKER_01: 31:59

Let's go to work on it. Thanks so much Patrick wonderful talking to you. Thank you for your time Peter thanks Thanks for listening to Bike Sense and supporting Safe Cycling in BC please subscribe so you don't miss an episode BC Cycling Coalition relies on your support to continue our work please consider becoming a member and adding your voice to the call for safer and more accessible cycling with BC special thanks to our sponsors BC Hydro Richards Buell Sutton ICBC Moto and the Bicycle Bro visit us at bccycling.ca