Gil Peñalosa In San Francisco, Vancouver
I didn’t make the Gil Peñalosa talk the other day, but I heard an account from someone who did, and they said it was really good. Some of the things Gil talked about:
- Believe in the transportation hierarchy, pedestrians are most vulnerable.
- Skip the baby steps - do big things, like physically-separated bike lanes.
- Think about combining forces with the walk people, because bikers and walkers need to work together against motorized transport.
Simon Fraser University in Vancouver has a lot of guest speakers, too, and over the summer they had Gil Penalosa. Below is his talk - it’s a must-see, and it’s probably very similar to the talk he gave here in San Francisco:
Below are my quick notes while watching the video - I added my own commentary in brackets at the end of some notes:
- 8 year-old ‘acid test’ for biking - can you send an 8 year old and an 80 year old out on the cycle path? if so, you pass. if not, it’s not good enough. [Cesar Chavez and other streets need this.]
- in terms of walking and biking infrastructure, do u want to play with the little people (i.e. be the best of the worst), or do u want to be the best of the best? [I love this thought.]
- perfect storm == perfect opportunity [Yes! And that perfect storm is all-encompassing.]
- maybe we haven’t done a good enough job of selling to the ’stupid politicians’ - E.A.R.T.H. acronym [Agreed.]:
- Environment
- Activitie$ (economic)
- Recreation
- Transportation
- Health
- ‘baby steps’ gets you ‘baby results’- with bike lanes (pain on a road), you may get 150 cyclists instead of 100, and you and others will be disappointed. we need separate biking facilities. [Yes. At one point Gil mentioned the 'plateau effect' - something I mentioned in a comment on one of my anti-BRT rants. Sometimes baby steps are the only possible/viable option, but if nothing else we should frame these baby steps as just the first step of what we want. If politicians won't do what we want this time around, we're going to come back next year with the same list of demands. And the next year. And the year after that. And we'll never stop asking/demanding/complaining until we get it.]
- tourism is pedestrian-oriented. people walk to spend money, not drive. what is really memorable is walking and cycling places. nobody returns from Paris and says, “What great highways Paris had!”
- walking is a mode of transportation
- pedestrian and cycling position is ‘almost an issue of human rights’ [Yes - human rights, women's rights, etc.]
- have to get decision-makers using public transit, walking, biking, etc. [Yes - a complaint I've had about BRT proponents.]
- much more expensive to complete it afterwards [Yes - Michael Ronkin made this point, too.]
- obesity getting worse and worse…clear trend. we have to focus on prevention.
- this is a perfect opportunity - it’s a perfect storm.
- best partners to promote biking and walking with - public health people. ‘public health’ is not just ‘fluff’ — it’s a matter of life and death, so people pay attention. [The San Francisco public health folks were heavily involved in Sunday Streets, as far as I know, so that's a very good thing. We need to continue to cultivate that relationship, and spread it to our surrounding towns.]
- even a very little bit of activity can have tremendous health benefits.
- average speeds of transport modes - walk 5 kph, bikes 15 kph, cars 40 kph
- cars going more than 40 kph require separate bike facilities [I'd go with more than 0 kph, maybe 5 kph.]
- bikes and walkers must be ‘best friends’ because both are non-motorized [I don't know what Gil's thoughts on formal alignments are, but I think it's an idea worth exploring.]
- walk and cycle tracks can actually be grade-separated (height-separated) by 5cm from each other, and from car path.
- you gotta start with doing. paint some lines on the road. put down some cones. concrete can be poured later.
- so many pedestrians in some places, ‘highways for pedestrians’ created to allow slower walkers/window shoppers to walk slowly while ‘commuting pedestrians’ can move freely.
- he’s giving big props to Janette Sadik-Khan.
- best recognition of a killed cyclist is appropriate bicycle infrastructure.
- World Carfree Day - what does the city look like without cars? it’s a fantastic educational tool. Do it on a Thursday (Bogota), or Sunday if you wish. [Yes - we should do this in San Francisco. I'm not sure how to make the marketing work with Bike To Work Day, yet, but it's definitely something we need to talk about - something we need to consider doing.]
- low income citizens amazed to see rich people walk/bike/transit.
- Guadalajara…another great program for Ciclovia, including Bogota.
- you have to involve the media in all of these things…everybody needs to have a way to be involved.
- no more baby steps. let’s take major leaps.
- the NYC DOT created the most fun activities in the city in 40 years (the Ciclovia)! parks and recs commission in NYC said this.
- Bogota has 1/10th the per capita income that Vancouver has.
- Get city departments to work together…partnerships…one city, one taxpayer.
- Juan Amarillo Greenway…45km-long park that is more long than wide, so it connects people - in this case, rich at one end, poor at the other. Always separated cyclists and pedestrians so there will never be any conflict.
- Golf course had to allow the Greenway or else start paying taxes.
- It’s never easy to do all these things, but it is doable. In 36 months, the BRT system was built.
- Transit has to work with walkers and bikers - intermodal transport. Need bike parking facilities at all stations. One more bike == one less car. In more bike-friendly countries, people have two bikes - one to take from home to the bus/train, and another once they get off the bus/train to take to work/school. [We need to start looking at this. Caltrain hates bikers and bikes-on-board, so we need to figure out another way. If we can't force out the person who runs Caltrain, we need to get creative to solve this problem of bikers getting treated like dirt. I've now heard two stories of people quitting biking because of Caltrain suckiness. It's not acceptable. Let's do free, secure parking, at every Caltrain station - a bike can stay locked up without being used for up to a month. Caltrain pays.]
- Need dedicated public servants to talk work on walk/bike issues - DOTs needs bike/walk people, not just engineers worried about car infrastructure, or bus and train schedules. We need people to work on intermodal links.
- Bogota created 174 miles of bike paths in 3 years.
- Homicides down from 1991 to 2006 [I've long had a theory that a better social interaction environment would lead to less antisocial behavior, but I can't find good data. It seems crime has been dropping since the early nineties, though, so it's tough to know exactly why that is happening. If anyone knows of a good study, please holler. I'd even be interested to know of simple correlation studies - look at the most bike/walk friendly countries and compare their relative crime rates.]
- More holistic, people-oriented construction of transportation - cooperating public agencies to build ‘complete streets.’
- Mayor of Chicago wants to become most bike friendly city in America, but he has not taken any car parking out. Paris took out 7,000 car parking spaces so far. [Zowie!]
- We have to count the pedestrians and walkers - like Copenhagen does every 2 years (‘City of Cyclists’ (PDF) reports).
- Copenhagen plan for 50% bike to work by 2015. 50% reduction of accidents. 80% feeling safe while bicycling.
- Don’t get complacent with being good - be great.
- Create great public spaces for all seasons.
- Copenhagen has long, dark, crazy-cold, snowy winters - don’t let weather be an excuse.
- Fantastic challenges and opportunities.
- 5 Key Ideas:
- Leadership - can be a regular citizen. Nurture those champions.
- Got to have political will (guts) - general interest must prevail
- We need ‘doers’ in the public sector - the world need ‘dreamers who do’.  “people who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those doing it.” — Chinese proverb
- If you’re not doing reach-out to politicians, media, etc., then someone else is - don’t let them set the agenda.
- Ready, fire, aim….we need a sense of urgency.
Q&A:
- questioner said “pedestrians are terrified by cyclists.” 20:00 at the q&a.
- physical disabilities? walkable cities are great for people with disabilities.
That’s it.
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