Monday, August 27, 2012

Bike For Your Life Video

Check out the video for this year's Bike For Your Life which aired recently on Shaw Community Channel 4:

Thanks Gord Byers for making the arrangements with Shaw to come and shoot the video.

Click here for the video

Friday, August 17, 2012

Public Information Meeting

A Public Information Meeting about a planned 38 lot subdivision located
at the corner of Yellowbrick and Wembley Roads will be held next Monday,
August 13 starting at 7:00 pm at Oceanside Place, in the Multi-Purpose
Room (2nd Floor).

Yellowbrick Road is a major connector street between Wembley Road and
the Morningstar area. On the Area G OCP, Yellowbrick Rd. has a Roadside
Trail designation. For anyone travelling along this route, they must
walk on the side of the Road - this includes students walking to/from
Oceanside Middle School.

Here is the link to the PIM notice regarding the proposal.

http://www.rdn.bc.ca/cms.asp?wpID=2857

If you want to have a say about the proposal, come to the meeting on the
13th.

An article about the meeting appeared in the August 16 edition of the Oceanside Star

French Creek Bridge Lobbying Efforts Update

Click here for the article that appeared in the August 17th edition of the PQB News.
Thank you Neil Horner for article. 

If you read the article it will mention that an elderly gentleman in a medi scooter started across the sidewalk of the bridge just as we were meeting below the sidewalk. Then a person started walking across the sidewalk from the opposite side of the bridge. The walker had no choice to get around the medi scooter but to climb the railing. This is perfect example of just how inadequate the sidewalks on the bridge are for people to safely cross the bridge. 
 

On Tuesday, August 14, MOTI Engineers David Edgar, Janelle Erwin and Winnie Wong met at the French Creek Bridge with three of our Board Members (Richard Nuesch, Gord Byers and myself), Joan Michel of RDN Parks and Trails and Neil Horner of the PQB News.

The meeting began with our presenting copies of the survey about safety concerns with the Bridge that we completed in June. 


Go to the Home Page on our website to access the survey results

We then looked at all of our concerns:

1.Current Signage
2. Approaches to the Bridge - including the concrete barriers and the laneway to the walkway (sidewalk) on the bridge and
3. The sidewalks on the bridge and
4. The travel lanes on the Bridge

We emphasized that the problems - especially with the sidewalks - affect not just cyclists but anyone using the sidewalks - including walkers and mobility scooter users. Just as we were discussing this issue, a fellow on a mobility scooter started coming across the sidewalk right above us. I spoke to him about the sidewalks (He stated that "hates crossing the bridge on his scooter") and David Edgar then spoke to the fellow and measured his scooter in relation to the width of the sidewalk. As we were talking a person walking across the sidewalk in the opposite direction met up with the fellow on the mobility scooter. The walker decided that the only way he could get around the mobility scooter was to climb the railing. The "conflict" could not have been better timed and I can honestly say that we did not plan this situation in any way.

We then presented a 1 page sheet on possible solutions to each of the problems. With Joan Michel lending her voice, we emphasized that we want to see more than just erecting signs to solve the problems.






Possible Solutions to problems with the French Creek Bridge
1.Walkways on Bridge

a. Widen the existing walkways to acceptable standards

  • current width = 0.91 metre
  • TAC standard = 2.0 metres plus 0.5 metre shy distance
  • Problem – current sidewalks require regular maintenance due to wooden composition

b. Replace walkways with Aluminum walkways

  • lighter in weight than wooden structures (allowing wider width)
  • could have a safe non-skid surface that would not hold water (or snow)
  • not rot out or require extensive ongoing maintenance
  • Handrails can be part of the integral structural design, a safe height for cycling, and made to safely "deflect" any rider errors.
  • When the bridge is eventually replaced by a new design these aluminum structures can be "re-purposed" on our area trail systems where needed for short span crossings
  • 2.Concrete Barriers on approaches to Bridge
     
    ·        clean up the barriers of weeds, etc.
  • make the barriers more visible – fluorescent paint

3. Bridge Deck and approaches to Walkways

·        Regular sweeping

4.Signage

  • Share the Road signage on approaches to bridge
Problem: Requires an extensive education program for both motorists and cyclists
  •  

The MOTI officials made notes during the 1 hour meeting and they said they would share these with their Bridge Engineer. We were promised that we would hear back from them soon.

I have to thank Neil Horner for the article in today's PQB News.

After the meeting we discussed the need for continuing to press forward on the safety issues. One suggestion was to have a "Work Bee" at the bridge where we clean up the weeds around the concrete barriers, clean the weeds from the walkways approaching the bridge and possibly re-paint fluorescent paint on the concrete barriers at the ends of each walkway. We will also post regular updates on the website.