I call on the Park Board Commissioners to reconsider the removal of the temporary protected active-transportation lane. What problem does the removal solve? What are the consequences of the removal?
Problems that it solves:
* More convenient access to Brockton Point and Third Beach for people who drive to Stanley Park
* Allowing people who drive more convenient access to/from the Causeway
Problems that it *doesn't* solve:
* Improved parking in the park (not at capacity)
* Improved access in the park (will *remove* 2 accessible spots if it reverts back to pre-COVID)
Problems that it causes:
* Discourages use of park by people on bicycles (bad for environment, health, COVID)
* Increases interactions between people on bicycles, and people walking, running, etc (COVID, health)
* Decreases safety between people on bikes and other road users
Problems that it causes:
* Increases rat-running vehicles avoiding congestion on the causeway (speed!, bad for safety)
* Appears tone-deaf in a week where we've had the worst increase in COVID infections, the worst air quality among major cities in the world, climate emergency
So I call on the @parkboard to explain their decision, and tell the public how this makes *sense*, how this is good for the people of Vancouver, and how it fulfills their mandate of good park stewardship.
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March 2008. I had one kid and a second was on its way. 11 years living in a city with no family and the majority of my friends were grad students who - even then - couldn't afford to stay in Vancouver after graduating. #TwitterRequiem 1/11
Twitter was a way to connect with new people with similar interests. Most of them geeky, many of them outgoing introverts. Tweet ups. For whatever reason, GenX seemed to really embrace this medium. 2/11
Reminder: When Commissioners Coupar and Barker argue there shouldn't be a temporary bike lane in one of the two travel lanes in Stanley Park due to loss of accessible parking spots, they're talking about *2* spots.
And blaming the temporary bike lane on parking revenue loss is ... grasping at straws. Parking in Stanley Park was never full when the temporary lane was in place last summer
In fact, it's been speculated that the drop in cars in the park was, in part, because those two Commissioners couldn't stop saying "Stanley Park is closed" and "there's no parking" during that time -- when it was measurably not the case.