Thread by @AnthonyFloyd

Park Board report on Stanley Park Mobility Survey being given right now: csg001-harmony.sliq.net/00318/Harmony/…

I'll cover highlights in this thread. Maybe mute me for the next hour if you don't care...

For information only, final report in "a few weeks' time", highlights in this presentation.

Visits to parks increased by 150% over the summer, bicycles increase 20-80% on recreational routes over summer, other modes down

Public engagement while temporary changes in effect: 11,000 responses to survey (>>> 2,000 typical response rate, record for PB, most before was 5k)

Survey results validated by Qualitas Research, data cleaning.

"No patterns or nonsense answers were identified, 187 responses were removed, 10,859 responses included in analysis..."

In short, it seems PB staff stands behind the survey results, despite concerns of a certain commissioner calling the whole thing into question...

Respondents: 26% outside Vancouver, 29% downtown/west end, 45% other Vancouver

Heard mostly from 30-39, followed by 40-69, but heard from seniors more than youths.

Looked at only Vancouver respondents, and ages. 60-69 had highest representation, lowest was 20-29 and 0-19 years. Takeaway: Youths under-represented, seniors well represented.

Also showed people with disabilities well represented!

66% support road space dedicated to cyclists in the future, 58% support a car free day, 58% disagree with "no changes in park compared to pre-covid"

73% respondents visited SP during vehicle closure. 76% bike, 49% walk, rolled, ran

68% said their experience was better: more bike friendly, more quiet and peaceful, more family friendly.

Reasons for not better: Speeding cyclists, cannot access amenities, difficult for seniors or people with disabilities (1194 respondents out of the 10,500+)

Of the people who *didn't* go during the lane closure, (28%) top reason was because they couldn't drive through the park (63%)

More people said they visited the park when it was reopened to vehicles (10% more)

Separated lanes? 47% better, 31% worse, 4% no different, 18% "other"

Why better? Fewer vehicles, more room to cycle, slower vehicles

Why worse? Can't ride seawall, they drove and couldn't access places, drove and couldn't find parking, and horse and carriage delays

Separated lane vs closed to vehicles? 11% said better, 47% said worse

40,000 comments on 5 questions in their survey, taking a bit to unpack ...

Cheating here, too much to type:

25% feel they depend on a vehicle to experience Stanley Park. In 1981, survey showed 25% of visitors used a car to move from one place in the park to another.

496 respondents didn't go because they weren't able to ride the seawall, 808 said it was worse, same reason. 12% of responses.

Spring cycling data: 40% increase year-over-year on Easter Weekend

Cycling stats for summer + fall. A lot to unpack here.

Cycling volumes leveled off when separated lane introduced. Surge in cycling in spring did not keep through fall. Dropped below 2019 levels.

They think because: 1) cars back in park, 2) tourism down 83%

(survey indicated 8% drop due to presence of cars)

Vehicle data!

Vehicle volume WAAAAAY down in 2020, and parking occupancy way down.

Why? Probably tourism is guess.

(ahem, maybe that's what's affecting the businesses too, huh?)

Parking occupancy waaaay under capacity over summer.

(ie, "there's no parking" was a complete fabrication)

Pedestrian volumes next. Looking at pedestrian capacity (like traffic capacity: how many people vs room for them). At HMCS Discovery, exceeded capacity at many days through August, September

Peak-hour use per mode

Used CoV vehicle occupancy factor of 2.5 ...

KILLER SLIDE

(Look how over-dedicated usage for people arriving in vehicles is!)

50 m2 of park space as pedestrian, 45 m2 as cyclist, 175 m2 as person in vehicle!

(sorry, can't type that fast)

Whew, that's it for the survey. Discussing next steps now. Expect report May 2021. (Although if I understood correctly, this report with recommendations will come to the board i a few weeks, today is for information only)

Cllr Coupar questions the numbers: 12M visitors to the park, but if you count max cyclists, only get 1.8-3.x M. Prior to COVID, where was everyone coming from? Do we really know what pre-COVID state was?

Answer: tourists, but still working on the data.

Follow-up: how can we make a decision in 2021 if we don't have good data on what "normal" is?

Response: will work with CoV Engineering and maybe MoTI to try to model pre-COVID state

Cllr Barker: How do you count pedestrians?
Response: Manually(!)

Cllr Barker: Did you look (ie count) at places that weren't paved? (Good question)
Response: No. Neither pedestrian or cycling counts in the interior of the park. Only vehicle volumes tracked throughout park.

Cmmr Barker: We should hold off making any decision until we know what's happening inside the park (in the form of a question)

(aside: Note the delaying tactics here by Commissioner Coupar and Barker)

(oops. They are *Commissioners* not *Councillors*. Cmmr?)

Cmmr Irwin: 2.5 ppl/vehicle seems high, will follow up. Talked about tour busses, but no mention of transit or shuttles (in the form of a question, ish)

Response: No analysis of transit ridership yet, in scope for future.

(oops, missed Cmmr Irwin's second question)

Cmmr Barker: Any study on what people just didn't go out? Who is missing from the survey?

Response: See previous slides. 9% previously took transit, weren't going now. Still combing through data.

Cmmr Barker clarifies: Do we know how many people just aren't out in public in the general public? And who aren't filling out surveys ...

Response: We'll consider your comments in the future.

Cmmr Mackinnon asks about seeing the slides & discussion in the future, response is slides will be posted on PB website in the coming weeks. (Yay!)

Cmmr Demers asks about ongoing monitoring of use of the park.

Reponse: Data until mid-Nov, but looking at different options to continue going forward to avoid manual counters (sounds like they're not counting right now)

Cmmr Giesbrecht: People's habit change; will they ever "go back" to past patterns or should we be looking at "going forward" instead? (But not in the form of a question)

Response: Yes, and we're going to look at other parks around the world & how they're modifying their mobility

Cmmr Irwin: So many responses! Even if it's self-selecting, isn't it representative?

Response: Well, it's a pretty high response rate.

And thus ends my live-tweeting of this Park Board report.

Follow-up: The @ParkBoard has posted the slides here: parkboardmeetings.vancouver.ca/2020/20201123/… (PDF) on its info page: vancouver.ca/news-calendar/…