Politics, Parking, Parks, and Privilege

 

Arbutus Way on Google Street View

There’s a member motion from Councillor Marg Gardiner up for the Thursday, April 6 Victoria Committee of the Whole about returning cars to Arbutus Way in Beacon Hill Park. Arbutus Way and Chestnut Row were made car free areas during the early pandemic years. The justification for returning cars is to make it easier for people with mobility concerns to access Goodacre Lake. I think it's short sighted.

Although any discussion of mobility is inherently political right now, I wasn't planning to use this blog to talk about specific motions or proposals. But this issue is personal. I started out composing a thread for Twitter and Mastodon, but it kept getting longer, so perhaps this blog is a better format. By the way, the motion uses the term mobility concerns, so that's the phrasing I'll use here.

The full text of the motion is:

BACKGROUND
During the pandemic, the closure of Beacon Hill Park for vehicular access to Arbutus Way at
Southgate made it very difficult for those with mobility constraints to enter the park area near
Goodacre Lake. This access could be easily restored, without structural changes to the roadway,
as a limited-cost step in 2023.

RECOMMENDATION
That staff be directed to open the north end of Arbutus Way at Southgate to vehicular traffic.
Further, a minimum of 50% of the parking along the west side of Arbutus Way north of Goodacre
Lake, be designated as Disabled Parking.

On the surface this seems like a good thing, but the reality is more complicated.

The First Problem: SOME Does Not Mean ALL

The first problem I have with the motion is the idea that cars have to be allowed everywhere because they’re needed by people with “mobility concerns”. It’s absolutely true that some people with mobility concerns use cars to get around. The problem is that the some does not mean all, and the motion gives no consideration to the many people, both with and without disabilities, that access the park by foot, scooter, trike, e-bike, or bicycle. This is despite the fact that people with disabilities are far less likely to own a car than the general population.

I know multiple people who use a bike or trike to get around Victoria because their health issues mean they can’t drive. In my own case, my wife and I bought e-bikes explicitly because her back issues made it impossible for her to walk long distances. She would not call herself disabled, but if having “mobility concerns” means thinking about whether or not your body is going to let you get back from a ten minute walk without severe pain, then she sure has those. It turns out, though, that cycling doesn’t trigger her back problems, and so we cycle everywhere that feels safe.

The phrase “feels safe” is key. We all see people riding bikes in traffic, but the truth is that most people won’t do that. Few people driving cars think of themselves as a “menace.” They’re just trying to get somewhere. But the experience is very different when you’re sharing the road with a fast, powerful, heavy, vehicle piloted by someone chatting on their cell phone.

There's a reason why the phrase avid cyclist conjures up the image of a spandex clad athletic man aggressively "taking the lane" with his carbon fibre racing bike. The people willing and able to assert their legal right to use the road are mostly fit, mostly confident, and mostly men. Little kids don't do that. People carrying their children on cargo bikes don't do that. Confident old farts like me try hard not to do that, and less confident riders like Irene just don't.

The kids, the parents, the people with disabilities, the older riders don't mix with cars. They use Victoria's safe active transportation infrastructure. And if you look at the thousands of people who use the All Ages and Abilities network every day, all year long, you'll see them there.

So, one of the problem’s I have with this council motion is its premise. Yes, it will make it easier for some people with mobility concerns to get to one part of the park. At the same time, it will make it harder for some people with mobility concerns to do the same. Reality is complicated.

The Second Problem: Unintended Consequences

Back in 2011, when Dean Fortin was Mayor, the city came up with a transportation management plan for Beacon Hill Park. Parts of a watered down version of the plan have been implemented over the years, but what’s been done barely touches the problems the plan documented.

A 2009 traffic assessment referenced in the plan found many problems with cars in Beacon Hill Park. Among other things, that assessment found:

• Speeding on internal park roads is an issue.
• Park roads are used as short cuts by commuting traffic.
• Parks roads are used for long term parking.
  

Speeding and cut-through traffic are unlikely to be a problem with this proposal, however the use of Arbutus Way for outside parking almost certainly will be. The following is from page 9 of the plan:

During most weekdays Arbutus Road is routinely used for free parking by people working in nearby office buildings and businesses. They skirt around the 3.5 hour parking time limit by moving their vehicles to different spaces part way through the day.

The full report is worth reading. It goes into detail about the problems cars cause in parks, from safety issues, to pollution issues, to cars parking in meadows. It outlines recommended changes, including turning several roads into pedestrian and light vehicle spaces (though not the same ones we have now).

From the Current Challenges and Issues section on page 7 of the plan:

The large amount of infrastructure devoted to vehicular traffic and high concentration of
vehicles comes at a high cost in terms of impacts to other types of park visitors. There are public safety concerns related to speeding but there are other issues such as interruption of sight lines, damage to the environment and interference with the visitors park “experience”. Beacon Hill Park has a significant regional appeal and it is important to maintain a reasonable level of service for vehicle based visitors. It is also important to improve the level of service for those who walk, ride bikes or have a disability. Balancing accessibility and improving the visitors’ experiences while in the park is a key planning challenge.

Here's a map showing the pedestrianized areas proposed in the 2011 transportation management plan:

The 2011 plan proposed turning Bridge Way, Chestnut Row, and Circle Drive from Chestnut Row to Dallas Road into pedestrian and cycling areas. It also proposed eliminating most of the parallel, road side, parking in the park because that had proven to be particularly problematic. The idea was to keep the park accessible while stopping cut through traffic and to address some of the problems that cars access brings.

So, what happened to the 2011 Transportation Management Plan? It’s kind of hard to tell. The changes to Circle Drive turned into adding a bike/walk lane, but the changes that would have prevented cut-through car traffic never happened. The proposals to remove parallel parking from Arbutus Way certainly didn’t happen!

 

All in all, a few things got better for people outside of cars, but the problems that cars cause in the park were never really addressed

Going Forward

What does this mean going forward? To me, it means that we need to take a close look at transportation in Beacon Hill Park, and think about how we want the park to function as Victoria’s population grows. Personally, I'm not going to draw a line in the sand over cars on Arbutus Way. I could see having access there as part of an overall transportation management plan.

The ability to use e-bikes, and the investment that Victoria has made in safe cycling infrastructure, has given my wife a freedom that her back pain threatened to take away. After several years of doing less, we’re doing more again. The phrase she uses is “life changing”, and I agree.

And I get that some people rely on cars for that freedom. But, please, when you look at the number of places that are safe and easy to go by car, and compare them with the places that are safe and easy to access in other ways, don’t try to pretend that people who drive cars are an oppressed class. I drive too, and I am fully aware of how much privilege driving entails.

So, by all means, let’s look at transportation in Beacon Hill Park. But let’s not ignore the work that we did before. And, even more, let’s not use a definition of accessibility that excludes so many people to justify a change that seems likely to fill the park with parking scofflaws. It’s bad policy and worse governance.

What Can You Do

If you live in Victoria and these concerns resonate with you and you want changes to Arbutus Way to be part of a well thought out plan, the single best thing you can do is to send an email to the mayor and councillors here. The email doesn't have to be long.

[Spelling mea-culpa: I feel deeply silly for spelling "Privilege" wrong in the URL. When I realized what I'd done I'd already shared the link, so it was too late to change!]