This northern city is spending $100M to improve cycling. Can your city too?

What do you think is the most exciting bike city in North America? New York? Montreal? How about … Edmonton?!

Yes, the northern Canadian city’s council has just pledged $100M toward cycling over the next four years, which could be a massive improvement for everyone in the city.

But the question is how? At a time when bike advocates are struggling in so many cities to win investments from political leaders, what happened that enabled Edmonton to make this potentially transformative change?

When I received an invitation from Edmonton City Councillor Michael Janz to explore, I jumped at the opportunity.

0:00 Introduction
1:50 Coun. Michael Janz explains why he cares about cycling
3:45 City engineer explains the plan
4:26 What’s this development guy doing talking about urban transportation?
7:15 Bike advocate on how it all came together
8:03 Bike-friendly business owners
9:16 Another bike-positive city councillor?!
11:33 How will the city change?
12:58 A community approach to cycling advocacy
16:30 My takeaways for your city

#cycling #bike #commuting

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So if you’re an urban cycling nerd guilty and I was to ask you what the most exciting city in North America is right now what would you say New York Minneapolis Montreal how about Edmonton Edmund what yes Edmonton so go north yeah keep going no that’s me and Calgary keep going

North yes that’s Edmonton there you go Edmonton a city in the heart of the oil sands of Alberta a city famous for well a couple of hockey players and a giant mall but not much other than that but even if you’ve heard of Edmonton I’m bet you didn’t know that they are embarking

On what maybe the most ambitious Urban cycling plan in North America right now here in this northern town that has winter they are embarking on a plan to spend $100 million improving cycling in the city over the next four years I mean if you live anywhere in North America I

Can pretty much guarantee your city is not investing that much in urban cycling I mean I live in Calgary and we’re still padding ourselves in the back for building a downtown bike lane Network eight years ago that cost5 million evon’s putting 100 million in and that’s

Only half of what the strategy calls for this investment has the potential to truly improve the lives of the people who live here laying the groundwork for a city that offers more Transportation options particularly for those who don’t want or can’t afford a car better neighborhoods quieter more welcoming

Streets more livable spaces and resilience in the face of climate change in other words it’s got a lot of potential and so when I got a call from an Edmonton City councelor recently inviting me to come and check out what’s happening I was quick to hop on the bus

And go investigate I want to know how this city became the most exciting cycling city in North America hey everyone I’m Tom and this is shifter a Channel about Urban cycling bike commuting and the ways we get around our city if you like this video please consider hitting that subscribe button

So I visited Edmonton a couple of weeks ago on the invitation of City councelor Michael Jans now he’s one of the champions of this Urban cycling strategy and he was Keen to show me around and talk about how he thinks Edmonton might change and so he was basically my tour

Guide for a couple of days but the first question of course is why why did he believe in this thing over the uh past 20 years I think we’ve seen a growth in aying movement around the world uh but particularly in the last five years with the Advent of ebikes and in the

Post-pandemic time we’ve seen a cycling boom and an active Transportation boom more and more people are out walking are taking uh scooters are taking electric bikes we’re really seeing a micromobility Evolution and uh uh we’re one of the youngest cities in Canada our our median age I think is 38 so half of

The city is younger than 38 you know people are looking for choices and they’re calling on us the elected leaders at City Hall to make a city that makes choices more safe more accessible more welcoming more affordable and uh we’re answering the call let’s back up here’s what you need to know about

Edmonton it’s a city of about a million people it’s the provincial capital of Alberta here in Canada and it’s pretty suburban and a pretty Car- Centric place a few years ago they put in a pretty solid network of downtown separated bike Lanes but there’s still a lot of gaps in

The network and you still need a car to get around in most places because it’s not that safe in most places to ride your bike so in other words it’s just like most North American postwar cities it has a beautiful River Valley and some amazing festivals and everyone I met was

Really nice and so it’s a pretty good city that way but there’s nothing special about it that would lend it towards cycling that’s that different I think than most other cities of its size here in North America and so while I was getting through around by councelor Jans

I had this thought in my mind is like What’s Happening Here what makes eventon so different than so many other cities where they’ve tried and failed to have an ambitious cycling plan like this and so that was the thought I had in mind on this journey that we’re going through

Today we started by talking to Nathan Smith a city planner with the city of Edmonton and here’s what he had to say so the bike plan has an aspiration that Edmonton is a city where people are invited to cycle in all seasons and for all reasons so in invited is a big

Important part of that aspiration so the goal is not necessarily to tell people what they need to do how they want should get around um but make sure that option is there and that it’s inviting and feels safe and comfortable so the bike plan looks to look at the Active

Transportation Network in a way that is safe and feels comfortable for people no matter who they’re biking with why they’re biking where they’re biking and when they’re biking so Nathan was great and helpful but he also said a lot of things that city planners everywhere say

But he did say one thing that caught my attention and that was about how much engagement the city had with its bike plan and this idea emerged again when I met Jason from the Urban Development Institute now this is an organization that represents like land developers and

Homebuilders and is maybe not the first organization you’d think of when you’re talking about Urban Transportation I mean The Stereotype is that they are always advocating for more Suburban land so they can put up cheap and profitable Suburban housing but that’s not what I heard from Jason so there’s no one siiz

Fits-all approach you know the interventions that we do for the downtown in terms of a bicycle grade are not going to be the same for the a Suburban context but I think that in general there is sort of an Embrace of creating and and shifting towards a more

Walkable connected um connected way of building the city the development industry and those who shape um our communities are building places for people the people that live in emont are not a monolith they all have a variety of expectations of what they’d like to see in their community so I was a bit

Surprised to hear someone representing the development industry talking about these Urban issues in that kind of way but then it reminded me that Edmonton has actually been at the Forefront of some pretty significant planning changes in recent years Edmonton got rid of parking minimums a few years ago which

Is a pretty big deal a lot of cities have been talking about this for years but have never actually managed to make it happen parking minimum require Builders to put in a certain number of parking place per dwelling unit we’re hearing all over the place these days

That parking minimums can have a real negative impact on density and affordability but Emon got rid of them completely a couple of years ago it’s also already doing interesting projects like taking this overbuilt collector Road and turning it into a more complete street with you know better pedestrian

And cycling facilities more trees better landscaping and just a improved Vibe and environment for everybody so this got me thinking that maybe this uh cycling investment isn’t such a big deal for Edmonton maybe it’s not a huge leap because they’ve been having these tough conversations for a while on this Jason

Sort of agreed with that there is a strong engaged uh ecosystem of different stakeholders whether it’s developers whether it’s the industry whether it’s planners Architects Engineers even Community leagues Community organizations I find it really fascinating everybody seems to know what the city plan is something as simple as

Combining your land use plan with your transportation plan is something that Evington did uh when adopting the city plan in 2020 so now we’re thinking about how um the buildings the the places that we shape are also influenced by how people move around and I think a strong indicator of support for active

Transportation not only from the development industry but multiple stakeholders in the city um is that all of them know what the city plan is next I hit up the bike Advocates these are my people and I met with Steven Rites of the group paths for people which advocates for active transportation and

He had a similar take and that there are a whole bunch of people in Edmonton aligned with the idea that cycling should be safer and easier for all kinds of people there’s a ton of different Community oriented groups in Edmonton that have been pushing towards that common goal of Let’s Make a large

Investment and cycling and let’s actually implement the infrastructure and those groups like their role has been to rep the communities that they come from so whether it’s like individual Community leagues or like the Edmonton Federation of community leagues everybody’s coming from a different part of the city or a different kind of

Community or stakeholder and pushing for that common Vision like selling it to their community and then also selling it to to council every city has bike advocacy groups who argue for the need for better safe bike infrastructure right but they often run into this brick wall known as the business community and

These are business owners who think that cars are essential to their business and if we give any space away from Motor Vehicles towards cycling that people are going to suddenly stop coming to their store and business will die and Edmonton certainly has its business owners who

Fall into this category as well but it’s also got people like Jeff aagal who owns a bakery called sugared and spiced now his Bakery operates out of this unique back alley laneway thing and he told me that one of the reasons he liked this quirky location was actually because

There was a bike lane nearby and because a surface parking lot recently was converted away from parking and into like a little parklet I could see that being an important piece of traffic that’s kind of under the radar everyone sees the big arterial in front of us and

On the side and uh I read books I know people on bikes uh patronized businesses that they go past people in cars uh some of them going past here live uh 10 km that way and they work 5 km that way we hear them go by and they don’t notice sometimes uh

People on bikes know we’re here so that’s one of the reasons we pick the spot isn’t that great that he said he reads books therefore this is he believes in this okay so there’s lots of people who like this idea but you can’t get bike Lanes built in a democracy

Without politicians and one of those politicians here in Edmonton is Ashley Salvatore and she joined us for a ride to talk about this in an interesting spot it was an older less affluent more diverse neighborhood that actually has some pretty good separated bike Lanes right now which kind of bide the notion

That bike lanes are only for you know middle class white guys with beards anyway I asked councelor Salvatore why she put some of her political Capital into this bike plan it’s not just about creating this you know beautiful urbanist Utopia it’s about options it’s about Choice uh it’s

About showing knowing that this is going to help us create a more affordable City a more sustainable City a more fiscally responsible city um and one that takes climate change seriously so ensuring it’s not just an isolated conversation about bike infrastructure uh versus other modes it’s about um having a

Holistic conversation about why this is an important part of of building a city that works for everyone I also wanted to ask councelor Salvatore about the cost of this bike strategy because there is some sticker shock with a number like a hundred million and I’m sure people are saying

I’ve got a pothole on my street that hasn’t been fixed yet you’re spending $100 million on those damn cyclists well here’s what she had to say about that I have many thoughts on that one um one interchange you know one overpass is150 $180 million uh for a fraction of that we’re going to

Get the foundations of a Citywide bike Network um you know it is incredibly valuable uh to to be able to provide those comparators because when you say the number 100 million yeah that seems like a really large number and yes it’s a significant investment um but in comparison to other Investments that we

Make as a city in comparison to our you know 8 to 10 billion Road Network this is a small investment that’s going to have huge returns for antonians I think we worked it out it’s in terms of uh an actual tax increase on um you know an

Average home here in Edmonton it’s about 33 cents um so the return on investment is is fantastic so finally I got a chance to sit down with my tour guide counselor Michael Jens and ask him why he’s putting so much of his political Capital into the cycling plan

Here in this Northern Suburban City there’s more young people there’s more people starting their careers here it’s a very affordable City relatives to relative to others in Canada and more and more of the people coming here and are saying we want more transportation choices so I think uh all of us as

Parents want to know that our kids will be safe our loved ones will be safe and that’s ultimately what this is about and when you think about how much it costs it’s really immaterial compared to the cost of of disease of of asthma of pollution of of car crashes of of all of

The the the uh just the the harms that that uh um autoc Centric development has caused on on North America it’s not saying that you go Carree but maybe you can go car less maybe your friends can go car less maybe you have more choices in our city and that’s really exciting I

Also wanted to know what he thought this $100 million will mean how will the city be different in four or five years so this is going to allow a a series of connections throughout our city that wherever you are you should be able to go A to B in a safe connected separated

Accessible way and that’s really exciting especially for the most marginalized groups who want to get out and move what we’ve seen over the last uh decades is is some leadership but some Patchwork leadership that’s allowed you know a good chunk here a good chunk there but they haven’t necessarily been

Needed together okay so all this was really interesting and after spending a couple of days with councelor Jans I left feeling pretty excited about the future for Edmonton and that’s great for edmontonians I think this is really going to benefit everybody in the city but I also was looking for something

That might help all of you in other cities and your quests to make your cities more bike friendly because there are city planners and bike Advocates and even politicians in cities all over the place who are trying to do the same thing but can’t seem to get any Headway

I mean the original question of this video was what makes Edmonton unique that this could happen here and it took me a while to sort of think on this question but after a while I started to realize that maybe the answer wasn’t in the politicians and The Advocates maybe

The answer came from this Gathering of people we met on a Brisk Friday morning right at sunrise this is coffee outside an informal Gathering of people that’s been happening on the street here for years every Friday morning for years here in Edmonton this is Darren he’s an

ER doctor who shows up every Friday morning with this portable coffee brewer and makes coffee for people and people in bikes just stop by and they chat it was here that I met Carly who’s doing her PhD research on cycling and I met Greg who runs a local bike Community

Organization and recently sold his car and is not going to replace it because he can get around without one and Heather who was organizing a women’s ride to get more women out on bikes and show people that it’s important to think about women in building bike cities and

Most of the people I met here seemed pretty knowledgeable about the intricacies of the city’s bike strategy now Darren and his friend Glenn were identified as sort of the leaders or the founders or some of the originals of coffee outside and so they were reluctant to take credit for anything

But I pinned them down and asked them some questions about how they may have influenced this Citywide bike strategy are bikes essential to this to this mix no Community is essential to this mix and bikes tend to allow Community to happen by taking that taking away the boundaries that exist between people in

Cities it’s it’s what we have in common um we’re not all the same people but we share being out in the city on bicycles for the most part so bikes have brought us together bikes kind of keep us together they’re the vehicle of of the event in a way we had

Counselors come out we’ve had we’ve we’ve started a counselor on his on his on his bicycling uh yeah Andrew Knack we decided to take him for a ride and he turned into a commuter uh when there was the uh moral race every single candidate except for one came

To came to uh coffee outside to court our favor yeah yeah so I think we have some influence uh I think we’re more just an example of the good aspects of cycling culture so cycling cycling is a very bodily thing you you show up with

Your body in this in a in a way that is that you’re very aware of um you’re very aware of your safety and and and your body when you’re out in the city on on a bike and I think to show up here bodily you know to be here

Physically not just tweeting at each other or talking online shows a commitment uh that is hard to ignore uh and I think people notice that uh and I think I like to think that that that witness uh has had some effect on on on making cycling um just a way to get

Around did you catch what he said there bikes take away the boundaries that exist between people isn’t that just like the best image and that’s what got me thinking that maybe this is what’s key to what’s happening at Edmonton here what I mean is if you have a community

Full of people who care about these issues and understand that cycling can make our lives and our cities and our world better and they come together and they talk and they work really hard and they get the plans in place and they align goals and they get the political

Will and they convince people and they advocate maybe when the time comes and the moment arrives the city will be ready here’s something else that that bike Advocate Steven rites told me there’s certain Windows of time where things are quite opportune and so when things might not

Be as opportune as it would have been with prior councils we were’re not focused on that Big Money piece and we’re more focused about okay let’s set a good framework in place so that if there is a future Council that is ready to make the investment in infrastructure

So back to the original question of this video is was there something special about Edmonton that it could make this investment and I think the answer is no there’s nothing special about the city particularly but maybe there is something special about the community what happened was a bunch of people came

Together they got aligned on a great idea they did all the hard work and when the moment came they were ready so if you’re looking for a takeaway from your city maybe what you should be trying to do is something as simple as getting some bike friends together in the

Morning for coffee someday and just start talking thanks for watching I’ll see you next time