In the face of the climate crisis, housing inequity and the imperative for sustainable mobility, cycle highways have emerged as a transformative force in active transportation. These long-distance, safe, and user-friendly cycling paths cater to people of all ages and abilities, providing an intuitive means of cycling and rolling both short and long distances. As the Metro Vancouver region is exploring how to develop the Major Bikeway Network and its connection to cycle highways, this is an opportune time for decision-makers, planners and stakeholders to dive deeper into cycle highways.
Join HUB Cycling for an informative webinar with Pieter Dudal, a seasoned expert in cycle highway development, as he shares invaluable insights from Belgium’s cycle highway experience and lessons learned from across Europe. The session will explore funding mechanisms, decision-making processes, location selection, innovative design approaches, and touch on cycle highway’s positive community and economic impacts
Welcome to today’s webinar developing is cycle Highway Network lessons from Belgium and Europe I’m Alicia Gowan a director with Hub cycling and co-chair of regional advisory committee and I will be your moderator for today uh in case you’re joining us for a webinar for the first time this presentation is
Brought to you by Hub cycling we are a mentor of Vancouver recycling advocacy group and a nonprofit charitable organization whose mission is to get more people cycling more often and we accomplish this through advocacy education events research and Consulting and for more information you can visit our website at bik
Hub.cc can you cl to the screen yeah thank you um before we begin on behalf of Hub cycling and our main presenter Peter I’d like to acknowledge that I’m hosting the webinar today Day from the unseated territories of the musim Squam Nations Hub uh and its Partners acknowledge respect and celebrate the
Indigenous Nations whose treaty and unseated territories who are fortunate to live work and operate and uh of course Bon uh just a few housekeeping rules before we begin uh as you listen to the presentation please uh do use the chat function to ask questions we’ll give our
Presenter plenty of time at the end to answer them and as a reminder the meeting will be recorded uh which Hub will share in the future uh and we do ask that you do not record the meeting yourself and do not share any sensitive or personal information in the chat so to
Begin uh in 2022 Hub cycling released its research report on the possibility of cycle highways in Metro Vancouver and since then Hub has been leading conversations with stakeholders and Regional planners about how to develop a longdistance safe and comfortable cycle Highway Network that connects major destinations and is easy to use for
People of all ages and abilities at all times of day uh and year uh routs such as the BC Parkway which connects Siri New Westminster uh bernabe and Vancouver could potentially be upgraded to cycle Highway caliber level um Metro Vancouver uh is currently still very much in the early stages of
Developing a regional cycling network uh and K grunding I apologize if I H said your name in correctly uh is with TransLink and um they’re going to H tell us briefly um about the work that’s being done on the major bike Network Before Peter jumps in so over to you
Keen sure thanks Alicia hi everyone I’m Keen from TransLink and I’m just here to say a few words to kick us off so a lot of you probably know us for our role in delivering transit in the region but we we also play a really important uh feature in planning managing funding and
Operating active Transportation infrastructure in the region and so going back um around a decade we first identified the concept of a major Bikeway Network which is now envisioned as an 850 kilometer network of comfortable for most uh infrastructure for medium and long distance cycling trips in the region so what we’re
Working on now is how do we realize this major Bikeway Network um you’ve probably heard of the mayor’s council’s access for everyone plan that’s the the 10-year priorities for the first decade of Transport 2050 and there’s a lot of good things in there in terms of Transit but
It also includes uh an expansion of 450 kilometers of the major Bikeway Network as well as uh cycling networks in all 26 designated Urban centers in the region so uh at the moment we’re working on an action plan that will advance this work um as a project team and so we’re really
Excited to be here as part of this conversation see this work take off um we’re here to learn and there’ll be stakehold holder opportunities coming up and we look forward to our continuing partnership with Hub including um playing a role in the cycle highways working group so that’s it from trans
Link pass it back to you Alicia thanks Ken um that really sets the stage for men van van Vancouver um and how it’s at uh for a longdistance cycling Network um and now to tell us a bit of about the experience um developing a cycle Highway Network in Belgium Hub is pleased to
Welcome Peter dudal uh a season cycle highways expert welcome Peter uh Peter has been working for the last 14 years on different Mobility infrastructure projects in the Brussels capital region in Belgium including Metro stations and cycling infrastructure for the last six years he’s focused on uh developing a
Cycle Highway Network in Brussels when he started there was no clear guidelines and only really a theoretical Network on paper so his work was focused or has focused on network planning developing feasibility studies and coordinating infrastructure design Peter has experienced in every step of creating Mobility infrastructure from the initial
Idea to project completion Peter take it away and um and just a reminder as well for everybody if you have any questions for Peter just put them in the chat and we’ll get to them after the presentation thanks Peter okay I hope everybody can see my presentation good Peter okay perfect
So welcome so um uh Peter and we’re going to talk about cycle highways in Belgium so first of all we need to know what that is cycle highways in Belgium so first of all um what’s Belgium so Belgium is a very small country you can see here Belgium on the
Map um over Vancouver in British Colombia and so you can see that um Belgium is extremely small um and it’s weirdly complicated so we have three languages four Regional governments 10 provinces 581 commun communes or municipalities um we’re very densely populated we have 382 inhabitants per square kilometer so if you compare that
To uh British Colombia um it’s 5.4 per square kilometer and Metro Vancouver is 9 UM 18 um so also we also have is 430 breweries and 1,500 chocolate artisans but we have indeed One National cycling Highway Network so for such a complicated country it’s a it’s a pretty
Big achievement and as far as I know we’re the only country in the world who has a national cycling Highway network with the same branding we’ll get to that later so we also need to know what a cycle highway is um and we need to set an international definition so that
We are all on the same page so what you can see here is different logos from this new type of Mobility product um I’ll share some pictures with you this is in the Netherlands this is in London Copenhagen in Denmark Flanders so that’s the north part of Belgium Brussels
And so you can see that all those different types of cycle highways have um they all have a different uh name they have a different logo um they they look a little different so we needed an on a European level we needed a definition and so that definition was said a few years
Ago um so a cycle highway is first of all Mobility product so what does that mean it means just like a subway line or a train line um it needs to have his own branding it needs to have his own um clear Network um it’s way finding um its own
Brand the cycle highway is a functional connection so in Belgium we put it we put that product into the market as being uh um an infrastructure that is useful for commuting you can use it in the weekend of course but this this that’s our main target um so it connects Suburban areas
With um CD centers where um you work it is the backbone of the of the network where you can connect different Regional routs or small local streets to that backb it’s of high quality um we we can touch to that later but high quality means as much separated from Fast
Traffic um great lighting uh Greenery um high quality um asphalt or um to to to cycle on um and it is um for all types of cyclist and I would even add also um pedestrians or um wheelchair users so the definition we put together is a cycle highway is a Mobility product
That provides a high quality functional cycling connection it’s the backbone of the cycling Network providing a connection between urban centers and suburbs and residential areas for all kinds of different users this is the definition um set by European experts and you can find more information on cycle
Highways. so how do you create this network um and so we have you have here the the wheel of the life of a cycle highway so first of all there’s the planning and governance phase then you can design and build your cycle Highway you can communicate what you
Have built you can sell it to the public then you evaluate um and refund or find extra funding to build the next part um and that next part is also you can also find it in your network and in your planning so that means it’s a circle and it’s a constant
Um wheel that you need to keep turning um so that’s what we call the the cycle Highway um project wheel and so we will go through each step um and then afterwards we can uh you can ask as many questions as you want so first of all the planning and
Governance phase so the very first step is to define it the theoretical Network and give it a name so this is a step that’s already done in Vancouver with the major bike way Network um just intro um just a uh a quick anecdote so in Brussels that n
Network was created bottom up by cycling advocats and they launched the idea of a cycle High network based on the existing train Network that already connected suburbs with the city center um and in Belgium it’s called er um and so they sell it as we need um a
Cycle Network in the same area as the ER Network um and that that launched the idea and interesting is that Paris and moral use the same um the same term um so inreal they called the with a V from V which means bicycle in French so that’s interesting
That different cities around the world have picked up that idea um from Brussels so once you have your theoretical Network a very important next step is to calculate all the risks involved in developing a route um from that Network so that’s what we call a feasibility study and what you will
Study in that um so what you will study is all the different risks for example a technical risk so you arrive at a at a canal you need to cross that Canal can we build a bridge how much will it cost um there’s Financial risks um there’s
Risk related to land so do we need to buy land and um is it impossible to pass on that part of the root so then we need to find the second route and so by calculating all those risks um you can Define for each small segment of the
Root you can Define different um proposals on where that root needs to pass exactly um and so the idea behind its feasibility study is to go from a theoretical Network to a practical route that you can actually build uh to give you a quick idea such a feasibility studies is around here in
Belgium it’s about 100,000 um Euros for a route of about five five kilometers so it’s not that expensive but it allows you to create more support for that route and to start dividing those roots into different blocks um um that can actually be built and so what you do is you all those
Blogs that Define the root you give them to different administrations and they become responsible to execute and build that specific block and so next question you will ask me is okay but how do you define the priorities which root which part of network are we going to build first to
Be very honest um what I see in Belgium that is it’s mostly about politics uh it’s mostly okay we have a rout we have different municipalities that are willing to um to build the network with us um they like the idea and there’s uh political pressure from those
Municipalities to to go forward and this is the route that we will um build first um so the question is once you have planned and you can divide the different pieces um you need to make sure that um all that process is governed um as efficiently as possible and so what we
Do is that the in Belgium the planning is coordinated on a regional level and so by Regional level I mean a region is about between four 500,000 people and two million people depending on on which region and so in each region you have a team of 15 people and they’re called the cycle
Administration and so their task is to track the development of the network and so there’s how do we do that we have um a root per route we have a director um and so he’s responsible he for that route and he will make sure um he does a follow up for every
Route and he’s the talking point for all partners for that specific route um and that team will also manage the feasibility studies they will Define the technical guidelines for the design find funding on a European national and local level and help local authorities with tendering and design issues um they will
Data to evaluate and they will communicate so basically they’re responsible for the whole cycle Highway project wheel except for the building phase so all they divide all the blocks and the blocks are built by um the local administrations so that is very important the design and build is not
Done by this team but by the administration that is assigned a block that’s very important um to keep in mind so how do you design and build such a block first of all you need to Define your principles Your Design principles so first you need to look at your set of users
Um and I really want to um highlight that it is important to think of all users of all types of cyclists and even in dense urban areas especially in Brussels the cycle highways are used by pedestrians as well and so they need to be accessible accessible for all
Um every time type of user needs to feel comfortable and safe on the route U so once you have your set of users you can start to specify your quality um so what you want to achieve and for example you can say okay what’s our cycling speed what’s our design speed um
Is directness important that means do you want do you want to get as fast from point A to B or do we want to take a more scenic route and focus on on on on Greenery for example so the slops and the widths yeah that’s yeah that’s logical um you need
To say okay is it four meters wide five meters wide uh three that you need to Define um clearance and Mobility safety is very important so when a cycle Highway arrives for example at a crossroad with a cars then you need to Define okay what’s the clearance so at
Which point can the cyclist view um the crossroad and how do we focus on S safety is the cyclist giving priority to the cars or is the cars giving priority to the cyclists um those are important rules that you need to Define in those guidelines very important also important aspect that is often
Forgot forgotten in Europe is uh um social safety so cycle highways in rural areas can be places where um there’s not a lot of people so cycling at night um Can Feel dangerous or um not safety especially for women uh and so that’s something you really need to take into
Account to make sure that it’s um usable for everyone um and then your comfort level um for example regarding the the the asphalt and the and the way finding you need to Define all those principles um and what’s important is that like um principles can change and for example
You see that in in Brussels the cycle Highway in a dense part of the city is totally different is totally defined by different principles than a cycle Highway in the Suburban area um so there’s no there’s no size fits all for the cycle highway so once you have those principles
Defined um you need to you need to translate them into guidelines it’s very important so that the local administrations can um design it all those small pieces of the puzzle correctly um and if there there are no guidelines for example in Brussels we had one piece of the puzzle that was
Missing in terms of guidelines well we just wrote them ourselves um and then very important educate everyone um make sure that those guidelines are known and that they are part of the basic knowledge of every designed firm that is um designing one of the um blocks of the cycle
Highway so here I um show a few examples of those different blocks and so you can see that um the cycle Highway takes many forms it can be a classical B bike pad it can be Greenway a bridge or tunnel or it can even be a local street with mixed
Traffic um it doesn’t always have to be separated um you don’t always have to separate um active users and passive users so the car uh the cars um sometimes just better to to to to mix them um on a local Street and something that you see very often in Belgium that
A highway um passes through a neighborhood and then we just make sure that on those stretches there’s no through traffic only local traffic and uh with decent way finding on the ground cars understand that they’re sharing the road with with cyclists and they will slow down so that means that all those
Different blocks all those different different pieces of the puzzles can be built or maybe they exist already and then you glue them together and that’s a process of decades so basically the the oldest cycle Highway in in Belgium between lurin and brussles already exists for more than 15 years but they’re still
Improving it they’re still making shortcuts to to win time um they’re still building new pieces changing Crossroads changing priori putting traffic lights smart traffic lights Etc so that means that a cycle highway is never finished but what’s important is that you can sell or you can put the cycle
Highway into the market and sell it to its users even if it’s not perfect yet and so that’s the importance of communicating and and selling you need to Define you need to give your cyle Highway Network or your major bike bike weight Network you need to give it a brand a
Logo um a way finding um clear way finding a website and so in Belgium interestingly is that is that is done on a national level so there are more or less 10 regions that all develop their own network in the planning phase but The Branding the logo the way
Finding the website um uh social media accounts are all done on a on a national level uh and that’s very uh very powerful and so what we see is that if you have this brand you can you see that there’s a communities that are communities that are starting to
Um emerge through Facebook for example you have for every cycle Highway you have like a local Facebook group where users share pictures um of their Sunrise uh bicycle ride or they see a problem and they take a picture and then so it’s it’s very interesting i’ I’ve never seen
In Belgium a Facebook group for um a car cyle Highway um or a train line for example so I think it’s interesting how um cyclists or active um commuters um are really this this really a community um and so as a planner you can also engage with that community and it’s
Um very very interesting so once you have created even a small part of um a cycle Highway you can evaluate you need to see what the impact is of um what you have built and so it’s very very important and you can even do that already now if the if
The network doesn’t even exist is you need to collect as much data as possible you can do that if you want to count the number of cyclist you can do that with automated counters for cyclist but they’re very expensive and so what we do in in Brussels for already more than
Than 10 years is we work with with human counters with um volunteers I’ve done it a few times you put them on a on a crossroad and they count on a piece of paper they count all the cyclists during rush hour and what’s interesting is that a human can diversify the
Information um which a camera cannot do um and so for example they count the number of cyclists wearing a helmet for in Brussels it’s um almost 70% you can see uh M male female so for example in Brussels it’s 60% male 40% uh female the number of electrical bikes ebikes and in
Brussels it’s interesting it’s almost 41% which is huge um and it’s Brussels is pretty hilly so that’s explains um and so that data is very interesting because if you do it every year you can see what the impact is of of your cycle Highway on the on the number of
Users and um that data is key to convince decision makers to plan and fund new infrastructure so you can start designing and building new parts of the network and so in Belgium that funding is done on all different um levels so it’s from the most local level so the
Municipality or the commune on a regional level on a national level and even on a European level and so all those different funding levels or all those different levels can be used for funding but it’s very important that the planning phase must remain on a regional level um and is um
Done by the cycling Administration and so then we are at the end the end of our Circle so we have evaluated the impact of the infrastructure that we have built and so we can um have decision makers fund new parts of um of the network um and so for every
Part of the life cycle of the the cycle Highway in every part it’s important to um the importance of um knowledge is very important so um academics have to join the cycling Force um and I think that um universities we need to invest more in fundamental uh cycling research um and
So possible academic research topics can be social and economic impact of cycling the ecological impact um technical documents um for example about um the quality of the the road surface um and health benefits of cycling and what you see here um this picture is very briefly is
The the the net benefits um per cyle per transport mode and so what you can see is uh on the on the left is a regular bike and so for every Euro or every Canadian dollar that you invest so that’s the the blue the blue part you
Get get three times your investment back more than three times so that means that every person that Cycles gives back to um Society in terms of health benefits so less pressure on the on the health system um and because he’s cycling he’s not using other trains for example
Um and what you can see on the in the middle is the car and there it’s the other way around every private car that drives one kilometer costs uh to society so that’s those are interesting topics to study and they can also maybe motivate decision makers to invest in
Cycling because this graphic is it’s a no-brainer um when you see this uh and then last of all um cycling so cycling needs to be part of academic research and it needs to be part of our um education and so in Belgium and Germany we have um what we call a cycling
Professor so it’s um somebody at the University who um focuses on cycling um on an academic level so now we have done the the whole tour of the cycle Highway project wheel so if you have any questions um I would love to answer them all right thanks so much Peter that
Was really interesting uh uh presentation I uh we think you know you’ve provided bike lovers bike Advocates and policy makers on the call with lots to to consider moving forward so really exciting uh the audience has raised a number of questions we we probably won’t
Be able to get to all of them but we’ll make sure that uh we get email responses out to to everyone from you after um regarding all the calls and um so a first question Bobo asks uh on top of the challenge in getting political Buy in there is the challenge of space
Allocation where did the space come from for the Belgian cycle Highway question that’s that’s a very good question so the cycling highways in rural areas are mostly built next to train infrastructure so the what’s convenient about the train line is that it’s flat needs to be flat there cannot
Be a so it’s um it passes through the landscape on a pretty flat level so and you need to um most of the time you have next to the train tracks you have um land I mean in in rural areas so often they
Um we buy pieces of land or we we um how do you say that in English um to um yeah a process of of not buying but just renting for 100 years or so so we need to um so that’s in rural areas mostly next to train train tracks and
Then when you arrive at a train station so you arrive in the neighborhood then the cycle Highway will just just pass through um the neighborhood and then you need to make um tough political decisions and you need to push the car um not away but you need to redefine the the space that
Is available um so you can build a bike pad and take away uh parking space or you can cut through traffic and just make sure there’s only local traffic and then you mix the cycle lists into the um into the traffic that’s also um so then you don’t have to touch parking
Spaces but then maybe car users won’t be happy because they have to make a small detour um so that’s yeah that’s that’s how we do it we redefine the space that’s available in urban areas which is a very slow process and then in rural areas we will um mostly
Use land next to train uh train track right yeah that’s sense um there’s lots of trains uh in Europe so that’s a a great use of for example for examp for example what you see in Denmark is they build it next to um car highways so what
You have in Denmark is um you have a cyle you have a a car Highway and then you have five meters of green or five or six met of of a green stretch with trees and then next to it you have a cycle highway but that was already thought of
In the planning phase of the of the of the car highway so it was done um on a on a very um early stage in a very early stage yeah no fair enough all right next question uh So Lisa from Hub cycling’s uh Vancouver local committee asks as a
Bottomup approach by cycling Advocates what exactly did The Advocates do to convince governments to move forward with cycle highways what have they done you mean so I think what Lisa’s asking is you know as cycle uh cycle Highway Advocates coming from the bottom up um what have Advocates uh successfully done that
Actually U managed to convince government to move forward to implement Cy Highway what they’ve done and that was very smart is that they’ve created so we have this local train Network which is called ER so that’s that’s already a brand it’s it’s an existing Network and what they’ve
Done is they say okay we want the same but for the py for the cyclists and they just launched this name ER voso cycling train Network and so what they’ve done is they they’ve just launched that idea um and they they they sold it they said well we want this and
It’s great and uh we can use the space next to the train tracks and and and it picked up it picked up and because it already had a name U and then they just convinced um Regional planners uh Regional authorities to do um um a study
Around the network and I I I I’ve read on the website of transl that that that exercises has already been done um and so once that Network exists then what very local advy groups can do is go to their local municipality and say we we want we want a part of this cycling
Network in our municipality but then it’s a local story because every every piece of that puzzle is useful on a very local level that’s very interesting and with a train you don’t have that a train stops every few kilom and in between that it’s not useful
Because you cannot jump on but a cycle Highway every 200 meters you can you can create an an an in and out and so it on a very local level it’s also very useful and so you can sell that to your local uh municipalities that even a piece of a
Cycle Highway that doesn’t necessarily connect immediately to another municipality is still useful M yeah no fair enough that sounds sounds like we we need to write a lot of persuasive letters to to government officials and City councilors uh so next question Stephen asks a question about um ebikes uh cycle
Highways and the opportunity of revising the motor vehicle act uh which is an act in British Colombia that essentially guides um the rules of the road um for vehicles uh as well as um vulnerable Road users uh so Peter what are the opportunities between ebikes and cycle highways and legislation around
Speeds that’s interesting so in Belgium you we so the ebike um on a legislation level is the same as a regular bike and so an ebike goes until 25 kilometers an hour um and then we have so they they’re on the same they’re considered the same
On a on a legal uh from a legal point of view and then we have another type of eback what we call the speed Pedic and it can go until 45 kilometers an hour and so those are those are a different um type of vehicle concerning the the
Traffic laws but they are welcome on cycle highways uh um and so I think especially in the more rural parts of the cycle highway it’s it’s it’s a great opportunity I mean you can um on on 15 15 kilometers you do it
In you do it in in in half an hour or 45 minutes so yeah it’s it’s it’s it’s a great opportunity and once you arrive in dense urban area and that’s where I focus on then you need to slow everyone down and to make sure that you share the space
Correctly um but it’s the same with a car I mean if you’re driving your Porsche on a car Highway at 100 miles an hour and you arrive in an urban area then you just slow down until 20 miles an hour so um doesn’t mean a Porsche
Cannot drive in in urban areas so it’s same it’s same with fast bikes um yeah that’s a great a great Point comparing sorry comparing it to um yeah exactly what already exists are a vehicle on exactly and so I I I I think that um in general people are it’s very
Strange um people are very afraid or um let’s say um local governments are very afraid of those fast bikes um they think they’re the most dangerous thing in the world but they’re not afraid of of SUVs or Jeeps driving around it’s very very strange um but I think still I mean driving a
Bike at 30 kilometers an hour is still less dangerous than than than a motor vehicle so you haven’t had any major safety concerns from from from that regard right okay um so next question from um Jasper is um I’ve heard feedback locally that the name cycle highways is not good
Because it sounds like a car Highway and the is that the roote is not friendly to everyone what are your thoughts it’s very I I I knew that question was coming and there’s a big debate in Europe but the the idea the idea be behind the name cycle highway is that
It’s for uh politicians they can relate to an existing Network and a car Highway brings people from A to B and so the idea behind the name cyle highway is that it’s resonates um um with the politicians that need to be convinced um and so so that works and what it also does
Is when a cycle Highway crosses a road where cars live or where cars drive a local Street for example you can say well the cycle Highway has priority over the cars and so because of that name um and so what we see in Belgium in a lot of
Places is the cyclists on the cycle Highway arrive at a at a a cross road and they have priority over the cars and so it’s so it’s an interesting name that that can Um that can convince those yeah those who need to be convinced but once you arrive in urban areas um then name becomes difficult because people live in a dense neighborhood they say oh cycle Highway they’re going to cycle fast and we don’t want that and so what we do in brussles
Is we we don’t use the name when on for local projects um we um we just focus on what it what that cycle path can give to the local community but I can I can understand that there’s a a debate around it but right yeah so maybe sometimes there’s the requirement use
Different language depending on who you’re speaking to and and yeah exactly the purpose of the discussion um all right next question so Eric asks are Wheelchairs and mobility scooters for people with disabilities always considered in Universal Design is Universal Design a term used in Belgium as well Peter yeah exactly so yeah so
That’s what we um especially in Den um so yeah we when for example when you define the slope um you need to find the balance because the slope that is most comfortable for a normal bike is not the same as the slope that is comfortable for wheelchair user
And so you always need to balance those Um uh those different needs um but we always um are let’s say our designing starting point is always um will chair users because basically if you design something that is accessible for them then a cyclist can also access it so that’s that’s our
Um and you you we we see it we see it often that people in wheelchairs use the cycle Highway Network and and i’ we’ve been to Paris on a technical visit and there was a person in a wheelchair bicycle wheelchair and and he said it’s my only
Way to get around Paris if there’s no cycling INF infrastructure I cannot get out of my house so because often car Advocates um use it well in Belgium they say oh but people with reduce Mobility they need their car Etc um but actually it’s it’s it’s not true because most
People with reduced Mobility cannot drive a car and so basically so basically it’s you need your cycling infrastructure is also an opportunity for um active travel for people with reduced Mobility yeah it sounds like I guess the best approach the more Equitable most accessible approach is to consider
Wheelchairs and mobility scooters um of and then yeah and then then look at um is that also going to H or is that going to work for them first and then looking at Cycles or bicycles um exactly uh so Joseph from TransLink asks uh you said thaty highways in urban areas are
Different to those in Suburban areas does this mean that existing cycling facilities in urban areas can be redesignated as cycle highways as part of the development of a larger Network yes you’ve understand exactly that was the whole point of the of of of what was I was trying to say is that you
Um so the cycle highway is the backbone of your network and you want to get to a certain point of designation for example let’s say a business district of Vancouver and so basically the infrastructure that already exists um you can redefined some routs to that business district as saying oh
From now on we will this is part of the cycling Network we will put wave finding we will put uh paint extra pain on the ground it will not be perfect but people can see it as a network like um like a Subway like like the way you you you
Read a subway map um and it works really well you see it in London in London there are parts of the super cycle High Network that just paint on the ground and you you share the road with with other users and cars um but it it it
Works really well yeah so you you can definitely do that M all right um so Peter from the BC cycling uh Coalition asks how do you deal with creating a continuous Network versus phased funding um that builds one section at a time making the route far less attractive because of gaps you
Will I I’ve never seen well I I’ve seen one in the Netherlands but there’s no such thing as a continuous bicycle High cycle Highway that’s perfect from A to B um so if you have a good Str imagine you have two you have two great stretches of perfect asphalt aligned
Next to a train station and they’re um they’re one kilome and there’s a gap in between what you just do is you make a temporary connection between those two gaps that is not perfect uh and cyclists just follow that non-perfect route and so what you see in Belgium for example
Is that they they reverse the wave finding so the logo is blue and white and for example for the parts that are not perfect they it’s um white on Blue so your recyclist you say oh I’m on the cycle Highway network but it’s not uh I’m I’m on a
Temporary um part of the route so I need to make maybe be more careful and I know that maybe in five years or 10 years they will build the Gap in between but that’s the interesting thing about cycling infrastructure that it you can just glue all those pieces together with less
Perfect infrastructure and then um you can start from there and it’s it’s actually it’s like um it reinforces itself so for example for the the oldest one in Belgium between Brussels and Len there were a few Perfect Parts because there were a few M municipalities exceptions that were
Willing to build it um and all the other said no no cycle highways in my municipality no uh no cyclist I don’t want cyclists uh and then what happened is that the people from those municipalities cycled through their municipalities to Great stretch next to it because there was way finding and
Then they were going to their own municipality saying hey the municipality next to ours they have a cycle highway I wanted as well and so because we sold it as one route with pieces that weren’t perfect it was a way to to put pressure on on other partners to to build the the
Perfect pieces so yeah it seems like you know perfect perfect can be the enemy enemy of good so it’s better to just get some some areas implemented exactly interest the interesting thing is that um um so the one which between Len and Brussels for example there are
Parts that were really really bad and so they they were getting complaints the planners oh I I’ve cycled on a piece of cycle highway and it’s horrible how can you call this a cycle highway it’s it’s it’s uh uh it’s not acceptable and then the planner said well yeah we totally agree
With you and we’re fighting with the local municipality to change it please help us so they were selling something that didn’t exist and by doing so so by selling something that was not perfect as being this is a cycle Highway they managed to have this uh Snowball Effect
Um and now 10 years later it’s we’re getting at a Tipping Point where municipalities where there’s no infrastructure call the plan and say why is my neighbor getting a Cy Highway and I’m not so it’s so we’re in a totally different um momentum with with with a Partners
So okay we have about five minutes left for questions um so next question uh Amanda is curious about what initiatives Belgium has for educating users especially when it comes to pedestrians and cyclist uh shared paths um she also mentioned that um uh just for for your information Hub is
Currently ruling out um really large cycling ucation ebike initiative um and uh yeah she’s just curious you know what kind of initiatives actually currently exist in Belgium and how has that if if any how has that helped um improve State cycle highways well on a regional level in
Brussels there are there is funding to give lesson lessons to people who are can cycle um so if that’s the type of education you’re you’re talking about so so people that cannot cycle can can get free lessons to to learn to cycle um educating pedestrians to me doesn’t really make any sense because
You have the responsibility of speed so um if you’re cycling at 15 miles an hour then you are responsible for the one that’s The Pedestrian that is walking at a Tre miles an hour so there’s no for me there’s no point in educating pedestrians uh because they they have the slowest speed
So yeah and in many ways can be the most vulnerable users of of paths and and Broadways the most yeah but the most vulnerable users need the less education it’s those that are those that are killing others need to be educated so I think that if we want to educate we need
To focus on the people that are driving vehicles that kill other people so if you uh um so I think if you if you’re looking for cycling uh education it’s giving people that cannot cycle the opportunity to to learn it um and I think educating cyclists about them
Being dangerous for others I don’t think that’s that’s that’s the if that’s what you’re envisioning or talking about I don’t think that’s the correct way to to view um the responsibility from definitely all right um probably one of our last questions Lisa asks whether have you run into problems using human
Volunteer counters where cycle Highway opponents don’t trust that data who who doesn’t trust the data um so I think Lisa is making the assumption that perhaps some folks who are opposed to cycle highways may not uh you know trust the the data that is taken from Human from
From manual um of course computer of course but of course they don’t trust the data because um there’s this conspiracy theory where human PE humans that count other humans are part of this terrorist group so I mean if you don’t if you don’t want to believe the data if you don’t if
You data doesn’t solve everything and that’s different part is I’m an engineer I love data I I I think that it it gives me what I need to be convinced but I mean humans are humans so if you want to convince someone um data doesn’t always work and it’s a
Social experiment so I think and maybe we didn’t touch on that so I’m an engineer and if you want to build an infrastructure you need to convince humans so uh Engineers only do one small part of the process you need you need sociologists anthropologists uh people that are specialized in communication if
If if if I can make for example the example with with with the pandemic is that people that created the vaccine were just small part of of the solution you need to convince people but that’s a totally different um it’s a totally different um aspect of the whole process and yeah
I I cannot help you that data helps me but not everyone so for sure for sure um so we’re just about to wrap up um but before we finish uh we just like to extend a big thank you again Peter um for all the valuable uh you’ve shared
With us uh I know it’s been really insightful there’s been so many different questions and and once again we will of course be uh following up um via an email with the recording of this meeting and resources as well as um uh responses to the additional questions
That were written in the chat that we never were able to to um answer um but if you’d like to get um to learn about more ways and you can get involved with Hub cycling or uh if you enjoyed today’s webinar you can now join Hub as a
Lifetime member for only a minimum contribution of $10 and you can do so at b.ca jooin and um you know the more members have has the greater our impact uh when we advocate for better and safer uh biking and I know organizations as well uh can join Hub uh as an
Organization or find ways to sponsor research that advances uh Equitable and increased access to biking so something to consider for folks uh who are here or represent uh a organization uh so we’re at um the end of our webinar um and um yeah you can uh everybody can log
Off if you have more comments um feel free to add them in the chat we’ll make sure to get to those um uh shortly and uh send out an email with with a recording so thanks again Peter and uh hope everybody has a great day thanks so much