This is the video for the February 15, 2024 Active Transportation Advisory Committee meeting
All right you are now live thank you uh and uh welcome to uh the committee members uh this is a meeting of the hrm’s active Transportation advisory committee um and the date is February the 15th and the time is 437 or something um my name is Hugh mil
Ward I will be cheering the meeting and um the first thing is for us to do a roll call so that everyone can um uh say their name and uh and we can see you uh so I’ll just go through the the list of members um Douglas Wetmore is our vice
Chairperson presid H thank you Douglas councelor Patty cel cutle y I’m here good afternoon everyone uh Peter Zimmer you’re present finally thank you Peter uh Holly Woodle good afternoon it’s nice to be back again hello Holly uh you might need to well not very well if you can perhaps
Get a little closer to the microphone okay can you hear me now okay yeah it’s okay um Paul Young yes hello hi yes good afternoon hello Paul anaka roel hello here and present thank you Ana Melena casanov visus right here Mr chair thank you thank you Melena uh
Michelle Mahoney uh present sir uh Melena that’s you you must have uh you must have trained uh uh Hugh very well and and the last name wow that was great good job Hugh okay um miles mccor has miles miles has not joined us yet okay and Britany
Mlan I’m here thanks thank you Britany and we have regrets from Elizabeth Pew uh we also have with us our support staff uh David MacIsaac manager of active transportation is David with us yes yeah I’m here hi David hello David and Elizabeth McDonald is our Legislative Assistant
Hello hi Elizabeth okay so uh the minutes from the previous meeting of J uh January the 18th were so circulated the draft minutes and uh I’ll ask if there were any errors or omissions noted well hearing none uh I’ll call for a motion to approve the minutes as as
Circulated I can approve those Hugh Douglas here thank you Douglas you’ve moved it we need a second Melena seconds thank you Melena um all those in favor of the motion the motion is to approve the minutes as circulated all those in favor uh please say I in unison and anyone oppos please say
Nay okay nonone opposed so the uh motion is approved as um and and and the minutes are approved uh as circulated so we’ll move on to Um approval of the order of business as circulated um Elizabeth are there any additions or deletions to the order of business that was circulated there are no additions or deletions from the clerk’s office okay thank you um then in that case well do any members of the committee have anything to
Add to the agenda yeah if anyone has anything they’d like to add they could certainly ask to add that to the agenda yeah I give a little I could give a little update on something on okay walkways okay so Elizabeth where would that go so that would be under Section
10 which is added items so I’ll probably let’s say that’s item 10 counselor cuddle you said it was on walkways okay update on walkways so then we’ll need a motion if no one else has any items they’d like to add we’ll just need a motion for the agenda to be approved as
Amended okay do we have a mover Melena moves I’ll second sorry who was second Ana oh ana ana second okay so with that Amendment uh the order of business uh we’re moving the order order of business all those are in favor please say I I I I and thank you and anyone oppos
Uh please say nay no opposition so that uh the agenda is uh approved with that Amendment uh for item 10 added items uh from councilor C just make a note of that okay thank you so uh now we oh by the way I I realize I have missed
Uh an important item at the beginning before the roll call I should have uh actually given the land acknowledgement I will read it now my apologies uh the Halifax Regional municipality is located in mcmi the ancestral and traditional lands of the mcmack people the mun IP ality acknowledges the peace and
Friendship treaty signed in this territory and recognizes that we are all treaty people back to the uh agenda as circulated um so business arising item four uh there is none call for Declaration of conflict of interests uh if any committee members have a conflict of interest they feel
They have a conflict of interest now is the time with regard to the agenda and now is the time to declare it hearing none there is no conflict of interest item six is consideration of deferred business uh and um this is the presentation from Matt stickland on legal Road users Bicycle Club an
Introduction to that club um Matt stickland is with us so he’s in the meeting I’m just promoting him to panelist right now so he can present um I believe he will just be delivering a verbal presentation he won’t be using slides so just wait till he accepts the uh invitation to be promoted
Okay all right I believe Matt is now in the meeting or he’s on on one of the panelists now so he can present can you hear us M yes can you hear me this time perfect yes yeah yes we can see you we can see you and hear
You Matt this is Hugh milward the chair um so you are are um free to begin your presentation um you have 10 minutes uh that uh is available to you and then we’ll follow that with any questions or um comments from the committee so where you go perfect yeah so uh first
Off I just want to say thanks again for giving me the opportunity here to present I would also like to apologize for my chaotic presentation uh last time I had a pretty hard with having to go pick up my kid before Excel uh you know stopped at six o’clock anyway so I just
Want to apologize for that uh yeah so I’m the president of the legal Road users Bicycle Club and we are a Bicycle Club in the HRM that is focused on trying to make the street safer for people who are not in cars um where we are different than other advocacy groups
Is that where other advocacy groups tend to focus on the legislative or the executive I.E they organize to try and convince politicians that what they want to do is a good idea and then try and gain public support change legislation in that way uh we tend we’re focusing
Instead on demonstrating what the issues are in hopes that people smarter than ourselves come up with Solutions because well what we think we are the best at is pointing out how people will break things or use things improperly and giving people an opportunity to plan better infrastructure in that
Way and why we have chosen to do this is because the motor vehicle act and a lot of our legislation a lot of our priority plans a lot of The Guiding documents that we have are written as though every single person who uses our transportation network is equal or
Depending on the planning document um is more equal than others two feet good four feet better or four feet good two feet better type thing um but in that case we’re but our infrastructure is not designed in that way our infrastructure is designed to be Automotive first to
The detriment of everything else and when our rules are written one way and our infrastructure is bitten built another way that provides a lot of room for gray for misinterpretation for exploitation of the rules especially when you consider the fact that things like enforcement and education which have so far been the municipality’s
Favored risk mitigation strategies are largely ineffective as they are currently being used education campaigns for example are only effective when it’s trying to um teach people about a specific Behavior change you are trying to see I.E if we had a public education campaign to say we are no longer turning
Right on red that is perfect a generaliz a generalized education campaign saying hey everyone just kind of be safer all the time doing a bunch of things is not an Effective Education campaign um and yet we tend to rely on this type of intervention or risk mitigation which is largely
Ineffective and so we want to demonstrate um a lot of the ways in which this kind of engineering last Education First uh safety approach produces bad outcomes and in a lot of cases lethal outcomes and so but we and uh how we do this is we kind of let
Our to a bridge a very complex set of ideas essentially we abide by the foreign policy School of uh realism which is to say whatever people will do if there’s nothing preventing them from doing it they will do it um and we make our plans based on that because we know
That in demonstrating a lot of the vulnerabilities that exists with our built infrastructure will expose a lot of us to violence either careless careless violence or neglectful violence from drivers who just aren’t paying attention when there are more pedestrians than they expect or more cyclists than they expect for example to
People that are openly hostile to people not in cars which I’m sure that anyone who is on this specific committee is probably well aware with that kind of anger that drivers often have to people who are not in cars and we obviously don’t want to be putting ourselves at
Risk uh unduly and also we want uh fundamentally to see the city to be a better place like we’re not trying to although we are going to be a little bit of uh you know S disturbers as it were we would much rather things just be
Safer uh so we kind of wanted to make this introduction and we wanted to provide you know let let you guys know that we existed and kind of offer our services is like a um a red team stakeholder as it were because when we’re doing our risk assessment we are
Thinking through how we could use the in the infrastructure in ways that could be exploited that could be dangerous to highlight that and we’re also looking at the rules to see what is allowed to make a point between the difference between what is allowed by the rules and what is allowed by our
Infrastructure and this type of planning is not planning that we see consistently demonstrated in um HRM planning HRM planning is to stick more to black and white for example the right on red report that uh the two right on red reports from 2020 in 2022 or 23 I think
In both of those cases staff are saying in the staff reports that well because the traffic laws are what they are they won’t be broken and since no one’s going to break the traffic laws that’s what makes an intersection safe and again as basically everyone on this committee I’m
Assuming knows that’s not true um but that kind of formalized feedback we don’t we don’t really see reflected in the hrm’s planning processes so we were hoping that maybe we could you know help in that way and the other thing that we think we can contribute is sometimes
Things happen where you know the rules have been broken in a way that are you know maybe not malicious and I don’t think malicious at all in this case but provide an opportunity for change especially change that one that we might want to see for example I keep talking
About the safe the 30 kilometers an hour slow the blazes down presentation that Paul Young gave in November’s meeting now to be clear to be clear chair I’m gonna say that you broke the rules of order and I think that you did and I don’t think that’s malicious and I
Don’t think that’s bad in any way shape or form but what I am saying is because it was outside of the rules of order that gives an opportunity for you to reconsider this motion if you want especially if you have someone in the legal Road users giving you a
Presentation saying that hrm’s Charter section 318 specifically allows the HRM to design streets however they want and also the province set speed limits but there’s nothing preventing the city from designing streets slower than those speed maximums in fact the provintial traffic Authority told me um that they don’t change the speed limit unless
Until the streets are designed for the speed that they want the speed limit change too which is why the HRM is having a lot of issues lowering its speeds we think because our roads are designed for like 100 colet an hour so of course they’re not going to put a
Posted speed limit of 30 um so yeah that’s the type of thing that we want to do proactively we would rather have conversations to demonstrate vulnerability as opposed to demonstrations to demonstrate vulnerability because that puts us at risk and it’s ultimately a more hostile and conflicting relationship and I think
We’re all working towards the same thing we’re just coming at it from a very different perspective because quite honestly our streets are dangerous and we’re tired of risking death just to go to work like it doesn’t make sense and so we are now a group of people who are
Kind of at the end and we’re willing to take the DraStic action we want to see in the city but we’d rather be proactive and collaborative instead of conflicting and destructive so we figured we’d do a kind of hey we can be a red team for your active Transit planning if you want
Um if there’s something that you would specifically want to know how people would be abusing a piece of infrastructure how people would use it dangerously how people would use it selfishly without thinking about it that type of thing which seems to be absent from HRM planning we are more than happy
To do that tabl topping risk assessment because it’s what we’re doing anyway for our own planned or potential protests or activism so yeah that’s kind of the end of my pitch I know I have 10 minutes but I kind of got through half a bit last
Time um so if you guys have any questions I’m I’m here to answer questions uh I wish I had more more details we were supposed to have a meeting our first our AGM on Tuesday um where we’re starting our whole planning process for this Summer’s activities H but obviously the weather kind kind
Of mess that up so yeah okay thank you Matt uh well that’s I’m sure there are some questions or comments and I’m going to go through a speaking list here to give everyone a chance to speak uh start I’ll start with Miles McCormick oh sorry miles is not in the
Meeting oh okay I’m sorry uh I missed oh so he’s not here um Britney mlan Britney hi sorry I don’t have too many questions I had H someone come to my door during this I apologize um but Matt nice to meet you and welcome to the world recycling advocacy and I’m sure
We’ll connect in the future thank you okay thank you Britney um Mela C visus uh thank you hi Matt so so I have I have a few uh questions uh one starting with uh how big is your group to the backgrounds of your of your group particularly yours I believe you are a
Journalist I’ll start with those three and I have uh perhaps two or three more uh yeah sure so our group right now our kind of like active and dedicated membership base is about um a dozen uh we haven’t done much inperson meeting at this point and also we’ve been doing
Most of our kind of functional organizing and planning uh in the tail end of the fall and into the winter so our membership has our recruitment drives sorry have been uh relatively limited and we’ve been or I guess initially it was just me but uh focusing on on recruiting people who
Are as I’m sure anyone in an activist space will know um finding people who are willing to actually volunteer and spend time uh especially in the initial Core Group is very important so that’s kind of what I’ve been concentrating on building first uh we have about 12
People at this point as I said um we’ll probably I expect us to balloon relatively uh quickly in the spring um but yeah our backgrounds are um yeah I relatively diverse at this point we’re mostly like again we’re we’re still pretty fragmented our meeting space is just online at this
Point uh our physical meetings have been limited to like small numbers um so I can’t actually give you a a more fome demographic of of kind of our organization but if that’s something you want I’m I’m more than happy to kind of like put together a more comprehensive
Uh list or demographic list what or what have you and yeah for me um I’m a journalist I’m I’m British by birth and then immigrated here when I was six months old uh joined the Navy in my early 20s did that for a while went and
Fought a war didn’t have a good time came back needed to find other work um and yeah I’ve been working covering City Hall um kind of as a yeah just it’s something I’m able to do and and want to do and so that’s what I’m doing right now okay thank you so so
A few more Mr chair if you don’t mind I I I appreciate you coming here I part part of me wonders if you fully understand we are an advisory committee um you know I I think um something like this would would do a lot more Justice towards the transportation standing committee
Perhaps radio and television as well um we more than likely every single one of these the committee members here would agree with you that the streets are not safe in particular since covid and I as a person who is blind have um every meeting commented on some incident that
Has happened to me I’m a very good traveler with my guide dog I’m still confused particularly that you’re a journalist um on how you proposed to do research to get from what I’m hearing the information that you know people are breaking the law are you going to stop
These cyclists are you know like how do you propose to do all this I’m I’m a little confused on what your your point is and and so I’d like that answered um please and then second just a small suggest suggestion to you that you know keep reaching out to all other groups
Because as a stake holder um You probably will be called in and your group at some point from uh different organizations and whatever happens um and do remember that we are an advisory committee what we can do is advise but we really don’t have a lot of clout
Sadly so to go back to my question is how you how are you proposed to do your research on to prove that you know people are breaking the law you’re GNA chase them around and then you’re G to stop them no so um just to your first your
First question uh yeah no I’m I’m I’m very aware that this is an advisory committee um to me advisory committees are the most fun um because there is not a lot of institutional support for advisory committees and a lot of the suggestion personally I think advisory commities in the HRM are doing a
Disservice by not being just like a little bit crazier with their suggestions um but no I I know it’s an advisory committee and I I know the suggestions from this committee can be you know taken or rejected by the transportation standing committee as they see fit but I for me the point of
Advisory committees is to do this kind of outside the box creative thinking and kind of throw it at Council and say hey um we came up with this idea we think it’s good um you guys should seriously look into it not that I expect things that come out of this advisory committee
Will go to council one for one and be like accepted as as gospel um but every good idea starts from somewhere and I think advisory committees are where a lot of the seeds of a lot of the good ideas come from um as far as how do we
Know that cyclists are breaking the law uh because I read the MBA and I know how I ride my bike and that means what you’re breaking the law too I’m smiling for those who can’t see me uh I’m going to say I will ride in a
Way that I it most ensures that I am safe even if that is in contravention of Motor Vehicle Act of the motor vehicle act okay so so that so that so that is you but then how do you propose to bring forth any research from anybody else
That you witness doing this oh oh sorry no no no no okay okay so when I’m talking about risk assessment tabl topping what what were it’s not necessarily research it’s more thinking about how people could or would use infrastructure and then planning for those outcomes that that’s not the
Research part of things is not is not what we think we are necessarily good at although I think I personally am good at research what what we are more suggesting is that we will provide Avenues to research that other people might not be thinking about because we potentially ride differently more
Aggressively more realistically what have you um and by the same token you know there are people who are aggressive regardless of the vehicle that they’re on um whether that be a scooter bike or car what have you and kind of accounting for or assuming that drivers will have aggressive behavior and trying to
Predict or plan how that would interact with our infrastructure that’s not necessarily something we would want to research but it is something we would want vulner potential vulnerabilities we would want to point out or our make sure that are highlighted for research by engineers and professionals that that’s
What we’re kind of saying here does that make more sense yeah um end of thoughts for now thank you uh I might come up with something the second round thank you Mr chair thank you okay thank you Mela um Michelle Mahoney you have questions or concerns uh hi Matt um thanks for coming
Um so I’m kind of a little confused too uh um with like if if you have certain rules and regulations if you will like doesn’t everybody have like everybody has to get it right like all Riders uh drivers everybody has to kind of be following the same the same rules and
Regulations for everything to work out is that right yes that’s that’s correct and and and we think that’s the assumption that goes into a lot of the planning that because we have a common set of rules everyone will follow that common set of rules yeah and what what we’re saying is
That we know from our experience that’s not true and what we want to do is give the city a voice a reliable voice to say here is how people will predictably break the rules that we have with your planned infrastructure that that’s the advice and guidance we want to be able
To provide because that’s the type of risk assessment that we are doing and it’s the type of risk assessment that we don’t like that’s the type of risk assessment we’re doing to keep ourselves safe in our planned protests and it’s not the type of risk assessment we’re seeing in our Engineers infrastructure
Design and for us that’s a bit of an issue so that’s why I wanted to you know make this presentation and yeah and then what about what about people that like you know don’t even wear helmets and stuff when they drive or ride a bike
Sorry so for me and I don’t want to speak for the whole group on this one because this is a bit of a personal opinion but I don’t think not wearing a helmet should be a death sentence so even if it’s not allowed even if whatever right now our infrastructure is
Built that if I don’t wear a helmet and I do get hit or if I don’t wear a helmet I’m likely to get hit and die regardless of whether or not I’m wearing a helmet and wearing a helmet or not wearing a helmet is kind of like a little bit of a
Anyway sorry I just I got a little bit distracted there but I think the helmet thing is a bit of a red herring because it it puts the onus on me for my safety when the streets are designed for me not to be safe and the one or two ton
Vehicles I’m sharing the road with are designed to protect the people inside those cars and yet I’m respons by regulation and the streets are designed by regulation and I’m responsible for my own personal safety marginally with a helmet like so yes I understand people should wear
Helmets I you know I understand all of that but if we’re talking about helmets for me we’re failing because we’re not talking about infrastructure you know like the helmet thing for me is is far far later in the debate okay also though like you could be you could be the best
Rider in in the world and you know like I was coming downtown I had to go down town today for a meeting first thing and uh um you know I’m on you know the Street North Street or uh you know but there was two lanes I was going to the
Roundabout to go downtown and there are two lanes of cars and like a bicycle comes up in between us and and goes right right through like like you have such um I guess confidence and writers have such confidence that they’re and I mean so I have a physical disability and
I could I could never ride a bike so I always say I love when people say it’s just like riding a bike because I can’t ride a bike so sorry for those that know me um I I joke about my disability a lot
So so I can say that um I love to say it’s just like riding a bike because I can’t ride a bike um anyway so sorry about that um but um but yeah like I just like watching this guy this morning um you know like like I I just and it and it
Just really freaks me out sometimes when they when Riders Riders come right up on the right side of your car and you know there’s not a lot of and you know I I get the car you know Road share and and I I’m constantly aware of my surroundings and and if there’s a
Cyclist beside me but but I mean Riders like cyclists do take their lives into into their own hands because it’s it’s again you could be the the best cyclist in the world and something could happen right yeah so so for me and so lane splitting on
A so for me that comes down to a question of of risk and and which behavior is most risky because although it seems like lane splitting is the most dangerous thing for cyclists and from the driver perspective I can completely understand why that feels true what is
Actually most dangerous for me in on my bike is following the rules of the road and spending more time in an intersection um so like the safest way for me to get through an intersection is to get through an intersection fastest even if that means lane splitting and to
Be honest one of the ways that I found and I don’t know if this is like official or whatever but one of the ways that I found to most safely get through intersections is basically in a car’s blind spot um on the right hand side because that way if they are turning
Right I’m slow enough that I don’t get right hooked but if they’re going through then I’m I’m protected from other vehicles and that would would feel very dangerous for the driver but that is for me the safest thing and it allows me to get through the intersection as
Fast as possible so for me it’s a question of of risk and if I were to follow the rules of the road if I were to wait in line with the other drivers and take my turn the odds of me getting hit or killed in that intersection are
Far greater than if I were to Lane split and ride through on on someone’s blind spot so like I understand completely why cyclist do it and I understand that it is risky Behavior but at the same time the real risky behavior is riding my bike on Automotive infrastructure right
Not how I’m riding my bike on Automotive infrastructure that I’m riding my bike on Automotive infrastructure and then it’s just a matter of of which is more what is the riskier behavior once you’ve already accepted that you know on your way to work today you’re gonna you might
Die okay Michelle does that answer your question yeah like definitely Food For Thought this is great great discussion okay thank you uh Holly Woodle questions or comments Holly yeah the issue I have here is that you’re not following the rules of the road therefore you can cause an
Accident you may be riding through unscathed but what the chaos you leave behind you can be life-changing for people if they hit you it whether it’s another bicycle or a motor vehicle and you die because you don’t have a a bicycle helmet on that changes their life
Forever because they have to live with what you caused do you understand um at the risk of getting too personal Amnesty International has a report out with an air strike I called in on a wrong target I am extremely aware of the potential consequences of my actions then follow the rules of the
Road follow Holly okay I’ve got a be here interrupting me um you you have to follow the rules of the road and that’s where my bottom line is okay let’s move on thank you Holly uh Douglas wbore yes thank you Hugh I so I’m understanding what you’re telling me
Matt a little bit differently than what I think the rest of the committee is understanding and I want to share my perspective of what I’m hearing and I want you to tell me if this is more in line with what your group is trying to put forward here so you’re talking about
Breaking the rules in the road but you’re not coming here saying that you’re not trying to tell us that breaking the rules of the road is safer you’re trying to tell us that you’re trying to tell us you are breaking the rules of the road and this is why and
Here is what we need to focus on to fix it so I’m going to give an example that maybe you’ll have some experience with I’m going to look at the lower Water Street and hollus bike Lanes fantastic bike Lanes at least the hallus one lower Water Street could be a little bit
Better but overall pretty good bike Lanes relatively separated on the other hand though there’s not really any way to get between the two so if I’m going one way and then I need to turn around the other way the legal option is to go up a very
Steep Hill on a segment of Road without a bike lane painted or protected in mixed traffic that is usually very dense and busy especially at rush hour what you’re trying to tell me you your group would come here saying if let’s assume we’re back in 20 whenever we were putting this proposal
Together your group would have proposed your group would have looked at this and said I’m going to be honest a lot of our group is going to ride on the sidewalk here or they are going to go opposite direction on these bike lanes because it’s not safe to actually switch between
These back and forth so thinking today that’s kind of what you would be doing you’re not you’re not coming here preaching to the crowd that everyone should break the rules of the road you’re coming here saying you expect people will break the rules of the road because it’s going to
Be safer is my interpretation a little bit more in line with what you’re putting forward yeah so I would say you got half of it nailed perfectly like so for example the McDonald breik Bridge um design I think would do really well from our input because I think a lot of our
Members will just ride down North Street and then hang a left from the automotive Lane in the halfway point of the in of the marked crosswalk right like that’s a point of conflict that I don’t think is is considered in the design that that a lot of our members I think would do
Especially at low traffic uh like not peak hour times um but the other thing that we’re doing too is not saying that in is not I’m not coming in here and telling you that we’re advocating to break the law what I’m telling you is that every single person on our road on
In or on a vehicle is breaking the law and we are not planning for that so we can give you the the our perspective from cyclists who are riding safe but potentially illegally and we can also give you perspective of how it is interacting with drivers that are also
Acting illegally and if you don’t believe me that drivers are acting illegally just drive down Main Street or any of the roads with with a 50 kilm an hour posted speed limit put your cruise control on and see how you are the slowest person by about 20 or 30
Kilometers an hour on that road every single person in or on a vehicle breaks the motor vehicle act every single time they use our transportation Network and we are not planning for it as a city that that to us is the biggest issue that we want want to highlight and help
Address and personally I thank you for bringing this forward because I think this is genuinely very good input that is sometimes missed in the planning discussion um I feel like Melena has already covered a lot of the points I could have brought up here speaking about unfortunately there’s not too much
We can do I mean if you ask me can keep pushing through camp and keep pushing through other uh advoc advocacy groups and you will find your in that way um at least from my perspective you would have my full support on getting input and I I personally value the input because I
Think that is important and I’ll leave it there okay thank you Douglas uh councelor cutle counselor yeah um thank you um I have no questions at this time okay thank you uh Peter Zimmer hi thank you Matt thank you very much for coming and talking about this
Um a lot of your writing a lot of your points fit in with my life experience as a product designer focused on usability and the primary rule in that design process is first you look for how people fail and try and understand what really causes that failure to happen um
We can’t rely on a comprehensive rule book because not everybody will read the comprehensive rules will’ll understand them we’ll have the ability to put them into effect um you know I don’t believe there is a single driver or a single cyclist or a single pedestrian who’s really read and
Understood the whole of the motor vehicle act and all the rules and regulations that flow from that uh so yes you’re right most people will be continually in some manner violating the rules if a stickler enough comes along and says oh I’m going to give you ticket for
That um I’m 80 I’ve been temporarily Mobility disabled for the last couple of months as I’ve had a to Total a uh ankle replacement I’m still in recovery soon I’ll be back to being a cyclist and a vigorous Walker um the city is not welld designed we
Need critics who will point out just where it fails and some of the failure comes from the strong belief of many people that public service announcements are enough to educate people to keep them up to speed on what the rules are what people should do um there’s a lot
Of research showing that’s that’s a I’ll try and be civil a misinterpretation of the reality PSAs don’t work worth uh damn you know and to say oh we need more education well not every form of Education Works and I’m really pleased that you’re pushing on this I would make one comment
About our Forum about our committee about all of the Committees is now we’re on public record this is live streaming to anybody who has wanted to tune in it’s recorded and it’s available for anybody to quote it’s Halifax Public Record so if you make a presentation and you’ve
Got a really good point uh you can do a video clip from that you can do video clips from the responses that you get and say oh that’s a public record uh you know we can use that as a tool as journalists or as Citizens or uh just
ERS uh to try and make those changes to change the procedures throughout the whole of the bureaucratic structure of HRM uh to give political candidates perhaps some good ammunition to go forward so I’ll I’ll step off my soap box right now and thank you very much for being here and presenting
This okay thank you Peter I don’t know whether that requires a response um so we’ll we’ll we’ll take those comments um Paul Young hi hi hi Matt it’s uh it’s great to see you uh to hear you uh I’ve certainly read some of your work um as as a
Journalist um and I certainly there there’s a place for um asking questions and and and challenging this standard um and I really think that uh especially in Nova Scotia it’s been my experience this is just my personal experience that were extremely conservative and not really
Willing to move very far very fast so um there’s a place for that um specifically as I understand it I think Doug Douglas did a really good job in sort of um fine tuning the message that I think that we heard and that’s the way I heard it as
Well is you call it a red Ops or a Black Ops I think of it as in my former computer days you’d be the hacker that would go in and tell us what was wrong and there’s opportunity for that and and Douglas can correct me or or David can
As well that every time or virtually every time there’s a you know a new project that’s being started um that there’s consultation and that is an awesome place to bring your ideas your thoughts like everyone else everyone has there’s there’s public consultation on most of these uh projects and um you
Know listening having a having a voice there um a slightly different voice is is a very healthy thing so um I’ll leave that I David will follow me and tell me I’m full of baloney or or maybe say that I’ve done the right thing um the last
Thing that I do want to say and this kind of goes back to the adversarial um the adversarial type response that you’ve got at the beginning of this meeting is the notion I I I I know what you’re saying I’ve ridden my bicycle now for some 50 years
Uh I’ve gone from being aggressive to setting back and taking my role as more of a um more as a leadership one and trying to get other cyclists to sort of see it that way too and instead of breaking the law you know to you know
The way that you want to in and I get what you’re saying don’t get me wrong I get it there’s times where you know it’s it’s easier to walk your bike on the sidewalk or whatever or as you say run through a red light or do whatever
Whatever whatever it is but all you do in those sort of situations is you piss off other Road users that’s what you do and they take it out on the next cyclist they see it might not be you it might be you know that that woman who decided to
Try cycling for the first time with the basket on the front of her bike and she’ll never do it again so I just caution you no I I get why you’ve come here and your message I think it’s great but I I just kind of caution that kind
Of view and you’re right that there’s drivers that do uh and pedestrians and scooters all all Road users are at sometimes breaking the law for their own benefit but if you continue to if you want to do it as a cyclist all you’re going to do is you’re going to get all
Cyclists are going to be painted the same way and you know an action that somebody else is has done is going to be taken out on the next cyclist so I just kind of wanted to share that as well um to sort of Bear in mind um but uh Matt I
Have you know this disruptive um Forward Thinking push the envelope I encourage you to continue to do that and there are Avenues within the public planning the the city planning um um routines where you can doveet tail in and and be very productive so I hope that you take
Advantage of those so thanks for thanks for coming back and talking to us can I just clarify the I think the breaking of the law thing might have been a little bit misinterpreted off the top um yeah so essentially when I’m talking about breaking the law what I’m talking
About is planning we can and it this this will not be possible I mean well except for like the when we talked about going through the stop sign for example that that’s a little bit different but what I’m talking about breaking the law as an organization what I’m talking
About instead is if there are ways we can break the law in a way that we think we can do so to set up the court case in such a way that we can change the precedent and start changing the conversation in in the legal system about about whatever whatever the
Specific thing is so when we’re talking about when I’m talking about breaking the law as a legal as a legal Road users Bicycle Club what I’m talking about is doing so in such a way to force a conversation about a specific piece of law that we think is is broken um
Because the judicial system you can’t really unless you’re in power the only way you can change that is through precedent or through case law or through actually engaging with the judicial system in some way and in order in order to do that you need to get a ticket or
Get arrested or something so like if if we want to bring our protest our conversation our arguments to the judicial uh branch of the government that will naturally involve getting arrested at some point but that involves doing it in in a way that requires a lot of planning to make sure that we’re
Actually testing the case that we actually want to be testing so when I’m talking about breaking the lot that’s what I’m that’s what I was talking about at the at the start there thanks for the clarification I’m not sure how this committee would be
Able to help you uh with that as sort of a planning committee oh no that was just part of the context for who we are in the beginning okay thank you um and anakah roel do you have any questions or concerns um sorry I’m just trying to get
My my thoughts together I think a lot of things have probably already been touched upon I think you know uh there are many ways to skin a cat and different approaches and and definitely that’s why we see all the different advocacy organizations and different ways of of getting in there and creating pressure
Um so um yeah I think to Paul’s point I think definitely those public the public engagement Parts is definitely where I would would direct uh folks I know in the past perhaps this is we’ve had conversations on this advisory committee about what our role is and where our
Power is in terms of what we can accomplish and what we can do so I think this is a a you know a valuable conversation to have uh in terms of of uh where the line is between the possible and the push for um things that might not be realistic but might push
The needle up a little bit but yeah anyways I’m that is that’s it um oh I guess too this is it is also like this piece of active transportation being lots of there are lots of people at the table and I find it it’s always humbling when New Perspectives when I
Get to hear New Perspectives and so um hearing about the perspective from the blind Community um or from one blind person in the blind community of different people with different abilities and and all of those things of of how our roads if we eliminate cars completely how we still have lots of
Conflicts between Road users in their personal needs so again always humbling um not really questions more comments and yeah I you’re welcome to reach out to the EAC at any time would love to grab a coffee okay thank you anah um I’m just going to uh throw in my own little comment
Um I think uh certainly the idea of intentionally breaking the law would wrankle with some of us um I think the point about making sure that this particular group attends public meetings public uh events on planned infrastructure I think that’s definitely a way to have an important
Influence uh but the other thing is from what you’ve said Matt is that in many ways what you’re aiming to do is get the motor vehicle Act changed in in specific ways uh where you see uh the the the law as it stands is currently creating dangerous situations am I right about
That uh yeah and and specifically too from a strategic perspective from us not to get too like behind the scenes about but like there there there are MBA changes too that that are although they would likely be winnable fights would likely have bad or not necessarily the
Outcomes we would want either um so yeah that that’s exactly the intention but so laws that need to be changed laws that can be changed and laws that we think when they are changed will not be changed in a way that will make things unintentionally worse through that process
Yeah okay thank you um I’ll just uh ask if anyone has any further comment or question if so just raise your hand uh this is melena if if I may just very a very quick one yeah go ahead yes um so actually two quick ones uh Matt
First of all I I commend you for standing here in front of us and and taking all the s as you said um but but solid s um because we’re being recorded we won’t say uh that word um and uh I also so appreciate the services you
Provided uh as navy so applaud you for that as well and and and I will say uh to my dear friend Mr uh Vice chair Douglas I I actually disagree with the lower water and this would go to the point of the infrastructure not working I understood everything you’ve said here
The lower Water Street Bike Lane does not work I have had three friends including an HRM person working on active Transportation get hit in that raised bike lane from the vehicles coming out of those parking lots and what has happened since that was placed in is that more consultation
Is happening and and that goes through being involved and and you know I I guess for you being here as well now now you’ve got your almost half an hour of of iation with us and yourself and I’m a bit of a pitbull most of us on this
Committee a bit of pitbulls David knows that you know the the people are coming uh and and Consulting with the users that be cyclists pedestrians um uh all Road users and and putting us starting to put us first in Consulting to find out whether this will
Work or not I I think I think by doing somewhat of a civil protest would go a lot further than doing anything radical um the city is changing I’m a little surprised at myself I’m saying it is slow moving but it is working and uh once again I I
Commend you for being here and uh for bringing up your point and of thought thank you Mr chair okay thank you Melena uh anyone else with a final comment if not I’m going to thank Matt for coming uh and back and giving us a more thorough presentation and I think
Uh the comments actually were very useful um that yes there was there was some disagreement about some points but that’s just fine uh we have different views uh and uh hopefully Matt will take our comments under consideration and U I imagine we’ll be hearing more from him and about him thank you m
Matt thank you okay um moving on to uh item seven on the um agenda correspondents uh um Hugh Peter has his hand raised oh I’m sorry I didn’t see that Peter you have have your hand up okay just a quick kind of operational question uh what I was saying about
These meetings being the public record is there any provision or any possibility that uh the recorded comments could actually be available as a transcription I mean that I’m thinking that that the minutes are one record of what happens and the video is certainly a valuable resource uh but a written a transcript
That can be scanned and worked over with your highlighter or whatever you know is a very useful tool if we are going to say where the public record that is a great question I will have to take that back to the clerk’s office and I can definitely touch base
With you about that um I agree that would definitely be useful since I think there was a lot of lot of useful things said here um but I can I can touch base with you on that Peter and and if it is available we can definitely look at
Having it distributed to members going forward okay thank you Elizabeth um we’ll hear back from you on that um so Elizabeth was there any correspondence received by the clerk’s office no correspondence was received and there were no petitions received by the clerk’s office okay thank you um and
That takes us to item eight uh information items brought forward I see that there have been n none item nine is our staff update uh from David mckisack uh David would you like to go ahead with your update sure um so during the agenda review I
Asked you if there’s and uh if there’s any anything particular to focus on and he kind of suggested maybe just a few of the bigger projects um so there were some questions about the status of uh making a safer connection to the McDonald Bridge Bikeway on the Helifax
Side um I think a good chunk of folks here we in a bit of a kind of a stakeholder meeting before Christmas so that you got a bit of an update so basically what we’re working on right now is uh coming back to council with uh kind of a two-phase sort of approach
One would be to um have a safer connection sort of actg grade using signals and uh cutting a hole in the fence uh implementing that in 2025 uh we’re still kind of ground truthing that and making sure that it can work safely or as safe as possible so uh um
Still no F like I don’t know exactly what we’ll recommend to council but but that’s being considered and then the second thing would be to kind of look again at the overall kind of area between the bridge head and godage and street from more of a multimodal perspective uh thinking about uh safer
Bike connections and pedestrian movements through there and a big factor is uh is Transit movements and thinking about best rapid transit in the future um so we’re hoping to come to council uh with an update and get some direction in uh spring early spring April May uh so that’s where that project
Stands can answer any details on that uh later on during questions um the Almond Street protected by Clane protected from Windsor to agrica Street went over for tender last week uh that one so that you know that bodess well for relatively early Construction um it’s a project that’s
Been delayed for a few years for a number of reasons uh the biggest being the fact that there’s been a fairly significant construction encroachment uh through the Westwood development there Richmond yards also an example of where we’ve really had to work uh closely with a key stakeholder the cnib that has a very
Important uh Center there on Almond Street so we’re going to have our first half height bike lane there in the city um that and a few other things and there’s been a number of discussions with uh molena and others about that um Dutch Village Road uh a big upgrade
Of that Dutch Village Road will start in 2024 that will include protected bike Lanes a sidewalk an actual sidewalk on Dutch Village Road on the west side that has never existed and has been a source of irritation and embarrassment so we’ll we’ll fix that um section of local street bike way
Onville between Duffus and um Young Street to be built in 2024 a little bit of Liverpool local street bike way kind of the the East End will happen in 2024 um and then on the peninsula there’s a real like the the Brunswick Street protected bike way the bir directional bike way between Cogswell
And and the Central Library at Spring Garden Road is pretty much ready to go in terms of design and budget what is less clear right now in terms of construction is the question of whether we can do that and do uh some of the Cogswell pieces the significant cogwell pieces
That are going to happen in 2024 so uh still some discussions on when and how uh brunswood can get implemented um there is lots of space outside of the regional center and lots of stuff we’re doing so uh I would say an kind of key project in
2024 in Cole Harbor will be to extend the Forest Hills trail to Cole Harbor Road and then connect with the bisit trail which will um you know it’s really one of those things where it’s it’s a gap of about 500 600 meters but uh it will um I think uh basically connect to
Cole Harbor Place uh and those communities out to the salt salt marsh Trail and points Beyond so pretty significant connection and um East Preston Greenway is looking good uh for construction in 2020 uh for uh from the family uh not from the family resource ENT from the
East Preston daycare to the East Preston Recreation Center um so those are some project highlights I guess like what our group we we’ve been doing a lot of work in rural HRM to uh see if we can get some sidewalks built mostly we’re talking about tax rates and area taxes to enable that Um and I think that’s going to be a barrier um we’ll find out but it’s it’s it’s uh the there is resistance huge surprise to uh to um uh changing tax rates or paying more taxes for for sidewalks and rural community centers so they’re still needed you know in my
Opinion they’re desperately needed there’s lots of people in the community that want them um lots of other ryal communities in Nova scoa would have them but atrm doesn’t yet so you know still is a goal to get these done but uh we will um we’ll see if the current tax
Rate mechanism is the way to do it uh we’ve just finished engagement in Porters Lake and musk Albert Harbor we’ll be in hubs and deeran Talen in uh March and April and then also Lucasville those are our five communities and there’s lots of other stuff going on but maybe I’ll just leave
It at that and um happy to take questions and of course follow up with any of you folks individually afterward if there’s anything you’re looking for more detail on can ni ask good question very good um I don’t know whether I need to go through the roll call in in its entirity
So perhaps if you have your hand up we can take uh comments uh or questions I see Britney mlan has a hand up so what’s your question yeah sorry I just have a quick one I I did see in the news the feedback and responses in Porter’s Lake
But I’m just curious I hadn’t seen anything about a musket at Harbor was it similar feedback that you received oh sorry you’re on mute there David thank you sorry about that um I would say that it’s slightly different in in musket Albert Harbor again haven’t looked at all the responses yet I’m just
Kind of going by what we heard at the public meetings but uh I’d say there’s definitely more interest in in active Transportation infrastructure and and sidewalks in muscab Harbor from what we heard um uh so uh but again uh it gets a you know I what I’m finding is that you know there’s
Partially sort of resistance just to this tax but then there’s also these deeper questions in HRM between rural HRM and urban HRM and what services you get for your taxes and uh that is coloring you know a fair bit of the conversation great thanks okay thank you um Anica
Roel um I had a similar question um saw the news um my question was mostly I feel like I misheard you because I think I was under the impression that the bridge miraculously might happen in 2024 but it is 2025 that is the okay I’m okay I can
Wait um and then just a point of clarification uh Brunswick and Cogswell you’re saying the budgets allocated and that they’re all designed what’s is is it just stat like what’s the why can’t you do both both uh at the same time that’s my question so I I have that question as
Well and people smarter than me more familiar with construction and mitigation and stuff like that are looking into it now um uh I would say that part of the issue that we’re just not sure about or that my colleagues are not just sure about is is what’s going
To happen to overall traffic movements uh buses cars uh especially uh when barington Street gets shut down which is pro which is what going to happen next year during Cogswell and whether the side effects of that uh mean that it would be difficult to do any other construction projects uh in
The downtown area so that’s what’s being considered right now okay thank you um Melena you have your hand up um yeah ju just a quick question I I I’m a quick comment as well I wish the media wouldn’t put those people who say they’ll never use a sidewalk um because
Sooner or later everybody will use a sidewalk when they can no longer Drive their car um and the tax issue that’s I I hope HRM can figure that out my question is rumor has it that there will be a crosswalk installed on winds in Liverpool um uh the East Side Forum side
Correct rumor okay can you tell me why I’m leading you into a trap David um so acrossing uh I think it’s going to be either an ra5 Cross or RFB kind of push button or half signal um it uh would be at uh Liverpool okay for for the sake of a cyclist
Right oh is he there I think we’ve lost David David oh David can you hear us he’s deep in thought there no your trap was a little too strong there Melina he’s still in the meeting uh he’s gonna and he’ll come back in oh all right
David hi hi how did you get there how did I get the RFB yeah so there is so there’s been a couple of reasons that that we want to have some kind of signalized crossing at that location number one uh to have a a pedestrian Crossing between young and and uh Almond Street
And to have a a Bikeway Crossing to connect the Windsor Street Bike Lane to the Liverpool local Street Bikeway okay and and you don’t know how happy I am to hear that I I live two blocks from there we’ve been lobbying HRM for 10 years at
Least and it’s always been no no no need because the studies that went on there were from 9 o’clock in the morning till 3: not enough pedestrian Crossing however I live across from the Forum and the pedestrians jaywalking are constantly 6 o’clock at night and on for
The hockey games Christmas at the joyful Forum yeah um okay and so I I I just want to make this very clear I I am more than pleased to finally see a crosswalk because it’s too long to be going from almond to Young and Windsor um but but I am a little we’ll
Say wearing a itchy sweater because I think the primary reason that has gone in is because of the cycling community Community I’m so happy it’s there I just wish that we would remember that there are a lot of us who cannot cycle um and still walk and and so just to keep that
In mind but I’m happier than a pig in mud to have it there so thank you okay thank you yeah uh thank you Melena um Paul Young and then uh Douglas webm more okay I’ll be super quick um uh you have such an interesting and and complex
Job David i’ I’d sort of love it but I’d also sort of hate it my question was you youd mentioned a half height bicycle lane on almond I don’t know what that is if you could if you could Ed educate me a bit thanks sure so imagine so ideally
We we were’re were able to separate a bike lane and the sidewalk with you know some sod or you know trees or something you know that melena’s dog can can recognize and and someone with a cane can recognize and that sort of thing we don’t always have the space so um what
We have been using are these tiles these sort of directional tactile tiles which um have been used in some places and we’ve been using them here but what uh you know the best guidance we’ve been getting is to actually kind of separate the bike lane and and sidewalk
Vertically when they have to be together um so that you know the sidewalk is at one level the bike lane is sort of like halfway down and then there’s the curb to the street that’s kind of the the next level down does that help that makes sense understood thank you okay Paul um
Douglas yes so two quick comments for me one is I’m wondering if there there’s any and there could be that I just haven’t heard of but I’m wondering if there’s any updates on the bike lane that was planned for Mor stre and University a so uh you’ll probably see a report at
Council for the University AV section and also for a section to connect up to bort uh this spring um and we’re still working on options to get from South Park Street down to lower water and and H so including Morris Clyde and and and maybe South
Street as well so I would expect you might get uh some we’ll be doing some engagement on that uh later this year so it hasn’t gone away it’s still very much a priority but we’re trying to figure it out okay I’ll be curious to hear more about that um the other thing
That I wanted to mention is speaking of new crosswalks going in um I live nearby to the new crosswalk that was installed at canar Street in Princess place next to the commons which oh yeah I don’t know who was asking for that but it is fantastic um love that new set of Lights
There and I’m wondering if this is less of a question more so just a comment um there’s a pathway at the end of Princess Street or princess place that connects into June Street and into kind of the suburbs sides Streets between agria and Roby Street and if that pathway were to
Be repaved Princess Place and that crosswalk would make for an excellent bike connection into some of the quieter traffic calm Streets between agrica and Roby street so just wanted to highlight that is that could be a small project that could make for a great connection
I’ll look at the property map as soon as we’re done here just to kind of better understand the lay of the land there but uh I know where you mean yeah thank you okay thank you and Michelle Mahoney you have you have your hand up yeah hi uh David thank you um I
I was um again not a cyclist so I don’t I don’t know like and um as you all mentioned streets I’m like picturing them my um and when you say like Morris and University and having a bike lane like what does that what does that mean does that mean like uh designated bike
Lane on un University Avenue where it crosses Morris is that like isn’t there a bike lane there now or do you mean like when you cross is it a cross like on the crosswalk or I I’m sorry I don’t so the goal of that project if you can
Imagine kind of the south end of the peninsula it’s to have like an East West Connection so you could go from the Halifax Urban Greenway on bow for and Oxford Street well soon on Oxford Street all the way down to the harbor front on on Lower water
And so there’s a bunch of public engagement and options to look at you know how to do that and um and so on University it’s going to be like a you know and it’s going to have to be AAA bike way like safe not painted separated bike facilities and
Uh okay so yeah so for example I’m quite familiar with University Avenue because I used to work at Dy and now I’m at Kings um so there were many time and I’m sure I’ve mentioned it once or twice or seven times at this meet at these meetings that um sometimes I’ve walked
In the bike lane because it’s safer than the sidewalk um so um when you say uh what did you call it a uh a what did you call it a what what is it the bike lane is well they would be like kind of separated but when you say protected sorry you say
Protected bike lane like what does that I’m sorry I I I hope it’s not no I’m happy to explain that know that that’s sort of like what exactly that looks like is a little bit different depending but basically there’s some kind of physical separation at least between the
Intersections between the where the cars are and where the bikes are and that separation can be you know if you look on um holla Street for example that separation is a for CM wide chunk of concrete okay curb um if you look on rainy drive it’s like a painted buffer
With a bunch of ballards in it um and Avenue let’s go to that one for for for example yeah University Avenue that’s got like kind of a you know very early kind of separation and that’s temporary it’s been temporary now for five or six years um but that would come out and be
Replaced by permanent uh infrastructure okay and is is a permanent infrastructure like like like so right now there’s ballards for example on University Avenue and I mean I have seen cars like Drive in between like to drop somebody off at a building or something um you know which is dangerous for
Cyclists of course um so um but with uh like with a protected bite like what what what makes what makes University Avenue the way it is now to a protected bike lane so you know you have what exists on University Avenue right now between L Marchant and um Roby is probably kind of
The um the bronze level protected bike lane if you want to call it that or the or the um participation prize okay yeah um and for it to be like more protected you would you know obviously no more of those like uh layby zones where cars can
Come in and park because that’s defeats the purpose in a certain way and when you do it permanently and are pouring permanent curb you can actually like do it in ways that still have some of those loading zones but next to them have the the safer spot for the for the bike lane
So it doesn’t get blocked okay um so what it could look like on univers is is sort of like those bike Lanes with the curb moved out or or could be using the um the medium kind of a bu directional bike way through the the central median
There and when when it’s going the same direction as cars are going does that mean that bikes can only go this like bikes only go the same direction obviously duh that was a silly question sorry um okay and have thought of that that’s perfect thank you okay thank you
Just see your point about like part of the other thing that’s going to happen on University is like a more full Rehabilitation of it like wider sidewalks better ped ramps twizzies at the corners um maybe a little bit more public space kind of gathering that kind
Of thing so I think um it needs an overall refresh separate from just the the bike infrastructure yeah it does um um but um one other quick comment you were talking about um the over by the uh the bridge um but and you were talking about tile um like surface surfacing or
Whatever is that tile like Cobblestone no I think what I was talking about is sort of like how you separate the sidewalk in the bike lane okay and how you do that differs depends on the location okay but in some cases in some places in Halifax where the bike
Lane and the sidewalk are at the same same level what we have separating them are these uh these tiles like uh that um are intended to be detectable they’re okay but you know I think a better way to do it is actually to separate it
Vertically okay the best way to do it is to have like a row of trees or or some kind of like sing and stuff between them but if you can’t the best way is to separate them vertically okay thank you so much for that explanation and I’m so sorry that I
Took up the time from this meeting to find out all of that I should have maybe asked you offline but that was really helpful thank you you’re very welcome okay than fine and uh I did see um ana roel had had a hand up is that right
Yeah I did I I’m coming in for round two and I think Michelle it’s totally fine to ask these questions it’s a lot of jaran in here and it’s worth getting that confirmed because I’m sure there are people who do listen to this who have no idea what is being said
Sometimes um since we’re playing hey David um can we have a bike path here um I have a question about connecting the mainline or yeah Mainline Main Line Main Line uh in Clayton Park to the uh BLT is that or Chain of Lakes is that uh provincial land or is that HRM land
Or is that something anyone has ever considered because sometimes I look at that on a map and I’m like those should touch so it’s definitely been considered um there was a plan that showed kind of uh I might share it with you separately just because it’s easier to
Um there was an awkward connection where we’ have to build like a three or four million doll Bridge across the 102 um but what our preferred approach right now is to um when the province goes to um update the intersection of dumra street and the 102 to um uh coordinate
With that and to get the crossing of the 102 there then it will land in Halifax Water um sort of uh conservation lands that’s not the right word anyway it’s lands they don’t want too disturbed because they feed the secondary Watershed but you know they’ve been you
Know they’re on board with you know putting something through there as long as we’re you know sensitive to to their needs okay all right thank you and I think uh everyone who wanted to ask questions has us done so anym okay if not um we have an added item item 10 counselor cutle
Thanks um I just wanted to take a brief opportunity to share some of the discussions I’ve been having um with staff and councel about uh different things um Dave good update but we missed one important thing which was the approval of the new sidewalk level of service report which I was uh very
Thrilled to see come before Council um and and get approved um until this point we haven’t had a sidewalk strategy it’s mostly being done based on um resident requests and the recapitalization of streets so having this new strategy with um a funding plan is actually a really
Big it’s a really big deal as least at least for me I’m like yes because we know that um our sidewalk Network um is disjointed in in many in many places so just some high level things uh about that um in the HRM 10year Capital plan from the active Transportation Capital
Account there’s going to be a new sidewalk budget of 5.5 million annually between 24 28 of course that has to get approved annually um at Council but at least we have a strategy for that um and it’s going to ramp up to 8 million annually in 202 eight um there’s um I
Think proposed 55 kilometers of new sidewalk in high areas in the next 10 years um so yep Dave you’re you’re nodding thanks if I go off track here Dave please jump in and correct me I don’t want to be inaccurate um and um so so that I mean I think that’s that’s
Great news because you know sidewalks are important component of active transportation and I think some of them will be sidewalks some of them will be multimodal corridors and that um you know also looking at doing some um lighter quicker cheaper um pilots and projects to try to
Get that infrastructure in faster and I know that lighter quicker cheaper doesn’t always mean the gold standard but I think starting to lay it down and lay out the network is um you know is a really really positive step forward so happy to see that um the other thing is
And Dave and I we had a conversation about this about walkway connections so Douglas to your point about Princess Place um you know I know there’s a number of those kind of connectors within uh Spryfield as well that are kind of these little you know connector pieces that are really important to the
Overall you know walking and active Transportation Network um but they haven’t had a lot of attention and I mean just a simple upgrading of them would really Advance um a lot of our our active Transit um Pathways throughout the city so Dave and I had um conversation about that like he said to
You he said to me like show me where they are and um and and we’ll look at what can be done that’s important for many reasons um one it’s uh you know for active transportation um but it’s it’s also supports Transit and walkable communities and kind of all
These other you know big goals that um we have at the city uh one of the things though that I have noticed um with that and it’s like literally like you know the stuff that falls between the cracks and the sidewalk is around the maintenance of these walkways so um in
The winter not all of them but some of them are plowed and that falls under Public Works and um in the summer the vegetation control often falls under Parks and Recreation so we don’t have um good uh like m not not long-term maintenance as in the as in the paving
Piece but um I guess what would you call that like like like you know annual seasonal maintenance that’s the word I’m looking for seasonal maintenance of these spaces so in Spryfield what we see is um these Pathways just will get completely overgrown mostly with Japanese
Knotweed and so I’ve did send uh Dave I was I was going to tell you this but can I can tell you now I did send a message to to Maggie from Parks and R and Brad from Public Works to to put forward a motion to look at having some kind of um
A strategy a priority strategy for both summer maintenance and winter maintenance to ensure that that these pathways are taken care of it’s important for Public Safety women’s safety audit recognize that um it’s controlling evasive species better connected communities so that is something I’m going to going forward and
Trying to figure out if it belongs in transportation or if it belongs in park and wreck and um and how we can bring those pieces together so uh David we might be talking soon that’s all I had to share okay thank you very much uh counselor that’s very uh
Informative and good news uh in in many ways um I’d just like to add my feeling about walkways I think I agree with you they are um there there’s they look overlooked they’re overlooked and and and there’s no standard maintenance prot protocol that applies to all of them and there
Should be um so I’m I’m with you on that 100% um I see that uh David has his hand up uh just a couple things so I sent yall um via email a link to the new sidewalk level of service report and uh thank you for bringing that forward counselor these things that
Seem like they were a long time ago and you’re like oh it’s since the last meeting but you’re right it that was a sort of a foundational piece of work to kind of set our our Direction I think for new sidewalks going forward um the brush clearing so Street to Street
Walkways so if it’s a street to Street walkway between two streets then it’s a public works responsibility um if it’s between a Street and a park then it’s mostly a park responsibility and then there are these walkways within parks and right now you know the the whether or not there’s clearing and
Stuff like that is usually sort of in response to um to uh service requests so to make the existing system right now work better submit service requests and you know I’m maybe there’s another way to do it as well I think there probably is hey thank you David I see Michelle
Has her hand up yes yes you’re gonna think all I do is complain here but um I just want wanted to say a quick comment about so I I as I was saying earlier I went downtown today um I Rely I can drive a car and I rely on accessible
Parking well there were a couple of accessible parking spots this morning that were completely filled in with snow it’s like and I know you know I our city has nowhere to put stuff like that but but in the accessible spots on because they’re they’re either at the end of a a
Street or the beginning of a street so um you know what like you know I’ve I’ve dealt with this to at where I where I work at Kings like I’ve had to tell them um you know you need to you need to clear the the snow in front of an
Accessible button um and you know the all the door Michelle I just want to bring it sorry I just want to to the chair just a point of order I’m um just wondering if we have before we move on to another subject if we’ve closed the subject on
Um the points I raised um just we’re you’re you’re taking us in in another Direction Michelle I’d love to hear what you say but I just want to make sure that we have some order to the meeting here and we’re done with that other conversation yeah thank you councelor I
I I was aware that we were veering into it a separate issue which is snow clearance um and that’s fine but that wasn’t the issue the item um so I think we should actually draw things to a close um the um date of the next meeting is March
21st and I actually won’t be available for that so Douglas will be chairing that meeting thank you doctors um and um I’ll entertain a motion to adjourn I need a moover so move thank you Peter uh no secondar is required so the meeting is closed and
I want to thank you all for being here and we had I think a very productive session and uh I’ll see you I guess um in April okay thank you very much thank you thank you thank you