Cycle Advocacy podcast - Gil Peñalosa

One website/podcast worth keeping an eye on and subscribing to is the San Francisco based blog written by Jon Winston.

http:///bikescape.blogspot.com

He recently went to the Towards Car Free Cities conference held this year in Portland Oregon. There he recorded various podcasts including one that has the keynote speech for the conference given by Gil Peñalosa.

As Commissioner of Parks, Sports and Recreation, Peñalosa initiated Bogata's trailblazing ciclovias, where each Sunday ninety one km of streets are returned to the commons for non-motorized use. 1.5 million people use the ciclovias each week and now the practice is migrating to other cities around the world. You can download the mp3 of his speech and the subsequent press conference at:

http://bikescape.blogspot.com/2008/06/towards-car-free-cities-keynote-speech.html

There is also a short film made of the Ciclovias in action in Bogata that you can watch.

Here is what I got out from his speech:

His questions for those who are in local government and the community:

• What kind of cities do we want to have?
• How do we want to live?
• Do we want to retain skilled people here long term? They need a reason to stay.

Getting things done to achieve the vision:

• It is not about the money but priorities.
• Not about the technical issues - there are solutions somewhere in the world to use.

How to move from thinking to doing something:

• Leadership from those in the community
• Political will and a clarity of vision - general interest of the many must prevail over the particular
• Need doers in the public sector - we pay rates and taxes to get things done.
• Reqires community engagement
• Needs a sense of urgency

Draft Cycle Network Infrastructure Upgrade document for comment next week.

NPDC have their Draft Cycle Network Infrastructure Upgrade document ready for comment and review by key stakeholders. It expected to be received by NTCA next week. It is believed to locate and outline the top 40 or so locations within the district where cycle infrastructure improvements are required and what can be done along with preliminary costs.

It is still very much a draft document, but NPDC feel it is now time for some initial comments from interested parties and concurrently NPDC will be reviewing the document internally.

They hope that our feedback along with comments from LTNZ and Transit NZ will result in a document that clearly identifies agreed priorities and treatments and will achieve maximum value for cyclists in the district.

This report has been reviewed by an independent engineering consultancy prior to this next stage of review and comment.

There are financial implications and critical timing issues for the council, for Transit NZ (as many of the priority sections are state highways) and LTNZ (or the New Zealand Transport Agency that is to replace these two govt departments).