Winnipeg is a city that is nearing a population of one million people. We are also a city with an 80% driving mode share. Most of those trips are made with one person in the vehicle.
If these factoids don’t worry you, they should.
Whether you care about health, the environment, or the financial stability of your city, you should care deeply about how its residents are getting around. A city where the vast majority of trips, even those within a comfortable walk/bike/bus distance, are made in a personal vehicle is a city that will struggle. Whether it’s the high maintenance and replacement costs, the increased injuries and deaths from crashes, the GHG burden or the lack of connection for everyone outside of a personal vehicle, car-oriented cities are not pointing to prosperity.
But, time and again, when presented with opportunities to make it easier to walk/bike/bus, our city will falter. Whether it’s narrowing driving lanes, losing a few parking spaces or slowing down speeds, many projects face delay, cancellation or just the chipping away of policies until little remains of benefit.
What we hear from a variety of cities, businesses and residents, time and again, is the fear of change. The fear that anything that would make it less convenient to drive will lead to shuttered businesses and residents unable to complete their daily tasks.
Overall, there seems to be a fear from elected officials that Winnipegers just don’t want this change.
And, I get it. We are one of thousands of cities across North America who jumped fully into the Suburban Experiment over 70 years ago. We are now several generations into this experiment. Not that long ago, each household had a family car. Today, I’m going to bet that most of your families, or families you know, have a vehicle for every person of driving age in the household.
Perhaps vehicles are no longer instruments of freedom, but prosthetic tools that are required to live our day to day lives? (Jeff Speck).
What if we don’t have to CONVINCE people?
As part of my work in sustainable transportation, I’ve had the chance to learn a lot about behaviour change. Much of my job involves assisting workplaces with TDM programs (transportation demand management). From this work I’ve had the opportunity to see the results of countless surveys around transportation. One glaring trend: a vast majority of folks are driving alone each day. But when asked if that’s their “ideal” way to get there, driving alone falls sharply, while transit, carpooling, biking and walking rise. And of course, in the open comment section we get the stories of woe:
“I would love to bus, but [the bus is too full/doesn’t arrive on time/transfers take too long] and I have no choice but to drive.”
“I would love to bike, but it’s scary biking on the road, so I have no choice but to drive.”
“I would love to carpool, but I have to drive my kids to school and then from school to their activities. I have no choice but to drive.”
No choice. Over and over and over.
And while municipal governments can’t necessarily control the daycare travesty in our city (although zoning policies could help), they sure can do an awful lot about the transit and biking realities people are facing each day for every trip.
“The traffic … before/after school is awful. I am afraid to allow my child to bike to school because this traffic is extreme.” – School Travel Survey, City of Winnipeg, Fall 2020.
Types of Cyclists
Back in 2009, Roger Geller published his findings on the “four types of cyclists” from his work in the Portland Office of Transportation. Understanding how people behave in different levels of stress is important for cities identifying how to encourage more trips by bike. The four types are:
- Strong and Fearless: People willing to bicycle with limited or no bicycle-specific infrastructure. Aka: “road warrior.”
- Enthused and Confident: People willing to bicycle if some bicycle-specific infrastructure is in place
- Interested but Concerned: People willing to bicycle if high-quality bicycle infrastructure is in place
- No Way, No How: People unwilling to bicycle even if high-quality bicycle infrastructure is in place
How many people fall into each group?
“Jennifer Dill, Ph.D., at Portland State University, led a survey of adults in the 50 largest metro regions in the U.S. to verify Geller’s theory that roughly 1% of adults identified as “Strong and Fearless”, 7% identified as “Enthused and Confident”, the majority — 60% — identified as “Interested but Concerned”, and the rest — 33% — identified as “No Way, No How”. Dill found that theorized breakdown was remarkably close, with slightly more people identifying as “Strong and Fearless” (7%) and as No Way, No How (37%).” (Understanding the “four types of cyclists”, Alta).
Now, I know what you’re thinking. This is WINNIPEG where we have WINTER this DOES NOT APPLY. Let’s remember that weather doesn’t influence the number of riders in a city. Infrastructure does (please watch Why Canadians Can’t Bike In the Winter (but Finnish people can).
But, to be fair (and since the City of Winnipeg hasn’t done this research that I know of), let’s use the numbers from Edmonton, Alberta. In Edmonton, they found:
- Strong and Fearless, 4%
- Enthused and Confident, 13%
- Interested but Concerned, 45%
- No Way, No How, 38%
Even if we go more conservative for Winnipeg, say 40% in the No Way, No How category and just 43% in Interested but concerned, that is A LOT of people that would ride for some or all of their trips if the journey was not so hostile.
