 Hello and welcome to the spokes ride cast from the Urban Cycling Institute and today We're in Chile, Chile, Canada in the city of Ottawa, Ontario with Matt Hinder who is a Planned in Cycling City alumni, so he's been to Amsterdam with us. Hello Matt. So we're just headed out and it's minus what 17 today minus 17 wind gel minus 25 She's yeah, so we're bundled up and we're here to prove that cycling can happen in cold climates But to begin let's talk about the street that we're just going through right now. What's going on here? It looks like we're on there. We're cycling through Ottawa One of Ottawa's only Warner streets, and this one's actually been around quite a while. I think from the 80s and It was really a push from the group of residents who lived on the street They wanted to see some cool new design. Yeah, and they pushed the city and it happened As you can see it's a bit of a Hodgepodge of planter. It's all placed throughout that are Fulfilling the principles of a winner which is to slow traffic down as much as possible and make it an inviting street that People can walk on. Yeah, we have issues here that we don't have in the Netherlands such as a snow clearing So they're they're actually a it was an interesting story of how they get these tiny snow plows in through this Through the zigzag of a street, but they managed to do it just smaller snow plows, right? Yeah, yeah, it's a bit of a hack job of snow clearing Ottawa gets about three meters of snow every year. So that's a huge consideration when the city is Planning a roadway redesigns and bike infrastructure. Yeah, tell them about the route that we're taking today Matt So we are biking to the train station. Oh, right. We're starting from where I live in Chinatown We're going to head through downtown on Lower Yee Street one of our Ottawa's first protected bike lane and then we're going to Ride along a pathway that was built to parallel the newly constructed LRT network This LRT, when did it open? It opened just a few months ago in September. Yeah, and Along with the opening of the LRT was a new multi-use pathway that parallels most of the route So in addition to transit passengers being fully separated from traffic Pedestrians and cyclists get to enjoy the same benefits. That's awesome So Matt You are working at Alta planning and design, right? That's right. You're a designer there Yeah, so you want to tell us a bit about what you do at that job. Yeah Yeah, I'm coming up on my one-year anniversary. So I have a pretty good understanding of what I do now We do we're a pretty specialized consulting firm and we do Active transportation infrastructure for cities planning and design and engineering and so I Really wanted to specialize my career in bicycle infrastructure I was very inspired by what I saw in the Netherlands when I went there and I met you a couple years ago and Alta is really committed to Creating safe and connected cycling infrastructure and walking infrastructure in our cities here. So I do everything from Concept design. Yeah very early renderings of what a intersection redesign could look like to detail design I work with signals engineers. I work with roadway engineers drainage all of these things that Cycling infrastructure that you wouldn't think about on the surface. All right Has it been? Hasn't been difficult getting this like these Dutch ideas over here because they must look like at you like like you're You got some of these crazy wacky designs that you present to them So you kind of need to tone it down a bit right to kind of fit the context and everything. Yeah, there's a huge Translation that has to happen moving from very progressive cycling countries like the Netherlands to Yeah, just keep talking. We have a lot of a lot of standards here that are You know slowly evolving but slow to adapt and So a lot of the conversation is about retrofitting in good bike infrastructure within our existing paradigm of transportation so you can see that street for example the protected bike lanes were created by Reducing vehicle lanes, but without modifying the curbs really there's a line of parking stops Let's separate this bike lane from a parking lane and then from the roadway. Wow Yeah, you see it's quite skinny. So what we can't actually ride side-by-side here We part of the design of this street Having a street level bike lane for a short distance. Yeah Sorry, what was your question? Oh, we part of the design of this one. This is warrior, right? No, this one is before I moved to Ottawa. Okay, but this this facility really pays in the way for Ottawa to get a Lot of more a lot more cycling infrastructure It this this one carries about I believe it's plus a 3,000 cycles a day in peak season. Yeah, which is a very significant It's a real big success for the street And what do you think is most important for Translated some of the Dutch intersection design ideas over to the the North American context because we have these Colored markings we have even over there here dedicated bike signals What are some progress that you've seen happen in the past few years? Well, one of the big challenges Is So we face in at least the older centers of North American cities is that the intersections are actually quite small At an intersection like this, you know someone progressive would say well, why don't we make a protected intersection? But when you actually try to design a protected intersection at one of these very constrained ones it doesn't work, right? You'd essentially have to have to Eliminate almost all of the vehicle space or really even to the sidewalks and ruin the pedestrian environment. So One of the big challenges here is how do we make a safe intersection or a safer intersection for cycling? Without doing the principles of a protected intersection, which is like dedicated bike signals a setback crossing So there's things you can do Like narrowing and turning radius for vehicles or what we're experiencing right now a leading bike interval That's a completely new right? Yeah, that's a new idea Yeah It's a new idea that it's being spread pretty quickly across Ottawa And I'm hoping other jurisdictions will pick it up as well. Yeah, it's a essentially you want cyclists to Be going ahead of vehicles because that improves the visibility. So this Infrastructure does it with the signal, but also the stop bar for cyclists is two meters ahead of the stop bar for vehicles So when we reach a red light We get to stop ahead At most intersections. So all in all pretty good for the first protected intersection ever in Ottawa, right? Well, sorry first protected bike lane ever and yeah, and it's been iterated a lot of the years as well With higher volumes of cyclists comes more conflicts between cyclists and motorists So even though the intersection might be on a per-cyclist basis safer, there's more conflicts that happen So Some people I believe at least one person has been killed on this bike lane, which has sparked a lot of anger from Community And driven the city to you know really pursue even safer designs and think about how they design the next level of bike infrastructure on the city You now live in Ottawa. So you came from Toronto, which is a much bigger city. Yeah How do you feel about the the lifestyle changes and the differences between living in Canada's biggest metropolis, which has five million people six million seven Some figures to living in the city about only one million. Oh It's been a really great change for me actually Living in a medium-sized city has a lot of benefit everything that you need is Relatively close. Yeah, my partner and I are Living here quite comfortably without a car We can get around mostly by biking walking and transit and then we do a car share when we need to get farther And I've been really impressed with how progressive Ottawa is in terms of its cycling facility design there Because they don't have the pressures of a giant city in terms of very limited space and a lot of traffic happening So George, what does it feel like for you as someone who's now comfortably living in the Netherlands and experiencing world-class cycling infrastructure when you come back to places like Ottawa and Canada and other North American cities. That's a good question. Well, I did the Ceremony of Guards here for four summers. So, you know the the London Buckingham Palace red red red coat big bear skin Cat and I was a musician. So so I would come here every summer for for four different years, but very rarely have I been in Ottawa for for the winter and And and it's very different like there's a lot more infrastructure built and you know what the winter isn't that bad so So coming back for the winter It's a really eye-opening To see that, you know plows they've managed to figure out that yes, we can use smaller plows on on bike lanes Yes, protected intersections can work here in North America. Yes protected bike lanes can be maintained in the winter and You know the cold Isn't that bad, right? For shorter trips It's it's uh, it's actually a bit refreshing to get some cold air in your face and I think to be The only thing that struck me is that the train station is so far away from the city center here in Ottawa and and coming in from Coming in from Toronto I thought right here. Yeah, let's go right So coming in from Toronto, I thought you know I would have definitely taken the train if if it was a bit closer to city center If the service was a bit more frequent But I I hear that the government has plans to really improve that aspect as well Yeah, we did just get a an announcement that the federal government is going to find a big a study for improved rail service between Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal and Quebec city. Yeah We love studies. Love studies Hopefully I'll translate into some infrastructure too And I think you see just like multi-use path that we're on it's It's really a decent size and in the summer Uh, there would be a lot of bikes crowding this path and get super busy But in the winter now with the volume's much lower You know, we're riding really comfortably now to a breast and it's probably four meters across so it's yeah It's seasonally seasonally more variable But if we can convince people you know, just as uh they do in in in sweden and finland that That cycling in the winter is doable And the trails are being maintained Then I don't see a reason why More people can't do this year-round. So that's yeah, that's my big canadian thing. It's like people say there's winters uh I mean it gets a bit cold a bit less pleasant, but yeah, it's still very much doable I think there's two two major barriers that we really need to battle to make winter cycling more common The first one is maintenance of infrastructure Which as you can see, Ottawa is doing quite well on uh many of its pathways and cycling infrastructure Uh as a prerequisite you need to have these facilities cleared in order for people to even consider using them And then the second barrier I think is really stigma I'm always very surprised when I bike places in the winter and The looks on people's faces when they say oh you cycled here Uh, I mean we do kind of look like giants We're ready. We're all geared off and we look kind of weird, but hey, we're warm on the inside, you know Yeah, in a city like this though. Yeah, you have to put on your winter coats or a transit or walk anywhere in the winter But like most of our coats on I don't think I'm wearing anything more than I would if I had Walked or taken the transit today So now we're uh, we're riding over the world's famous Rideau canal The longest skating rink in the world So it's still not quite open even though it's minus 20 outside, but a few more days, right? A bit of prep work that needs to happen, but okay Uh, yeah, it typically opens I think early January, so we're getting pretty close. Yeah Millions of people will skate on this every year, and that's also another form of active Commuting that you get in the winter that's not available during the summer. So people who would go to Ottawa University Would would can have the option of like skating down the canal to California University and yeah, it's actually all the way down town, right? It's a pretty pretty uniquely Ottawa thing to be able to skate to work or skate to school Yeah, and in the summer in the canal you can use your kayaks and boats Whoa, this is a new tunnel. Yeah. Yeah So we're having our first interaction with a new LRT now. Okay We're going through a Tunnel that looks a lot like the ones that go under the central station in Amsterdam. Yeah. Yeah A separated bike path and a sidewalk and then entrance right into the LRT Yeah This this feels very Dutch. This is all part of the new pathway network now Okay, so things have changed in the last four years while I was away. Yeah for the better. Okay And then this squiggly thing uh, Utrecht that step Stephanie Uh skipper's group right that that goes over the schoolhouse over the Utrecht canal Um that kind of mimics this design. Yeah as well We have the little squiggly that brings you up on a more gradual scope. Yeah Yeah, it's like a balance of space efficiency and Providing a comfortable grade for cyclists So we just got to the top of that. We probably went up a story. Yeah, and uh, no out of breath or anything like that We're gonna get a shot of the new uh, Ottawa ULRT station. Uh-huh. So once you're here, this is a uh Designed as a mixing zone Shared space. So it's a pedestrian priority, but cyclists are welcome to use the space And you know the design with good sight lines and a tiled surface Really encourages cyclists to yield and share the space quite well I've noticed even in the summer when there's peak student and cycle traffic Um, there's really minimal conflicts that happen right here So they're really taking the opportunity to use this transit project To make in conjunction with that also an active transportation project. Oh, yeah, and it's so smart too. Yeah, you're building this You know fully separated high speed transit or high frequency good quality transit network the incremental cost of adding active transportation infrastructure on top of that is so small And they're building all these bridges You know the incremental cost of building that bridge four meters wider to have a dedicated pathway is out of the no-brainer And then you know, this is parallel infrastructure to transit, but they're also building infrastructure that allows people to access transit one of the New stations that opened Tony's pasture station was built with 70 bike parking spaces And within the first week all of those parking spaces were full. Yeah So you You did your thesis on bicycle transit integration, right? You did uh A study of different transit agencies in north america and how they how they plan to integrate bicycle and transit Or they how they have Uh, could you tell us a bit about that work that you did? Yeah, so I was really inspired by how well the dutch have integrated cycling with the train network Um, there are thousands of bike parking spaces that train stations across the Netherlands and are always full And they just can't keep up with the construction of these So my research was about, you know, what are the key? factors that affect Cycling rates to train stations as an access mode And then how can that be leveraged to north american transit agencies to be more successful? So the first the top two By far are having good quality infrastructure That is comfortable safe separated and minimal delay Yeah, and then having quality bike parking both short-term and secure bike parking that really put Cyclists at the front of the station Gives you a front row seat to catch the train Yeah, and then a number of other factors, but In north america There's a lot of policy statements that say we want more people to cycle to the train stations But historically cycle rates have been pretty low One out of every hundred train riders will bike to the train or even less So my research was talking about how that can be translated one of the big things is How we what how many cyclists we plan for at the stations if we plan for say, um You know one percent of station access maybe that means we build 50 Bike parking spaces through the station, but if those become full Then we've run out of space and we haven't provisioned for more bike parking It's very difficult because you're building structures out of exactly right So so this is an example of what you're talking about. They built the tunnel slightly wider Yeah, who's accommodates uh this bicycle infrastructure And how's the lighting here? The lighting yeah, oh, there are there are lights at night. Oh, there it is. Yeah and um They actually took advantage of Another aspect of the lrt which is that they need to be able to get maintenance vehicles into the stations Uh, so this doubles as a maintenance vehicle access road Which is why it's so wide that is super smart. Yes And why it's so well cleared because they need to be able to get maintenance vehicles in here quickly at all times Yeah, all right anytime But yeah, we just rode under, um, Ottawa's busiest highway the 417 without really noticing at all We got a little bit of noise, but couldn't see the cars and Now we're past it. That was it. Wow. Okay, so so next this is this is one of the lrt stations And they've they've now dug under For most of the way uh in the the city center. They put the lrt in a tunnel Yes, so it's it's actually a cross between a natural Uh type and that lrt Yeah, um and and Ottawa actually leveraged Uh a smart decision Uh somewhere in the 80s or 70s when they were looking at rapid transit they built Uh instead of an lrt they built a bus rapid transit network Right, which involved a lot of grade separations and dedicated roadways With that bus rapid transit was built with the infrastructure that could be converted to lrt in the future So now that we're out of downtown where the tunnel was new A lot of these bridges and this this is actually the old route of the bus rapid transit. So All of the land was already in place And a lot of the bridges were already in place that made it easier for this project to happen So this is a bit of a narrower section here Uh this is probably one of the bridges that wasn't rebuilt. Uh-huh and we are going over. What is this river? Ottawa river? This is the Rideau river Rideau river So on this bridge you see a bit more right if you have a pedestrian going one way then You're gonna have to close up and if you have pedestrians going both ways then it becomes a real complex point, right? Yeah, our effective width is probably less than three meters. Yeah, we've got this big fence on our left and the concrete there in the right, so Things to think about. Um Could you tell us a bit more about the the train station that we're headed to? So the station that we're going to is uh, there's all the trains on the Quebec Uh to Windsor corridor. So all the trains that go to Toronto the trains that go to Montreal Go there some of them. Some of them skip Ottawa, but a lot of train traffic. Yep Uh So do you see a lot of bikes being parked out there? Uh, you know, they've got a couple racks up front, but uh, there's no significant investment in High-quality bike parking there So I imagine it's not a ton of people that bike to the station Right Like there was a bike sharing solution in the city then that would probably open the door so more people to Easily access the station that way Are there difficult things spring in this type of multi They would call multi-use trail that this type of trailway into the the north american context. I mean, uh, it's it's really just a separated Asphalt the right path, right? So what's what's so difficult about implementing this style of bicycle infrastructure here And selling it as a commuter room as a bicycle highway instead of just a great question Yeah, uh, it really just takes proper planning and integration with other processes if uh for example The city is renewing a bridge reconstructing a bridge someone has to be there Some plan has to be there that says we have a plan for a future Pathway under this bridge and then at that time of that decision The right money will be set aside to widen that bridge to the right amount, right? Ottawa was lucky in that the LRT project led to Uh significant amount of new infrastructure so they could capitalize on all those investments happening at once But you really need a forward-thinking plan and integration through all the processes to get this kind of infrastructure one of the biggest barriers that I see in, um Ontario and this is probably pretty common across north america. The provincial or state level Uh government controls a lot of the highways And is very protective of how the highways are used and highways Everywhere can act as a huge barrier to walking and cycling right either you are going over a giant bridge with high speed on ramps mixing with Uh cars that aren't going to yield to you Or uh, you're just not crossing it at all What I'd love to see more of across ontario and other jurisdictions is Um, we're going to go into the right here. Okay Is good proper planning for fully separated bike underpasses biking and walking underpasses or overpasses across highways And how do you get design guidance for that? Does it exist currently? I know the Netherlands they had the whole they published a whole manual on bridges and and tunnels and and there's a established way of best practices Do you know if there's something similar here or is it just experimentation at this point? well, fortunately Our provincial cycling design guidelines the ontario traffic manual book 18 is uh Currently being updated to be aligned with new best practice wonderful and uh There will be a section in that guide about grade separated crossings. Right. It's going to be pretty high level but what it really takes is a commitment from provincial government and pressure from city governments to create this kind of safe infrastructure it should really be uh You know a consideration of every bridge renewal every highway project Is does this make sense as a spot for a dedicated walking and cycling crossing? And then there needs to be money set aside And the Dutch do that so well They're really good at rapid Rapid bridge replacement or rapid underpass construction. Yeah, that doesn't disrupt traffic too much and then creates that separated infrastructure that cyclists benefit from Now Matt you are an engineer by trade, right? Uh, but at some point you you you got your eyes open to this other social science, I'd say or the design way of thinking of looking at bicycle infrastructure What what was the spark in that like how did you become this number of focused engineer? and and how How dominant is that view in the profession versus um, let's say this the softer perspective on on how how humans experience bicycle Structure and how do we like make cities a better place? What level is the awareness right now in your profession? Well, I had always seen cycling as a very pragmatic thing to do. It's right. It's efficient It's environmentally friendly but until I uh Visited Amsterdam in that course. I had never seen it as a very human thing to do and the benefits of having more human focused transportation And uh having more people cycling isn't just exactly that It's uh transformation of how cities operate and how social systems work Uh in a city where most people cycle Social activity happens by bike just like what we're doing right now Uh, so riding side by side and chatting Um, so much of cycling and smaller In cities where it's less common happen alone, which I think is quite sad When there's so much opportunity to do it together So we are here at the train station. Yeah, it's just to the right. Let's go to the right. Uh, let's just go over there Okay, and uh, and with that, uh, we'll go across the lights. We'll head back on the sidewalk, I guess Uh, with that, I think we're we're gonna bring this to an end because we're cold. You have icicles on your beard Oh, I do So you probably put a face cover back on Um All right, so can you uh, uh, let's get down here on the left. We're gonna go around to the right So with that, uh, can you tell people where they can find you on the internet? Oh, yes, I'm on twitter. Uh-huh at at matt kinder one. Yeah, and I also have a blog That's called www.beyondtheautomobile.ca. Yeah, and I write about uh I write about the next level of thinking when it comes to cycling infrastructure and big ideas and transportation And then uh, I also work for also planning and design. We have our Canadian office right here in Ottawa Canada And uh, I'm dedicated my career to creating the next level of cycling infrastructure and And uh, city building in Canada. Well, Matt, hey, I believe you have a train to catch so good luck on that, eh? Safe travels