Waterloo Region Concerned Cyclists

Documents

Cycling meeting minutes Oct 17, 2006

1. Summary action on bike parking in Kitchener: Summary of our meeting in January 2006 with City of Kitchener staff. Decided participation at the meeting of the City of Kitchener Environmental Committee on Oct. 19, 2006 (posthoc Note: our delegation obtained significant information on the implementation of some of our requests and a commitment of the committee to addressing cycling issues in the future at that meeting)

2. Bike parking Waterloo: Given the early stages of our actions in Kitchener, we would like to focus our efforts on Kitchener now and apply everything we learned in a later action for Waterloo.

3. Santa Clause parade: A number of local environmental groups are joining together to entera float (treehuggers) in the Santa Claus parade. Decided participation and distributing handouts with "10 tips for drivers" (to respect cyclists) and our website or the new flyer we want to develop for promoting our group (see 5).

4. Website improvement: We all agreed that we need to make more use and promote better our website. Suggestions included a "Guide for new students in Waterloo" to help new people getting around on their bikes, better advertising for the cycling listserv, possibly with a way for people to register for the listserv online on our website, adding minutes of meetings with City staff, relevant reports, such as the City collision report from last year as well as the Kitchener Bikeway study 1998, more links to the site.

5. Action plan 2006/2007: In addition to the items above, bicycle theft and the need for more community work to ensure consistent member numbers (given the flux of students who leave university) were mentioned. Possible solutions: a more dynamic website (petitions?), promoting the listserv and website through the distribution of flyers.

6. Date of next meeting: The approximate date of the next meeting was set for November 15, 2006, in order to allow for preparation for the Santa Claus parade.

Agenda Meeting Jan 18, 2005

1. Share information gathered from cities and region on who to contact for cycling issues.

2. What gaps remain in information

3. How to make information available to cyclists

4. Any additional items

Cycling meeting minutes - Dec. 8, 2004

1. Information-gathering: A preliminary list of maps and contacts at the region and the three cities has been gathered to call when a cyclist has an issue or concern. Key services:

Once all the information has been gathered, we will make it available in print form and hopefully on a website.

2.Winter cycling: Received a request from the Record to hear from cyclists who ride in the winter. We would like to work together on keeping the road conditions safe for cycling through the winter. If someone encounters a problem, please let others know about it as well as calling the city/region (as appropriate) -- this will be easier once we have our contact list complete.

3. Accidents: Follow up with the region on their annual vehicle collision report to find out 1) what is the recommended procedure for cyclists to report accidents? and 2) can the list of intersections with collisions be prepared with cycling-specific information? This will help us know where the dangerous areas of the region are for cyclists.

4. Next meeting: Tuesday, January 18th, 5 pm, WPIRG office, University of Waterloo

Details on the region's collision report for 2004

1. The only categories of analysis that mention cycling are the Number of Collisions Involving Bicyclists (130) and Cyclist Age Group with the Highest Number of Collisions (this year, it is 16 to 19).

2. Although the vehicle collision data note which types of collisions are most common and which are most likely to cause serious injury or death, the collision information for collisions involving cyclists does not. Similarly, for vehicle collisions, the report notes how many resulted in fatal injury, personal injury, and property damage, but not for cycling.

3. The report lists the top 100 intersections where traffic accidents happened, but does not list the top intersections where collisions involving cyclists occurred.

4. The report claims that 68% of cyclists involved in collisions were riding improperly. This is consistent with the Kitchener report but at significant odds with most similar reports from other Canadian cities and elsewhere. Likely the reports are compiled from the same set of police reports, with the region reporting on regional roads and the city on municipal/local roads.

5. Of the 68% of cyclists riding "improperly" most (38% of total cyclists) were riding on the sidewalk or in a crosswalk.

6. Bizarrely, 15% of cyclists in collisions failed to yield right of way. No explanations for any of these categories are provided. This category might be explained by the common police interpretation that if a cyclist is moving on the right hand side of a vehicle, they are in the wrong. (I have two anecdotal cases of this charge laid in this situation).

7. And then 10% disobeyed traffic control. Together these three categories account for almost all of the collisions involving cyclists.

8. The ages of the cyclists involved in the collisions are noted per item, but not the age of the driver involved.

9. Two cyclists "had been drinking" but none of those involved in collisions were impaired. 15% were reported to be "inattentive."

10. There were 109 pedestrian collisions and, as with the cycling collisions, most involved children or teenagers (49 of the 130 cyclists in collisions were 19 or under; 31 of the 109 pedestrians in collisions were 19 or under, most 10 to 15). I point this out as a key commonality as children are more likely to ride (and to be encouraged/told to ride) their bikes on the sidewalk, so many of those cycling collisions are in fact pedestrian collisions. Since most (47%) of pedestrians were crossing at lights with the right of way when hit, it suggests the bigger issue here is drivers not looking or not stopping before making turns into crosswalks. It's just that a "pedestrian" is in the right when this happens while a "cyclist" (even if only 10 years old) is not.