Paul's 'Wheeling and Walking' blog - Active Transportation - April edition
Hello out there in cycling land, the recent spring weather is getting gravel-, road-, MTB-, strider-, and all other bikers out and excited! I wanted to share some recent advocacy work that Bike Cochrane has been doing, in order to get a better sense of how Bike Cochrane is assessing our infrastructure, and how we’re trying to improve it for all active transportation users.
With the recent town purchase (still in process) of the Horse Creek Sports Park land, and the ongoing Park master plan of that space, Bike Cochrane analyzed some of the changes in cycling and pedestrian patterns that this work will cause. With a future RVS high school coming onto this site (likely 6-8 years away according to our RVS trustee), there will a shift in kids biking to school that will mean you’ll see high school students from our largest neighbourhood (Sunset Ridge) needing to get across highway 22 at a higher elevation and a few km north of the main intersection. If this issue isn’t addressed, we see the potential for ‘kids playing Frogger’ across the highway. This is in addition to those students from Heartland/Heritage Hills who would be trying to get to St Tim’s Catholic High School.
So, the rough order of looking at active transportation for us at Bike Cochrane is to take a high-level view at the destinations and originations of travelers (in this case high school students in Cochrane). Then, look at the present plans that will change how our traffic infrastructure serves our population (in this case the upcoming Hwy 1A/22 intersection super project that will close access across the highway 22 to pedestrians and cyclists). Then, assess any other impacts from town planning (see present budget, 10 year and 3 year capital projects planning). Then, look at other affected constituencies (in this case, the potential for a recreation corridor between Horse Creek Sports Park and the north part of Cochrane, the potential to connect the Ag Society along with the Ranche House Park, the Horse Creek Park, and the communities on the north side of highway 1A). Finally, consider who the decision-makers and involved parties are for this piece of infrastructure. In this case this consists of AB Transportation who is doing the project, the town of Cochrane who is the biggest impacted party, Rocky View Schools since it’s their students, Cochrane’s Parks and Rec committee who is driving most of our parks planning, Town of Cochrane’s Infrastructure Department, and Cochrane’s Community Development and Planning Department.
The approach then is to research the issue, call out the concern (lack of ability to safely travel across highway 22 on the north side post hwy 1A/22 project), engage, meet with, speak to, convince, and advocate to the people who matter - AB Transportation, Town of Cochrane infrastructure, Town of Cochrane planning, our mayor and council, our Parks and Rec committee, our MLA, Rocky View Schools, and then move to a position where the issue is being addressed and worked on.
As you can see, it’s a lot of ‘behind the scenes’ work where Bike Cochrane is trying to make our community better connected for wheeling and walking (where 62% of you said this is your biggest issue for Bike Cochrane to work on). This is completely volunteer energy and time driving these initiatives, but it’s only through this work that our town gets better. In almost all cases of meeting with public officials and planners, NO ONE was aware of this potential challenge once the 1A/22 project is complete. If you’re interested in working on projects like this, please email me at paul@bikecochrane.com, and please continue to support Bike Cochrane through a membership and/or purchasing cool gear like our upcoming cycle kit and new hats!
See information about the 1A/22 proposed pedestrian underpass below. Thanks for reading!
