BCSEA E-News: The Elephant in Transportation's Living Room

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Published on Thursday, 11 December 2014 12:44

Written by editor

BCSEA E-News for Wednesday, December 10, 2014
The Elephant in Transportation's Living Room

ByThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., BCSEA Founder and Communication Director

AN URGENT CALL FOR ENGAGEMENT

Heads up! This is an urgent call for submissions to the Province’s 10-Year Transportation Plan, for which the deadline is in two days, on Friday, December 12th at 4pm.

The Ministry is actively seeking our engagement. The website is engage.gov.bc.ca/transportationplan but before you go there, consider these facts:

• This is a plan for the next ten years of transportation in BC by land, sea and air.
• BC has a legislated goal to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 33% by 2020, halfway through the new 10-Year Plan.
• Transportation is the single biggest source of emissions in BC.
• Reducing those emissions is not in the Plan’s priorities.

Maintaining roads and bridges is clearly important: even electric cars and trucks need safe highways and side roads. The sense you get from the plan, however, is that this is all that matters.

The Plan has four priorities:

1. Moving goods and people safely and reliably
2. Growing the economy
3. Connecting and strengthening communities
4. Maximizing collaboration and investment with various partners.

NOTHING ON THE CLIMATE CRISIS

There is no mention of a fifth urgent priority: to tackle the global climate crisis. No mention of the need to electrify cars, light trucks, buses and railways, and to establish a province-wide network of EV charging stations. No mention of the reduced cancer, heart and lung disease that will come with the end of air pollution.

There is no mention of the need to build a research partnership to develop the next generation of zero-carbon 18-wheelers. Norway is building the world’s first electric car ferry, but there is no mention that BC Ferries might engage on the same path.

Climate change is the elephant in the Transportation Plan’s living room. It casts a shadow over everything, but the proposed Plan completely fails to address it except as a small side-event for bikes and transit, as if cyclists and transit users alone must bear the weight of solving the problem.

With the climate crisis being so noticeably absent, there is no mention of policies that could reduce the 23 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions that transportation produces every year, such as an increased carbon tax, road pricing, or distance-based insurance.

When you fill in the survey, you will not find a box where you can rank these concerns: you’ll need to spell it out in words.

NOTHING ON LIVABLE COMMUNITIES

There is also no mention of the connection between transportation and livable communities. Tim Roberts, one of our leaders in the BCSEA Victoria Chapter, has suggested that the entire Ministry be renamed the Ministry of Transportation and Livable Communities, since the connection is so strong.

In many European cities there is a tight integration between transportation planning and livability, with thought being given to the way trucking, rail, transit, light rail transit, cycling and car-free pedestrian spaces can contribute—or not—to safe, friendly neighbourhoods and a happy life. Electric cargo-bikes, for instance, can contribute to urban goods delivery, recycling and garbage collection, reducing the danger, noise and diesel pollution that trucks create.

Nobody is denying the value and importance of safe roads and bridges, but this needs to be a plan for the 2020s, not the 1960s.

NOW - SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS!

Public engagement lies at the heart of democracy, and the Ministry is openly inviting your thoughts. We applaud their initiative in reaching out. But so far only 9,000 people have completed the survey, just 0.2% of BC’s population.

You have until 4pm on Friday afternoon (December 12th) to respond to the survey and share your thoughts.

Here’s the website: engage.gov.bc.ca/transportationplan and here’s the direct email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. It will take about ten minutes of your time to complete between now and Friday afternoon.

http://www.bcsea.org/elephant-transportation%E2%80%99s-living-room

E-news image courtesy of Vancouver Sun