有声报纸 - 温哥华走路上班人数北美仅次于纽约

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文章有点长，不过是身边的事情。



[mp3]http://www.voiceprintcanada.com/audio/57901.mp3[/mp3]

More city residents legging it to work

Vancouver bucking trend toward more cars on streets

More people in Vancouver walk to work than anywhere in North America except New York City.
The proportion of people commuting by bicycle has doubled in 10 years.
And the transit system, with triple the number of people using it to go to the University of B.C. since 1997 thanks to U-Pass, has become so popular that it's in danger of losing passengers because of overcrowding.
That's the latest transportation picture for Vancouver, a city that is setting the standard as North America's "greenest" city as it bucks the trend to more cars, roads and traffic that prevails elsewhere.
Vancouver has already exceeded the goals it had for 2021 when it comes to reducing car trips and promoting cycling and walking, a shift that environmentalists and planners say will to reduce pollution and create more livable cities.
"Our projection for 2021 [for the downtown peninsula] was to be at 18 per cent for all biking and walking trips. We're now at 27 to 32 per cent, as of 2004. This does not look very ambitious any more," says Lon LaClaire, Vancouver's strategic transportation planning engineer, the co-author of a report outlining the city's progress on its transportation plan.
That's largely because of the city's hugely successful development of a residential downtown, he said.
Having 72,000 people living on the downtown peninsula surrounding the central business district is a major reason for that radical increase in walking and cycling.
"There are two things that affect how people get around -- land use and structure. The bigger piece is probably the land use."
The city has also doubled the number of kilometres of cycling routes in the past 10 years and worked on ways to make walking more enjoyable.
But people outside Vancouver's boundaries are also choosing not to bring their cars.
Although trips to the city have increased by 23 per cent between 1995 and 2005, vehicle traffic decreased by 10 per cent across Vancouver boundaries in the same period.
The just-released statistics in the city report come from trip diaries, surveys and 24-hour road counts done mostly in 2004.
All of that is in stark contrast to most of the United States. The U.S. Department of Transportation noted recently that "the private vehicle, especially driven alone to work, is the mode of choice. ... In every major metro area, workers who drove alone to work increased in numbers and share in the last 40 years."
The one problem area for Vancouver is central Broadway, where drivers in cars still account for 50 per cent of all trips. That's partly because the transit connections between the city's two major office hubs -- Broadway and downtown -- are so bad. It's also because transit along Broadway is at capacity.
"We're hitting the wall," said LaClaire. "There's no more capacity in the system for them to get on."
More than 60,000 people use the Broadway buses every day and passengers are getting left at stops because buses are so crowded, even though they're running at one a minute.
LaClaire said the Broadway/Commercial transit hub is the city's biggest congestion problem, with the result that transit use has dropped off slightly in the past year because some people are giving up.

"It's a really tragic thing for us. Anywhere else, carrying that number of people would be on [light rapid transit]."
The extension of the Millennium SkyTrain line from Vancouver Community College to Granville Street had been a priority for TransLink and was originally scheduled to be done by this year.
But it was bumped for the Richmond-to-downtown Canada Line and the proposed light rail line into Coquitlam, Port Moody and Port Coquitlam.
LaClaire said some of the Broadway problems will be relieved by the Canada Line, which will create a fast link from Broadway to downtown. But, LaClaire said, the extension to Granville has to be a priority.
His department plans to set new transportation targets for 2031, since it has already achieved most of what it planned to do by 2021.
COMMUTER GIVES UP CAR
Cornelia von Schellwitz strides steadily up the rise on Burrard Street from Pacific Boulevard shortly after 10 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, travel mug in one hand, folder in another, and a pack on her back.
The Kitsilano resident is 25 minutes into her daily commute to her office at Davie and Burrard, where she works as a software developer.
Von Schellwitz is just one of steady stream of walkers and cyclists heading north on Burrard this morning -- the new Vancouverites who have abandoned cars and even transit as their preferred modes of getting around.
"I just love it," says von Schellwitz, as she pauses briefly. "I have a car, but I'm selling it because I hardly use it."
Until two years ago, she didn't walk to work. She rode her bike to an office in Gastown, something she found convenient and safe because of city improvements such as the Seventh Avenue bikeway and the bike lanes on the Cambie Bridge.
Now, she prefers to walk because her office is closer and Burrard Bridge feels too scary for cycling.
"I would never bike across Burrard. I find it too dangerous."
And she doesn't use transit, even when it's raining, because the connections are so complicated from her home. Instead, she puts on good rain gear.
Her choices reflect what Vancouver transportation planners are seeing in their statistics.
People walk if housing is close to their jobs. They won't use transit if it's more complicated than other possibilities. And they'll cycle if they feel safe.
"There almost seems to be an absolute correlation between the growth in bike routes and the number of cyclists," says transportation engineer Lon LaClaire. The length of city bike routes has doubled in 10 years; so has the proportion of cyclists, with more than 2,700 a day commuting into downtown Vancouver.
-- Frances Bula
FAR FROM THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED
Researchers investigate the busiest blocks for pedestrian traffic in Vancouver and preferred methods of travelling in the city. Studies find that more Vancouver residents walk to work than in any other Canadian city.

BUSIEST BLOCKS
A 2002 study flagged these among the downtown spots with the highest number of observed pedestrians between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. and 6 p.m.:
- Robson, Burrard to Granville
- Hornby, Robson to Pender
- Alberni, Bute to Burrard
- Howe, Dunsmuir to Cordova
- Robson, Denman to Broughton
- Davie, Hornby to Granville
- Pender, Carrall to Main
- Burrard, Davie to Comox
- Granville, Davie to Smithe
- Pender, Bute to Granville
- Seymour, Pender to Cordova
- Hastings, Burrard to Homer
- Smithe, Hornby to Granville
CITY VS. REGION
In 2004, researchers looked at what means of conveyance were used in a 24-hour period of time.
MADE FOR WALKING
% of those going to work who walked

下雨天

走路上班好啊,锻炼身体

FCH

Post by 下雨天
走路上班好啊,锻炼身体

主要取决于主要商业区的住宅发展。downtown的高层住宅挺多的，景色又好，所以那里的白领估计就选择安居了。