OUR RESPONSIBILITY
‘Time to find ways to encourage repeople to be more active in transportation’
Climate change is a global issue, but reducing a city’s environmental footprint starts with the individual.
Climate change is a global issue, but reducing a city’s environmental footprint starts with the individual.
Transportation causes the highest levels of greenhouse gas emissions in the province, so finding ways to reduce those emissions will help achieve a cleaner future, said Eddie Oldfield, CEO of Spatial Quest – a company whose mission is to build healthier, resilient, smart energy communities.
Oldfield was one of the guest speakers who addressed a group of about 40 residents at a community energy speaker session held at City Hall in Charlottetown last week.
It’s time to find ways to encourage residents to be more active in transportation, Oldfield said during an interview with The Guardian following his presentation.
“That means not just changing behaviours, but municipalities building the infrastructure that makes it safe to be on your bike, or to take transit, that makes it amenable and accessible and affordable for residents.”
During a question period, an avid biker said the bike lane situation in the city, and on the Hillsborough Bridge, needs improvement.
Charlottetown Mayor Clifford Lee agrees.
In an interview following the meeting, Lee said the city has been “doing a lot of good things” over the past couple of years in regards to bike routes in Charlottetown.
“We need to continue to do more than that,” he said. “I think that we get it, it just takes time, quite honestly. You need to make these changes in such a way that you’re not changing everything drastically at one time because it needs to be supported by the community.”
The mayor also said that Charlottetown, Stratford and the province have announced that when the sewer system is connected from Stratford to Charlottetown, the Hillsborough Bridge will be widened to accommodate bike lanes.
As for public transportation, Lee said there is room for change.
Charlottetown has been working with the towns of Cornwall and Stratford on the transit system, to ensure it is servicing the areas of the city that it needs to service, he said.
“You can’t start a transit
“That means not just changing behaviours, but municipalities building the infrastructure that makes it safe to be on your bike, or to take transit, that makes it amenable and accessible and affordable for residents.” Eddie Oldfield
system and allow it to become stagnant, because people move, new people move into the neighbourhoods, new neighbourhoods develop, so we need to, I think, do a better job managing our transit system.”
Another thing Lee said he’s like to see the city explore is solar panels on residents’ homes.
He said the city might be able to bulk purchase a large number of those solar panels.
“If someone wanted them installed, the city would organize a bulk installation to keep the costs as low as reasonably possible,” he said, adding a similar project took place in Halifax and was successful, and said he thinks it’s also a “golden opportunity” for the City of Charlottetown.
The city, through financial support from the Canadian Federation of Municipalities, as well as contributions from Maritime Electric and Efficiency P.E.I., has developed a community greenhouse gas emission program that involves three components.
The first is developing a community-wide greenhouse gas inventory for Charlottetown; the second and third are setting a target for emissions reductions and developing a local action plan that will help reach that target.
“Phase I of our project is complete and we have developed our community emissions inventory, which gives us an understanding of what will need to be addressed in our local action plan.”
This public meeting and an information session at the Charlottetown Public Library were part of Phase II, the community consultation phase.