Relax, car culture, it's gonna be OK

TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image

Bomber fans Nolan Colby (from left), Devon Ward, Derek Yuel and Jarrod Miller, in line for Bicycle Valet at the stadium.

Winnipeg has a car culture. Members are guaranteed the right to drive all day, every day, anywhere they please and be assured of cheap, convenient, no-hassle parking when they get there.

It is a time-honored culture that has given rise to sprawling suburbs and streets full of single-occupant vehicles that often gather in mall parking lots to forage and, sometimes, to mate.

But this culture has recently come under attack. The new Blue Bombers stadium, which will seat 33,000 fans, will have only 7,100 available parking spaces.

Naturally, the culture is fighting back. Its very survival is at stake. Through community meeting, blogs and letters to the editor, this unprovoked attack has been condemned as a Parking Armageddon that will turn the streets around the U of M stadium site into our own version of the Gaza Strip.

Well, meet Bicycle Valet Winnipeg founder David Wieser, a gentle, easy-going man who just wants people to step back, take a deep breath, and repeat to themselves: It’s going to be OK.

He’s not a zealot. He owns a car. The day I interviewed him, he had driven his car from his home in the West End to his job at 17 Wing. He rides his bike as often as he can because he enjoys it and it saves him a ton of money — about $100 a month, he estimates.

He is determined, not to eradicate the car culture, but to help it adapt. And he is a very determined man.

When he was 19, he weighed 350 pounds. He can name the exact date that he decided that was going to change: June 21, 1991.

"I overheard my mom talking about how easily my dad could lose weight. I decided to see if I could do that, too. I skipped dinner, went to bed at 7 p.m., got up at 5 a.m. and walked for an hour."

Wieser quietly did that every day for a year.

"I didn’t tell anyone I was doing it. Then there were no expectations." He fulfilled his own expectations, though, getting down to a fit 200 pounds.

He has applied that same determination to other projects over the years. And his latest project is Bicycle Valet Winnipeg.

Bomber fans entering Gate 6 at the old stadium have surely seen him and his crew checking in and keeping watch over racks full of bikes.

The 100-200 bikes corralled there mean 50 to 100 fewer cars are prowling around the stadium looking for a place where they can shell out 10 bucks for the privilege of parking.

And the best part is, Bicycle Valet doesn’t even use a motorized vehicle to get the racks to the stadium.

"They are hauled to sites on a bike trailer being pulled by a bike," Wieser says.

It’s a pretty slick operation for a service whose first official event was just last year, for Bike to Work Day. Then, they used the same crowd control fencing as was used for the Queen’s visit to Winnipeg, but over the winter, Wieser built his own lighter, more portable racks out of EMT tubing. Each rack is about three metres long and can accommodate six to eight bikes. Wieser built 51 himself and bought six more for 57 in total meaning Bicycle Valet can accommodate more than 400 bikes at a big event.

So, how does that solve the parking problems at the new stadium?

Well, it doesn’t. Not by a long shot. Not by itself, anyway.

But Wieser has it all worked out. Suppose Mr. and/or Mrs. Bomber fan rediscover that they have a back seat in their vehicle and invite a couple of other fans to ride with them. Suddenly those 7,100 parking spaces can accommodate 28,400 fans. All we need are a few thousand bus riders and a few hundred bike riders, and we’re set.

It works in San Francisco. There were the same dire predictions of Parking Armageddon when AT&T Park was being planned. But it hasn’t worked out that way. More than half of the fans at a Giants game don’t drive there. In fact, it was watching a Bike to the Future video about San Francisco at streetfilms.org that inspired Wieser to start Bicycle Valet in Winnipeg.

"This is the best way to get to a game," one two-wheeled fan gushes in the video. "You save 20 bucks and save 20 years off your life," he adds, turning to show the slogan on the back of his T-Shirt: One Less Car.

That’s what Wieser wants to see in Winnipeg.

Yes, San Francisco is warmer than Winnipeg. Yes San Francisco has rapid transit. But a guy can dream, can’t he?

Besides, you don’t change a culture overnight. You do it one early morning walk at a time. You do it one less car at a time.

— By David Connors, a downtown dweller