2 THE VOICE, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2011 EDITOR CELINA ALBANY ews & features OY Trt ALANNA HARDING-ROONEY photos Clockwise from left: Cyclists make their way over the Burrard Street Bridge, into the Hornby Street bike lane, and back over the bridge. Bike lanes have become a hot-button issue in the Vancouver civic election thanks to comments made by NPA candidate Suzanne Anton. Bike lanes drive controversy Some students say they’re worth the money; others say use the roads By ALANNA HARDINGE-ROONEY angara student Tomoe Yoshihara says Vancouver should keep all its down- town bike lanes. In fact, he says the city should expand the 400-kilometre network. “T think the city can save a lot of tion. She made her announcement af- ter some down- town merchants complained that modifications to city streets have hurt their bottom didate Suzanne Anton has vowed to halt construction of new bike lanes and review existing ones if she wins the November civic elec- was justified. we really need bike routes,” he said. “Just go on the side roads if you want to go somewhere.” Brar, whose fa- ther owns a restau- rant, sympathized with business own- ers along the down- the city spent on the Hornby bike lane “From my perspective, I don’t think money and devel- op a lot of new businesses by en- couraging sustain- able — transporta- tion,” said Yoshihara, who volunteers at the Langara Students’ Union bike shop. He said bicycles put far less “wear and tear” on roads than cars, thereby offering a financially and envi- ronmentally friendly alternative. Bike lanes have become an issue in the Nov. 19 Vancouver civic election. Non-Partisan Association mayoral can- TOMOE YOSHIHARA Likes lanes. lines. That has put some Langara stu- dents on opposites sides of the debate. For Yoshihara, it’s a safety issue. “If it’s just a strip of paint, that doesn’t offer me a lot of personal secu- rity, it doesn’t offer a feeling of security and safety,” he said. But science student Gurjit Brar, who rides his bike to Langara every day along 47th Avenue and Manitoba Street, doesn’t think the $3.2 million GURJIT BRAR Science student town bike lanes who, according to an independent study commis- sioned by the City CYCLING in the city HE Cycling is the fastest growing method of travel in the city. HE Approximately 60,000 trips are made on a bike every day. ANDRES GUERRA Anthropology ME More than 3,500 student. cyclists commute downtown to work every day. of Vancouver, lost $480,000 over one year. Anthropology student Andres Guer- ra uses the downtown bike lanes regu- HE About four per cent of daily commuting trips are made by bike. larly and thinks they’re worth the cost. “I think there should be more bike Source: City of Vancouver lanes and more bike culture,” he said. “Encourage people to use their bikes more.” Online vote a matter of cost — LSU Continued from page 1 inclined to vote,” said Cutler. Voter apathy at Langara is not a new problem, Langara political sci- ence instructor Stephen Phillips said. But changing the voting system sug- gests there is a convenience cost to voting. This is hardly a problem at Langara as voting boxes are “just me- tres away,” said Phillips. Instead, the problem is a poor un- derstanding of how voting connects public policy and personal life. Stu- dents are required to pay dues to the student union, yet they don’t show an interest in how that money will be spent, which is the problem, he said. “TOnline voting] addresses a symp- tom, not a cause,” said Phillips. “[It] reduces voting to the level of an online poll, it cheapens the act.” UBC has been using an online sys- tem for student elections for several years. Voter turnout is consistently higher than it was before online vot- ing; 33 percent of UBC undergradu- ates cast a ballot in the March 2011 referendum. The Union of BC Municipalities re- cently voted to ask the province to lay the groundwork for online voting in municipal elections. The UBCM said they would like online voting to be an option within three years for jurisdic- tions like Vancouver or Surrey. The final decision comes down to cost, said LSU media liaison Eli Zbar. “This would likely require the atten- tion of paid staff for as long as three weeks. Right now our costs are pretty much just photocopying.” Zbar said an improved social media presence will be key to any effort to increase student political participa- tion. He cited friends at UBC who reg- ularly post easy-to-follow links to stu- dent elections. U-Pass: So far so good — TransLink Changes made to the way transit passes are made available to student are “working out quite well” By LYNDA CHAPPLE Pass program this past September are a success, says TransLink, the company that implemented them. Last March, 97 per cent of Langara College students voted in the new U- Pass program which introduced a new mechanism for the way passes are dis- tributed. They are now made available each month through three dispensing machines located throughout the cam- pus. Previously the passes were made available by mail. The changes were made in hopes of avoiding revenue losses due to lost, sto- len or sold passes, but they brought some challenges. “It was a learning curve for the first few weeks but now things are going very smoothly,” said Raymond Yeung, U-Pass Coordinator for Langara. “Peo- ple have been accepting of the changes and responding quite well.” The Provincial government made changes to what was previously called the Vancity U-Pass program. Ten other post-secondary institu- tions in the Lower Mainland now use the same system. They represent 125,000 students, said TransLink spokesman Ken Hardie. That is up from 80,000 last year. “The new changes are working out quite well and things settled in very quickly,” said Hardie. Some students are finding the new system challenging. “T would prefer once you enrolled for one semester I shouldn’t have to go back every month, that should be enough,” said Heather Johnson, a third-year environmental student. But others like it. It is “really good for students,” said student Zhing Xia, “it reduces the costs.” Yeung recognizes that, but says im- provements can be made. He says swo far it has been “a new process for ev- eryone.” For example, complaints have been made about the paper-based card each student is issued. Yeung says he has heard of people who have put it through the wash, but suggested students pick up a free sleeve for their pass at the bookstore. Hardie hopes that by 2013 TransLink will have a new “compass card” in place, which will house a chip on the student card. That will enable students to carry just one card for identification, library and transportation. U-Pass Crs made to the college’s U- CARLISLE RICHARDS photo Emily Poulin swipes her Langara ID. to get her monthly U-Pass.