Jack Becker- Profile

Jack (Hans-Jurgen)  has been keenly involved for two decades searching for better solutions for people wanting to cycle from on-the street practical solutions to visions for cycling, policies, and strategies  — sometimes as a consultant, sometimes as an advocate.

He is actively involved in the promotion of cycling for transportation, which includes cycling combined with transit and public transportation.  Jack spends his efforts focusing on the role of human behavior influencing successful infrastructure design, social marketing of cycling, and network design and infrastructure design toolkits.  He expresses his passion for cycling through his business involvement and by his support for cities to become  very liveable, vibrant, sustainable, and green with balanced transportation options, accessible by all without artificial barriers.

Jack’s focus continuous to be on urban and rural cycling infrastructures and environments that would appeal to motorists to cycle instead for their next trip and on bringing European cycling thinking and designs to British Columbia, including combined mobility of cycling with all forms of public transportation.

For Jack, cycling for transportation is a marketable product such as cars and common household products are.  For him, the target markets for cycling for transportation are cyclists and, more importantly, are the drivers of today who could be influenced to consider using other modes of transportation instead.  The target customers include motorists, people who cycle occasionally, and students whose future modes of transportation could be influenced early in their life.   Jack feels that cycling for transportation should be marketed with vigour using the same marketing product development methodologies as any other consumer product along with marketing sales campaign strategies.

His philosophy for cycling growth is that first comes the implementation of quality cycling infrastructure and cycling networks to the liking of potential cyclists who are currently motorists followed by strong social marketing campaigns selling the concept of cycling and combining transit with cycling.  If marketing comes too early, then “cyclists turnover” will happen and it will take years to persuade these people to give cycling another try.  Cyclists’ visibility, quality design toolkits, intersection designs, separation of cyclists and motorists, trip time, clear wayfinding, combined mobility, and vigorous social marketing will lead to significant cycling traffic and cycling mode share growth.  He strongly believes that cycling is one of the options for moving towards vibrant, liveable, environmental sustainable, and green communities.

As Conference Chair and Director, Jack was active in planning the Velo-city Global 2012 Conference held in Vancouver in June 2012.   He is also President of the Third Wave Cycling Group Inc., a cycling planning and consulting organization and formerly President of VeloWorks Cycling Society  that focuses on cycling education and promotion through conferences and other forums.

Jack is a Director and Past President of the British Columbia Cycling Coalition, founding member of the Sustainable Transportation Coalition and Canada Bikes, and director of Bike to Work BC.  Past involvement included being a director of The Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition and member of the City of Vancouver Bicycle Advisory Committee (the HUB),  the Vancouver & UBC Area Transit Plan Stakeholder Group, BC Trails Strategy Stakeholders Committee, and the Stanley Park Restoration Stakeholders Committee.   When he lived in Toronto, he was the co-chair of the Toronto Cycling Committee for 5 years.

Jack has spearheaded cycling-centric development of a city-wide network plan that included trail systems along rail and electrical transmission corridors. He has authored submissions on cycling for the Canada Line, The Gateway Project, and the City of Vancouver Capital Plan.  He has lectured on traffic redistribution, the “third wave” of cycling, and other cycling-related topics at universities and conferences, in Canada, US, Spain, Taiwan and China.

Jack’s diverse career includes transportation of goods, procurement, and engineering with experience in program management, strategic and tactical planning, business process development, large contract negotiations,  truck fleet operations, and construction engineering for a major Canadian oil company before changing gears to cycling infrastructure planning.  He has a B. Sc. in Civil Engineering (University of  Toronto) and MBA (York University).  Parallel to this work, he was also a farmer for a decade in Ontario.

For two decades, cycling has been Jack’s primary mode of urban transportation.  He is also a long distance touring cyclist.

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