Nov. 23, 2011 - Issue #840: Battle the world
Vuepoint
Who needs money?
If you were planning to ride your bike to the new arena, you might want to rethink your route. Despite numerous votes over the last two years in support of a Transportation Master Plan that includes an active transportation component, Edmonton City Council has decided not to support those principles financially—at least, not for the next two years. The current budget proposal being debated includes no money for active transportation in 2012 – 2014.
Over the past two years council has improved its stated support of active transportation, starting in 2009 when council approved the Bicycle Transportation Plan, which created a planned network of close to 500 kilometres of bicycle routes. That same year council approved a capital priorities plan directing five percent of the transportation budget to be directed toward active transportation starting in 2012 and extending to 2022. It appears those priorities failed to make it through the initial budgeting process.
While the first phase of the current bicycle transportation plan, which is slated to extend to 2014, calls for what could be considered minimal investment—in areas such as proper signage, promoting and educating Edmontonians on safe cycling and existing routes and increased paint demarcation of multi-use trails—those initiatives require slightly more than the zero dollars currently designated to the plan. It leaves one wondering about the fate of phase two, which requires significant investment in the concurrent expansion of bikeways in new areas.
This lack of financial support just perpetuates a problem city council has had for decades. Despite stating it as a priority, it's somehow believed that plans will just sort of happen—people will just decide to use the trails that exist to get to work. This mind set is what drove the lack of public transportation development for years. Public transportation was known to be an important part of any city, but there was little effort to mirror transporation developments in ever-expanding suburbs, or to discuss later operating hours and consider the expansion of an LRT that was useful only to those who wanted to travel north or south. Now this city has developed and is implementing a transit infrastructure that supports active users of public transit and encourages the option to those who essentially had no useful access to the system. It has cost the city, and the province, millions of dollars, but it will change the way Edmontonians travel across the city, as well as how they interact with their environment. The same thing cannot happen with bicycle commuting unless we put money behind the stated plans.
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