September 19th, 2006

Mayor rides slowly on cycling plans

Posted by Zach Slootsky

mayorbike

Mayor David Miller’s campaign webpage includes a forum called ‘Ask The Mayor‘. One question in the Q & A section caught my eye. Linda Labelle asked:

“As a resident of Toronto for most of my life there is still a lack of road routes for cyclists. The news has reported that by 2008 there will be an influx of an additional 2.3 million people in the GTA. When will the Mayor of Toronto begin to address the population explosion of this city and increase paths for cyclists and encourage people to use bicycles?”

Good question. Since the last election, I haven’t seen any major changes to the way I bike in the city. Sure, there are some new bike lanes and a new mobility hub, but are these small changes enough to show us the mayor is really committed to cycling in Toronto? Apparently he has been doing a lot of planning. From the mayor’s response:

“I’ve always been a strong believer that bicycling is an essential part of Toronto’s transportation strategy. That’s why we have developed the Toronto Bike Plan

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One of the keys to promoting cycling is to give people a safe place to ride. Currently, Toronto has 90 KM of bike lanes, and the Bike Plan calls for 1000 KM to be built by 2011.

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We’ve started a number of pilot projects — like putting bike racks on the front of buses, and increasing the amount of transit parking in front of subway stations — to encourage people to combine cycling with transit. In fact, next year the bicycle infrastructure budget will double to $ 6.2 million. For as long as I am Mayor of Toronto we will continue to pursue an aggressive bicycle promotion strategy.”

Doubling the budget is great, and the Bike Plan is a good start, but we need to see some progress now. When my girlfriend asks me why my clothes are on the floor in our apartment, I almost never get away with saying, “oh, I was planning to pick them up.” Even if I told her that I had allocated twice the time next week to picking up clothes, she would still grill me on the lack of progress so far. The mayor shouldn’t get away with anything less than what we want: results.

What is clear through Miller’s actions (and clearer than through my domestic inaction) is that the mayor cares about this issue and is trying. He is laying the foundation for some pretty impressive changes to the way we bike in the city. He is making us a promise that things will get better if we continue to stick with him. What we need to ask ourselves is, “do we trust him?“