{"id":2489,"date":"2007-11-15T22:30:13","date_gmt":"2007-11-16T02:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=2489"},"modified":"2013-01-21T13:38:27","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:38:27","slug":"more-convincing-needed-budget-committee-backs-down-from-commitment-to-fund-bikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/15\/more-convincing-needed-budget-committee-backs-down-from-commitment-to-fund-bikes\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget committee backs down from funding bikes"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

We asked<\/a> and asked<\/a>. They listened<\/a> (Councillor Perks did, anyway). But, alas, the Star reported this morning “Bike plan hits funding wall<\/a>“:<\/p>\n

The city’s chronic shortage of money has killed a move to add almost $18 million to complete an ambitious bike plan by 2012.<\/em><\/p>\n

City council’s budget committee voted only to support the project in principle, with a report to come later on whether it’s affordable without cancelling other important projects.<\/em><\/p>\n

The city’s 2008 capital budget allocates $5.5 million next year for bike lanes, but that should be raised to $7.7 million, said Franz Hartmann, executive director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance.<\/em><\/p>\n

Councillor Gord Perks’ bid to add $17.9 million to the bike plan between 2009 and 2012 ran into opposition on the budget committee.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I don’t want to increase the budget by $17 million right now,” said Councillor Shelley Carroll, the budget committee chair.<\/em><\/p>\n

The bike plan called for 230 kilometres of bike lanes by last year. Instead, only about 70 kilometres have been created.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr. Hartmann is right — the Transportation budget for bikes should be at $7.7 illion for the City to meet it’s own targets. It is also worth pointing out that Mayor Miller promised $6.2 million<\/a> for the bike budget when he was campaigning in 2006.<\/p>\n

Councillor Perks’<\/a> motion was not to add new monies — it was to move the money allotted to the 2013-2017 time frame for almost all of the trails and pathways projects forward to the 2008-2012 budget schedule. This should make sense since the City says<\/em> it is going to complete the Bike Plan by 2012.<\/p>\n

But I don’t believe the City of Toronto’s Bike Plan is “ambitious”, as the Star states. The plan calls for just under 400 km of on-street bike lanes to be built — but only 70 km currently exist. Chicago has just released a truly ambitious bike plan<\/a> and <\/a>currently<\/a> has about 315 km on-street lanes (not to mention their fabulous bike station<\/a>). New York <\/a>currently has 790 km, including the bouroughs.<\/p>\n

The City has not even come close to keeping pace with the Bike Plan. This year the City promised to hit the easy target of 27 kilometres<\/a> for new on-street bike lanes. We current have 7.5 km, including the brand new one on the Queensway and the sharrows on Lansdowne (to be detailed in another Star story on Friday.)<\/p>\n

Properly funding the Bike Plan will only have positive effects for Toronto — it will mitigate the problems of traffic congestion, poor air quality, over-capacity transit, cyclists injuries and deaths, as well as the costly burden on our health-care system because of all these things. Instead of allocating a few million more dollars a year to the Bike Plan the spends a wasteful amount on much less useful capital projects such as the straightening the Dufferin Jog at Queen near the Gladstone (estimated at $33 million in this local paper<\/a>, although there are rumours that the price tag is closer to $100 million) or the infamous Front Street Extension<\/a> (an estimated $50 million is held in lieu for the project)?<\/p>\n

So, what next?<\/p>\n

The Budget schedule<\/a> shows that the wrap up meeting is next Wednesday, November 21st. The Executive Committee is to approve it on November 26th, and then it is all finalized on December 11th.<\/p>\n

There is still time to apply pressure on the Budget<\/a> and Executive Committees<\/a> to adequately fund the City’s own plans for implementing an entirely reasonable amount of bike infrastructure, in an entirely reasonable amount of time (the deadline for the Bike Plan was was quietly extended for one-year with the City’s climate change plan<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I spoke to Councillor Perks today and he was optimistic that there is still a chance to get his plan back on the agenda via the Executive Committee.<\/a><\/p>\n

A few things you can do:<\/p>\n

• contact your local councillor<\/a> and ask them to support funding for completion of the entire <\/em>Bike Plan
\n• contact the Executive Committee<\/a> <\/strong>if you want them to up the funding for bikes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We asked and asked. They listened (Councillor Perks did, anyway). But, alas, the Star reported this morning “Bike plan hits funding wall“: The city’s chronic shortage of money has killed a move to add almost $18 million to complete an ambitious bike plan by 2012. City council’s budget committee voted only to support the projectContinue reading “Budget committee backs down from funding bikes”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,13,47,2,9],"tags":[235,4309,976,431,756,408,23,4171,5134,352,3559,3256,1434,426,657,469,21,316,1276,405,19,329,391],"class_list":["post-2489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bikes","category-green-space","category-parks","category-politics","category-traffic","tag-bike-infrastructure","tag-budget-committee","tag-chair","tag-chicago","tag-city-council","tag-councillor","tag-environment","tag-executive","tag-executive-committee","tag-executive-director","tag-franz-hartmann","tag-gord-perks","tag-local-councillor","tag-mayor","tag-miller","tag-new-york","tag-other-cities","tag-queen","tag-shelley-carroll","tag-the-star","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-environmental-alliance","tag-usd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBudget committee backs down from funding bikes - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/15\/more-convincing-needed-budget-committee-backs-down-from-commitment-to-fund-bikes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Budget committee backs down from funding bikes - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We asked and asked. They listened (Councillor Perks did, anyway). But, alas, the Star reported this morning “Bike plan hits funding wall“: The city’s chronic shortage of money has killed a move to add almost $18 million to complete an ambitious bike plan by 2012. 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