In Feb., after a tedious 90 minutes debate at the Committee level, new bike lanes for Appleby and Walkers, an investment of $45,000, were approved with a provision to re-examine the efficacy of the bike lanes in 2 years.
The bike lanes will go ahead but not before the ugly debate reared it head again at the Council level and was narrowly defeated by a 4-3 vote. To those 3 councillors goes the Doubting Thomas award.
Studies have shown that if you build it, cyclists will use it. The better you build it the greater the number of cyclists that will use it.
"Rutgers researcher John Pucher - he studies what seems like common sense in transportation, and then makes it sound good.
Studying bike lanes in 90 or the 100 largest American cities, Pucher and collaborater Ralph Buehl used Pearson’s correlation, bivariate quartile analysis, and two different types of regressions to measure the relationship between more and longer bike lanes and quantity of cyclists.
Their conclusion: cities with a greater supply of bike lanes have more bike commuters. And according to the researchers, that correlation exists even when controlling for things like land use, climate, socioeconomics, gas prices, public transport supply, and cycling safety."
A 2009 study found that bike lanes work. In Portland, Oregon Professor Dill found that although only 8% of the city streets have bike lanes, 51% of the trips were taken on them.
Bike lanes on Walkers and Appleby were first discussed in 2007. It shouldn't take 5 years to pass a $45,000 investment that will result in traffic calming, slower speeds and safer roads for cyclists and pedestrians. Let's get them done already.
Thank you to Mayor Golding and councillors Dennison, Craven and Lancaster for realising the logic in staff's recommendation and getting the original proposal passed!
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