Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss - F. Scott Fitzgerald

North Service Road at King Road

It's just a small, insignificant stretch of roadway in an isolated part of the city.

Probably no more that 200 meters, maybe less. The North Service Road at the King Road intersection was resurfaced but bike lanes or paved shoulders weren't added.  They weren't even considered.  According to the city, the contractor forgot to put down the edge line but according to mavens at city hall, this will be rectified - soon.
You might say it doesn't really matter.  It won't make cycling safer in Burlington.  It won't add appreciably to the bike lane total in Burlington.  It won't impact the demand for cycling infrastructure in Burlington. And bike lanes on out-of-the-way North Service Road have nothing to do with bike lanes on important streets such as Lakeshore Road, Walkers, Guelph Line, etc.

Or do they????

Debased subway cars, ailing city

I first visited New York City in the late seventies to catch an inexpensive flight to Europe after graduation.  The New York that greeted me was an unnerving place.  Buildings were abandoned and boarded up.  Subways were strewn with graffiti - on their windows, ceilings, seats and floors.  When you rode the subways, the lights kept going off randomly for indeterminate periods.  You could forget visiting Central Park even in the daylight.  It was eye opening and I thought I'd never go back.  In the seventies a million people left New York City and it was on the verge of bankruptcy.

We've been back at least 10 times in the past 5 years!  Today's New York is exhilarating, vibrant and exciting.  The reason for the dramatic renaissance can be found in Malcolm Gladwell's thought provoking piece in the Tipping Point on the "broken window hypothesis."   Gladwell tells us the small things matter!  A policy of benign neglect in an isolated part of the city has adverse implications for the entire city.  In New York, the simple act of keeping subway cars clean, encouraged people to care about their city and this small transformation eventually led to reduced crime rates and a higher quality of life.

The little things count!

In 2011, Burlington missed opportunities, choosing not to include paved shoulders on North Shore Boulevard through LaSalle Park and on resurfaced sections of the North Service Road as well.  When questioned, the response was that bike lanes "were not there originally."  Another time worn excuse was that it "wasn't in the cycling master plan."  In 2013, foregoing bike lanes on Townsend Road is another example.

As Gladwell and the data points out, despite the political rhetoric, if you can't be bothered to fix the broken windows, you won't improve the city.  If you can be bothered to put bike lanes on smaller stretches of roadway, then the bigger more important roads such as Lakeshore Road won't get done as well!

The small things really do matter!

Cycling ... therapy for the mind. LSR an opportunity lost!

We all know cycling is good for your health, our environment and economics.  In a much earlier post, I observed that if the drug companies could put all the benefits of cycling into a pill, they would be fabulously wealthy.

The New England Journal of Medicine posted a video showing the dramatic influence of cycling on those with Parkinsons.  The first portion of the video is incredibly difficult to watch, painful!  The 58 year old man, suffers the classic symptoms known as "freezing gait," a shuffling unbalanced attempt at walking.

However, on his bicycle he shows no evidence of Parkinsons.

Quoting from the article in Atlantic Cities, "These experiments on bicycling and brain function, along with other studies about the connection between exercise, mood, and concentration, are clearly in their early stages. But they raise profound questions about the way our preferred mode of transportation affects our cognition and mood.

What effect has our dependence on the automobile had on our collective mental health? What role does passive transportation play in mood and attention disorders, especially for children? What therapeutic effects could a shift to more active transportation modes have for people who suffer from these disorders? What are the social costs of an environment that enforces auto dependence? Does cycling have special benefits that other exercise modes don’t?"

Not only does cycling help your physical health, it aids your mental health as well.  

Of course, bike lanes on Lakeshore Road are not a panacea for health issues, but they were one vital step in building a connected bike network in Burlington that was lost when council rejected the proposal.  Studies from around the world indicate, if you add bike lanes, more people use them.  Maybe some of the people who live in the condos on LSR would get out on their bikes if they realised how good it is for them.