ARNO S.: Why the negativity? People riding bikes are a big part of the solution. By building safe cycling infrastructure, more people will ride bikes. This means less people driving or taking transit, which means less congestion and crowding. However, people cycling offer way more benefits to society, like less noise and pollution, improved health, a more vibrant and livable city. For all this, $7 million is super cheap. Note that recent research from UBC shows that each kilometre driven costs society $0.56 while each km cycled creates a $0.15 benefit to society. Cycling is a money tree. What's not to like?
ANDREW CHOBANIUK: Because the benefits of cycling are fringe at best when talking about the whole picture of transportation in Vancouver yet they seem to get all the focus and hubbub. The biggest single difference that can be made to help congestion is more transit service. But even that still leaves places like the North Shore stuck using infrastructure that was built in the '30s and '50s. It's 2016 and the North Shore is growing faster than bike lanes, buses, bridges and roads can keep up. Cycling is great, but it can't solve the region's transportation problems.
CAJREIMER: I support the bike thing. That said, I believe the increase in the number of new North Shore dwelling units with at least one vehicle is growing faster than the number of dwelling units relying on only a bicycle or transit for all transportation. Perhaps non-vehicle trips are increasing as a percentage but not as a raw number - and that's the count that matters. I believe the increase in vehicle traffic congestion on the North Shore is far off-setting the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the use of transit and bikes. Sadly, no one has or is planning to collect data in the near future to make any evidence-based decisions so we just keep on building, which makes matters even worse. If we had a sold plan for improving transit to/from the North Shore, I'd have hope; but we don't have a plan or funding.
BOB PUTNAM Traffic on the North Shore is bad. Barely a day goes by where it takes less than 45 minutes to get from West Van to Second Narrows at about 3:00 PM. 40,000 people are moving to Metro Vancouver every year so do you think it's going to get worse? The transit referendum was a farce. The fact that Christy Clark deferred a critical decision like transit funding to the people of B.C. shows weak leadership. We know that the public is very bad at making decisions that are in their best interest. She should have said, "This is a transit plan that the region needs, here's how it's funded, 0.5 per cent tax." End of story.
