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Alberta Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen says he is concerned about “constructing bike lanes at the expense of road capacity”
The Danielle Smith government and Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek look to be on a collision course over bike lanes
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Finally.
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Finally a politician daring to speak about bike lanes, separated bike lanes, the one city policy you cannot question, the most sacred cow at a Calgary city hall of many sacred cows.
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Criticize a single bike lane or even look into the plan for a new bike lane and the cycling activists will go ballistic and head to social media and have a temper tantrum where you will be painted as the worst kind of human being, if they acknowledge you are a human being at all.
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Pose a puzzler about anything else in city hall plans but not bike lanes.
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Noon News Roundup
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Even when city surveys show bike lanes are not a high priority for Calgarians it doesn’t matter.
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If you’re poking around for answers about bike lanes you probably drive and in city hall’s screwed-up estimation you are mean to Mother Earth and cyclists are nice to Mother Earth so you don’t count.
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Devin Dreeshen is riding herd on the transportation file in Premier Danielle Smith’s government.
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You may recall Dreeshen recently sent a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s crowd in Ottawa.
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He was going after them for their monumentally idiotic idea of forcing electric vehicles on people so, in 10 years, the only new vehicles sold in Canada will be electric.
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I believe Dreeshen said the Liberal brainwave is lunacy.
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Well, Dreeshen also sent a letter to Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek on another itch needing scratching. It is dated June 27.
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In the letter, the Smith government point man on roads is concerned.
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He is concerned about “constructing bike lanes at the expense of road capacity.”
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Dreeshen says his department is “working to ensure Alberta’s roads meet evolving transportation needs.”
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Translation. Cities are growing big-time and that equals more vehicles on the road.
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“We need to seriously consider how to maintain adequate capacity for motor vehicle traffic flow for current and future traffic needs, not reducing capacity.”
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Dreeshen adds he is also concerned where “taxpayer dollars are used to shrink rather than increase road capacity for vehicles.”
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The province’s roads boss wants to meet with Gondek this summer.
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A television report says Gondek sent Dreeshen a reply Wednesday. Dreeshen has not received the mayor’s letter yet.
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The Gondek letter says what city hall tries to do is listen to Calgarians and look at their “movement patterns whether they’re on two wheels, whether they’re walking or whether they’re in a vehicle.”
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This is Grade A baloney.
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Bike lanes were pushed because we were told the city needed bike lanes, the more, the merrier, because it would make Calgary more world-class. It would be cool. A few people mentioned we could be more like hipster Portland.
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Some advocates saw Calgary becoming the Amsterdam or Copenhagen of North America.
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Put in bike lanes and lots of them and those bike lanes would be jam-packed with cyclists.
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Build them, they will come.
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Cyclists here, cyclists there, cyclists everywhere.
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When the city “consulted” Calgarians on bike lanes, it was like when you were a kid and your parents “consulted” with you before shoving that ugly-tasting cough syrup down your throat.
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Stop whining, bike lanes are good for you.
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Originally, there were a few bike lanes put in on a try-it-out basis. The idea barely made its way through council. There was pushback.
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But Calgarians paying attention knew how this movie was going to end.
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There was absolutely no way city hall would decide anything but bike lanes were a roaring success. The paper-shufflers and activists and think-alike politicians could fill in the score before the game was played.
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The lanes became permanent. More lanes went in. More lanes are planned. All of them are seen as roaring successes.
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According to one report, the dough for new bike lanes will come out of $56 million green-lighted by the worst city council in Calgary history.
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Of course, it should come as no surprise city hall bigshots are not overly interested in having someone audit which bike lanes work and which don’t, which planned bike lanes are needed and which aren’t.
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You know, doing their job.
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Dan McLean is one councillor who is already slimed on social media so the rage of cyclists will be water off a duck’s back to him.
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McLean wants to take a deep dive into the locations of bike lanes, the use of bike lanes. He wants to see the numbers.
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McLean says he gets angry when he sees city crews rushing to clean off bike lanes in the depths of a freezing winter with not a cyclist in sight.
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The pull-no-punches councillor is not against bike lanes in principle but, in his no-nonsense way, he sums up his feelings.
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“I don’t hate all bike lanes, I just hate most bike lanes.”
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