LETTER TO THE EDITOR — Another excuse from city

Opinion

Thank you for highlighting the disappointment and betrayal felt by cyclists after being left out of the 26th Street reconstruction (“Cyclists let down by 26th Street plan,” June 12).

Despite many rounds of consultation, including on larger active-transportation objectives, the city has chosen once again to stick its head in the sand and make no changes to the status quo.

I’ve lost count of the number of excuses I’ve heard from city council and city staff on why bikes and pedestrians can’t be accommodated in this or that project, despite millions of dollars being spent on asphalt, concrete and infrastructure for cars and trucks.

But this latest excuse — the “absence of a thorough and adopted active transportation network study” — is the most disingenuous yet. We don’t have a streetlight strategic plan, yet I see those everywhere.

And of course, there are decades of plans, secondary plans and policies available on the city’s website calling for bike lanes and active transportation paths. The most prominent is perhaps the Greenspace Master Plan, approved in 2015 with a 20-year horizon, featuring detailed proposals for a complete network of trails criss-crossing the city, including, yes, on 26th Street. This network was reaffirmed in the 2019 Recreation and Community Facilities Master Plan and portions of it in various neighbourhood secondary plans ever since.

None of this fantasy has ever been built.

Most recently, the new City Plan, adopted after exhaustive public consultation, requires the city to “design streets that accommodate all modes of transportation” and specifically suggests reducing parking on 26th Street. (For the record, I think we should keep street parking, but slim the street to a single lane of traffic each way, making room for bikes, scooters and motorized wheelchairs.)

Some point to J.R. Reid School as requiring special vehicle access that would prevent a bike lane, but this is nonsense. The extensive bike racks at Maryland Park School are overflowing, showing that kids will bike when there’s even a bare minimum of safe paths to use. And comparable vehicle traffic at École New Era School shows that parents do just fine with single-lane streets for drop-off and pickup if they do need to drive.

Cities around the world and across the country — from Calgary to Copenhagen, and from Paris to Portage la Prairie — have found that bike lanes can spark an urban transformation if you build a complete network that lets people choose how they get where they need to go. Our 1990s-era recreational perimeter path does not cut it.

Luckily, installing bike lanes can be cheap and easy. A few planters, flexposts or precast concrete curbs will open up new possibilities for people to discover how quick and comfortable it can be to bike through Brandon.

Change can be scary. But we elect councillors to be courageous. Get it done.

GRANT HAMILTON

Brandon