This is a brief rant.
I like to ride my bike.
That’s not the rant, it’s something I like.
I live in the Niagara Region. Again, not the rant.
The Niagara Region positions itself as a great place for cycling vacations (in the summer they managed to get GO Transit trains, equipped with bike lockup areas, to come right to Niagara Falls, so people could bring their bikes and ride around). Environmentally friendly, let’s all get the kids together and ride.
Right.
For years, now, the Regional government has had a policy on adding bike lanes to new roads. This is a policy they have consistently ignored. Even when pressured, and when they’ve said “oh, yes, we’ll honour that policy” by the end of the construction, no new bike lanes are there. Who audits these things?
That’s pretty shitty, let’s not fool ourselves. But what’s worse is the haphazard way that bike lanes have been introduced. You’ll be riding down a road, dodging cars that seem to have an uneven understanding of the need to share the road. Then, suddenly, with little fanfare, there is a nicely paved section, with bike lanes. Then, suddenly, with no warning, the lanes end.
What the hell?
Which genius in planning thinks that this is in any way useful? What, are we supposed to walk until we get to a bike-laned area, then ride, then walk?
The worst part about all of this is the message it sends to drivers. I don’t mind riding on the road without lanes. No worries; I think that the more cyclists who do that, the more drivers will realize that we need to share the road. Or at least they’ll get used to us. But with bike lanes unstrategically placed along parts of roads, the suggestion is that this area is where bikes are permitted to be, but other areas are not for cyclists. You then get very un-bike-friendly behaviour from drivers, like driving too close, or moving over right after passing a bike, so that, when the car slows down, the bike is edged into that lovely part of the edge of the road full of grit and broken glass. Nice.
Of course, it’s not just random drivers. Every time a cyclist rides on the sidewalk (coward) they are reinforcing the idea that the roads are for cars. They are also endangering pedestrians.
The ironic other problem is that planners seem to like to make planning changes appear to be about pitting cyclists against pedestrians. They argue that you either have good sized sidewalks, for people including those in those little electric scooters, or you have bike lanes. To have anything else, the implication is, would be to limit the size of car lanes, and that, of course, would be the first step towards anarchy.
It’s a car-centred approach to planning. This is the heart of the problem. As long as planning is car-centred, the safest and easiest option will be the car. As long as the safest and easiest option will be the car, development will continue to spread, because getting a mile away is not a big deal when you have a car. Hospitals, arenas, other facilities that should be accessible to everyone, will be accessible only to the people who have cars. John Stuart Mill referred to this sort of thinking as the “tyranny of the majority.” Those without such access, are left out completely. Usually, these people are of lower income, who normally would need to access the publicly-funded facilities (because they can’t afford private ones).
Rant over.
