Two great Letters to the Editor in today’s paper. Both of them criticize the recent disastrous bike lane fiasco. Great couple of lines in the one letter: “People do not support bike lanes that are built on major arterial roads and are then not used. They do not support the $500,000 wasted on this project. The whole active transportation vision (or hallucination) needs an overhaul. “ Perfectly said. The other letter correctly suggests that: “Taxpayers do not like seeing their tax dollars spent on hare-brained schemes with minimal social value.“ Well, I hope that Kitchener City Council read those letters because Catherine Thompson reports on Page A5 that the city wants to spend $24 Million over the next 10 years on a “…network of ‘city spines’ of 141 kilometres of cycling facilities, including top-quality bikeways and off-road paths that connect major destinations, such as workplaces, shops, schools, transit stations and parks.” What? 141KM of trails within the city core? Where? The map provided in the article is basically useless. I even got my magnifying glass and still couldn’t figure it out. But wait – just how can the City justify spending this kind or real money on bike lanes? Well, this plan “…would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, limit wear and tear and demand on roads, increase physical activity and recreation options, and make the city a more desirable place to live” dontcha know. What’s missing from this article is how much taxes would go up for this – but hey, that’s just silly to bring costs into this considering all of the wonderful benefits… (cough). But Thompson does try to add a small bit of perspective when she suggests: “That’s an ambitious goal: today, the vast majority — 85.5 per cent — of all local trips are by car. Another 7.3 per cent of trips are by transit, 5.4 per cent on foot and just 1.2 per cent by bike.” Right 1.2% of all trips are by bikes. So, I guess they want to take a Field of Dreams approach – build it and they will come. Ridiculous. I hope city council takes a long hard look at this and does the right thing – dumps this daft idea in the ditch where it belongs. One problem with grand plans like this is that the stated objectives are usually never realized. But more importantly, there is never any consequences to horrific mistakes by our elected officials. In 10 years, I’ll bet that most of Kitchener City Council will be gone and what council will ever go back and audit projects to see if taxpayer’s money was properly spent. If they did, then maybe their little pet project won’t get funded if past projects prove to be a bust. Pathetic. People are stupid. I blame our educational system.
