Cyclists attack Regional policy paper which downgrades cycling

For immediate release: Friday, April 10, 1997

Local cycling residents are expected to come out in force to attack a Regional policy paper on cycling at a public meeting tonight, starting at 7 p.m. in the Colonel By Room at RMOC headquarters, 111 Lisgar Street. Cyclists will argue that the paper is based on false data and ignores major bicycle policy areas like law enforcement, driver education, and public awareness.

The Bicycle Integration paper is one of a series of background policy papers prepared for the RMOC's Transportation Master Plan. The paper's conclusions will eventually be incorporated in the RMOC Official Plan, expected to be approved by next summer. However, Citizens for Safe Cycling (CfSC) contends that this report sets out to deliberately marginalize cycling.

"The Bicycle Integration report will give the RMOC an excuse to do nothing to improve cycling for the next 25 years," said CfSC president Brett Delmage. "The counting of trips made by bicycle was done during the unusually early blizzards of 1995, last November, and obviously seriously misrepresents the number of trips made by bicycle during the year. The report aims for‘growth' in cycling from 1.7% to 3% of all trips to 2021, but another RMOC survey shows that 161,000 trips, or 10% of trips, are already made daily by bicycle during the summer. The RMOC transportation bureaucrats won't have to work very hard to improve cycling and encourage more people to cycle, in order to meet their bogus ‘growth' target. In fact, they could even slash support for cycling, like they tried to do in March of this year, and still claim to increase the number of cycling trips!"

Cyclists are also criticizing the report for ignoring methods such as public "Share the road" campaigns, motorist and cyclist education, and effective enforcement of laws (such as against drunk driving) as measures to improve cycling and encourage more people to use bicycles. Only physical measures such as bike lanes and bike parking are proposed to promote cycling for transportation.

"Eliminating conflicts between all vehicles and bicycle users of the road received the highest share of 'very important' ratings [of five issues for the Transportation Master Plan]", according to the RMOC Consumer Research report, also released in September 1996. According to regional crash statistics, approximately 470 cycling crashes were reported to the police each year in recent years.

"What cyclist or motorist would believe that you can solve all of these conflicts and crashes by only dealing with the road surface and parking, while ignoring the operators of the vehicles?" questioned Delmage, who is a nationally-certified defensive cycling instructor. "This report is negligent in failing to address the need for better police enforcement of traffic laws and better training of cyclists and motorists as an effective measure to improve cycling."

- 30 -

Contact: Citizens for Safe Cycling 722-4454