Cycling residents sick of being smog victims, says CfSC

For immediate release: Thursday June 14, 2001

Cycling residents are sick of being smog victims, says cycling advocates

It's no coincidence that the first day of the Ottawa Growth Summit happened on a major smog alert day, according to Citizens for Safe Cycling President Alayne McGregor.

"As Ottawa continues to increase the number of cars on its roads, it's inevitable the air quality will get worse, since in this area car traffic is the main contributor to smog. If we don't use the opportunity of this summit to rethink our transportation system to seriously promote more practical, inexpensive, and environmentally-friendly transportation including cycling, walking, light rail, and buses, more residents are going to suffer serious health problems, and some residents will die."

McGregor pointed out that more than two-thirds of the cars she passed as she cycled downtown to the Summit this morning had only one person in the car. "If motorists drove bicycles instead, took the bus, or shared a car, the air quality improvement would be substantial."

Interestingly enough, she said, a 1999 study by the California Air Resources Board showed that exposure to some air pollutants may be 10 times higher inside vehicles than outside. People who think they're escaping smog by driving are not only poisoning others but also themselves.

McGregor objects to City of Ottawa brochures which urge children to stay indoors on smog days. "Why should healthy children be deprived of the everyday exercise they get by cycling to school, and that they require to stay healthy? I can't imagine a worse situation than parents driving their children to school on smoggy days."

"Cycling residents are sick of being victims every time there is a smog alert. The City needs to start seriously promoting cycling as inexpensive, healthy and everyday transportation and smog prevention."

In contrast to the millions of dollars being spent on encouraging greater car use by new and widening roads, the City of Ottawa spends only $40,000 a year on its city-wide cycling safety and promotion program. And the city has not yet installed even a single bicycle rack this year at the many city parks and facilities that have no place to park a bicycle.

In contrast, $350,000 is proposed to be spent on just the study of a ring road, with tens of millions of dollars required to actually build it. Literature distributed for the Growth Summit shows that bad air costs an estimated $600M in hospital costs and $560M in lost productivity per year. According to the Ministry of Environment and Ontario Medical Association, smog is responsible for at least 1800 deaths in Ontario every year and it may be as high 6000 deaths.

"As taxpayers, we can't afford these costs any longer. We have to move to a more efficient transportation system with lower costs, based on combining cycling, walking, and public transit."

CfSC called on Mayor Chiarelli to demonstrate strong leadership to seriously promote cycling instead of developing roads to accommodate growing numbers of single occupant, smog-causing cars. Mayor Chiarelli has stated that he considers it unacceptable for Ottawa to have any bad air days.

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For further information contact:

Alayne McGregor, CfSC President
(613) 722-4454

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