Bike Lobbyists Control City Hall: BENN
If a community association asks for a pedestrian crosswalk, the standard response from the city is that staff will have to commission a study, which could take years percolate to the top of the list, due to limited resources.
The objective of the study is to determine if there are enough warrant points to establish the concept as a priority. The warrant points are based, in part, on the number of pedestrians, vehicles and lines of sight. All this is to create a somewhat arbitrary quantification of the potential for dangerous interactions.
Having established the ‘need’ for a crosswalk or crossover, it will likely take a number of years to come to fruition. Total elapsed time for what is essentially a applying a couple of pails of white paint to the asphalt, is easily five to 10 years.
In contrast, a previous city council passed a resolution that effectively states that a bike lane can be added as part of a traffic-calming measure with no study to establish an equivalent set of warrant points. No need to determine how many cyclists use the proposed route.
A city policy based on “if we build it they will come”. The bike lane might be only a couple of hundred metres long and lack connections at one or both ends to another bike lane or pathway. A classic example of what then-mayoral candidate Catherine McKenney in 2022 called stranded bike lanes. They cost to connect these stranded bike lanes was cited as a quarter of a billion dollars. City policy is to add to the inventory of stranded bike lanes, not connect the existing ones.
A 2024 on-line survey for a traffic-calming study in Centrepointe had a response rate of more than 100 per cent of those who self-identified as living on Centrepointe Drive. The local community association asked College Ward Councillor Laine Johnson about this, citing an on-line city-wide call-to-action from a bike-lane promoter to respond to a similar on-line survey for a community in the east end.
In essence this call-to-action was to ask cyclists from across the city to respond to the on-line survey to ensure that the bike-lane element was overwhelmingly supported. Johnson’s response skirted around the fundamental questions and totally ignored the question about the legitimacy of on-line surveys.
All of which is to say that the bike lobbyists have taken control of city hall, and both council and staff are more than happy to enable this type of influence.
Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.
For You:
X: Council Doubles Down On Dumb: PATTON
Functional, Ethical City Government Ends: QUOTABLE
City Council, Staff Just Pathetic: BENN
Bookmark The Bulldog, click here
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
So kinda like Lansdowne … if you build it, they will come .. or not but, hey, it’s only our money.
I bike to work, I was hit twice on a moderate road. Once the bike lane was introduced on my commute (that same road) my safety was increased dramatically. The drivers, myself included when I drove on that road, were suddenly aware of the need to be more cautious with speed and when turning. Vehicle traffic capacity was not reduced as there was enough room for the lane. The bike racks at work suddenly was no longer sufficient for the added bikes, about a 50% increase in bikes) I think everyone wins with bike lanes, the health system, air quality, congestion, noise…etc.
While I share Benn’s frustration over how long it takes to achieve a pedestrian crossing, it is not the fault of cyclists. Adding a bike lane to an already approved road project is easy – it is a simple add-on. Getting Council to loosen the purse strings for pedestrian crossings (involving infrastructure for signals – not cheap) is harder as each crossing costs $250,000 or more. The comparison is apples and oranges.
As a teenager I bicycled on the streets of East York, being careful to watch for potholes, sewer grates, and doors opening on cars paralleled parked to my right. At age 54 I spent my summer bicycling from Vancouver to St. John’s. Hence I consider myself an ardent and knowledgeable cyclist. It saddens me to see the bad behaviour that Ottawa’s cyclists display and that the bicycle lobby chooses to ignore. If the lobby wants cycling to become safer in the city then council must ask lobbyists for the following in return: no bicycling on any sidewalk, all cyclists must wear a helmet, have a mirror on their helmet or bicycle handles, have a horn or bell on bicycle handles, drive in single file when using public roads, etc. The city would earn a great deal of revenue by imposing these by-laws while making our streets safer. The city already has a number of police officers who patrol the city on bicycles so adding more officers and additional bicycles would not be an unmanageable financial burden.
Alex, I agree with your assessment of the cost of a signalized cross over. However, a simple cross walk at an intersection involves a couple of buckets of white paint and perhaps a warning sign facing each oncoming traffic lane. Toss in the cost of an overstaffed city work crew.
As it relates to bike lanes, I beg to differ. Deciding to put in a bike lane should require a lot more analysis (e.g. warrant study) than “council said we should”. Which takes me back to my original premise, which is the bike lobby has the ears of council.
Which is why the provincial government decided to require municipalities to get explicit permission to install bike lanes that remove a lane for motor vehicles. The reason for this ‘invasive’ legislation is that municipal councils were not insisting on objective analysis of the consequences (impeding emergency vehicles, impact on deliveries to stores/offices, general congestion) of the decision to convert a motor vehicle lane to a cyclists only lane.
I have always believed that every cycle lane should be safe for a 7 year old little girl to bike on. I have no objections to bike lanes built to co-exist with roads, but not to replace them. The focus must be on safe cycling, not on cycling on every road. I am ok with certain side roads having bike lanes, but no thoroughfares like Bank Street – you simply cannot make it safe. I have also seen the Huntmar road widening have organized bike lobbyists attend the meeting to advocate not widening the road, but to have 2 double bike lanes put in so that cyclists can ride side by side, which is absurd.