Halifax Active Transportation

[LikesBikes]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Part of the problem, as I see it, is the "us vs them" mentality. Your first sentence displays it, labelling anybody who isn't 'rah-rah' over cycling on city streets as "anti-bike". This mentality is happening all over society these days, and it is not productive.


There are a group of people who aren't "anti-bike", but do look at the situation pragmatically. They see infrastructure as a finite resource and want to see it used most efficiently. They also see a fraction (~25%?) of road surfaces that have bicycle infrastructure installed being used by very few cyclists (by anecdotal observations) relative to the number of cars, motorcycles, buses, trucks that compete for the same space and wonder whether this is the best use of the infrastructure. This makes it more difficult and less efficient for the majority who use those methods (and, subsequently has a negative effect on climate change by causing motor vehicles to operate less efficiently... i.e. idling in traffic jams).

I'm not "anti-bike" by any sense of the term, and I have been supportive of bicycle infrastructure from the start, but lately I have wondered whether it's the best use of our resources to transport people in an efficient manner. After all this time I still see very few cyclists using the infrastructure and am starting to wonder whether "build it and they will come" is actually a realistic expectation.

IMHO, our city leaders have failed us in not planning for and providing an efficient transit system (i.e. combination of buses, trains, underground, etc.), and have jumped upon the popularity wagon of wanting to be viewed as being trend-setters, while ignoring the needs of the majority of the citizens. Again, IMHO, you take care of the core travellers first with excellent transit, which would naturally reduce car traffic, then you can effectively invest in great, separated, bicycle infrastructure (rather than simple painted lines that disappear in the rain and snow, and eventually wear off leaving unfamiliar people wondering what to do).

Tired of the "anti-bike" label, and the dumbed-down tribalism that seems to completely envelop this entire topic.

Has Halifax actually even tried implementing bike infrastructure though? There's like 3 protected bike lanes on the peninsula and each one is disconnected from the other. Halifax is behind every other major Canadian city I can think of in terms of AT infrastructure yet our urban structure should be able to support a greater number of cyclists than other cities due to the dense urban core of the city.

I'm sick of having to hear the same anti-bike arguments on here when I would think anyone who's spent any time at all thinking about transportation would recognize cars aren't the solution to urban travel and instead we need to develop safe and reliable options for walking, biking and transit.

Right now, transit and walking is fine in the core of the city and biking is only for the brave cause of a lack of infrastructure. As people who care about the urbanism of our city (which I would think would be everyone on this forum), I don't see why encouraging a more efficient way of getting around is so controversial.