It's been amusing to watch the battle in Calgary between cyclists and motorists. It's actually quite similar to the battle we see daily on the roads, with middle fingers raised in the air and curse words coming from all directions. It's left many (including myself) scratching our heads and asking that all-too-familiar question: "can't we all just get along?"
For those who haven't been watching this whole episode unfold: Calgary is looking to introduce a "cycle track" into the downtown. Yes. An entire lane of traffic being taken out on some pretty important roadways to accommodate cyclists. They will be partitioned off, in theory to make it safer to ride the two-wheeled variety of transportation and decreasing the number of interactions (read: crashes + horn-honking + other forms of vitriol between the two sides) that happen.
The arguments for and against this pilot project (which has been pegged at anywhere from $9-million to $11.6-million) have been pretty vocal. It doesn't seem like many are sitting on the fence on this one. Those who want the project say let the numbers speak for themselves. "If you build it, they will come" has been uttered way too much in the last few weeks. They will say people don't ride their bikes because they don't feel safe and this will fix that problem. On the other side, you have those saying Calgary's a winter wonderland where no one will cycle for six months out of the year. They will cite other bike lanes aren't being used as much as the pro-bikers claim. And they will say the numbers have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with urban sprawl making it virtually impossible for anyone outside a one-mile radius of the downtown to even try to cycle.
And trust me, I'm giving these arguments a "general audience" feel, because to watch the argument on social media would need a PG-13 warning sticker.
We can argue until the cows come home about whether this is going to be a good fit for the downtown. Realistically, all anyone is working with right now is stats and probabilities. No one has any empirical evidence to prove the other side wrong. But there's one undeniable truth in all of this nonsense: getting around downtown Calgary is virtually impossible and SOMETHING needs to be done.
Calgary has the highest parking rates in any Canadian city and is second only to New York in all of North America. Why? Because the market is there for it. People feel the need to drive their vehicles into the core and are willing to shell out ridiculous amounts of money to do it. This sets off a whole bunch of supplemental questions and answers:
Q: Why not take transit?
A: First off, if you have to drive to the transit station (which many do), you better be at the park-and-ride by 6am. Because parking is at a premium. If you're lucky enough to get a spot, then you get to feel like a sardine in a can for the entire trek. And then if there's some sort of outage or trouble downtown, you're stuck in that can for even longer. And don't even get some people started on the bad behaviour/bad smells/bad whatever on the train itself.
Q: Why not live closer to the downtown?
A: Have you seen the prices for living downtown? A young family paying $500,000 or more for a house with a small backyard? And all the talk about "building up" instead of out has many wondering about what might be in their backyard anyways. So why not get into the 'burbs, where you get a little bit of the country with the big city amenities? Plus inner-city schools seem to be few and far between. So families are left with one option, and they will need their vehicles to at least get them to the transit station. Go back to Question #1.
Q: Why not walk/bike to work?
A: Have you been out to the suburbs? It takes 45 minutes to DRIVE into work. Unless you're Lance Armstrong, there's no way you're biking in each day. So forget walking. And oh yeah. There's that little thing called winter that rears its ugly head every year.
So you see, there's a fundamental problem here. Calgary's grown up, grown out and apparently grown impatient. They want a quick fix but don't want to spend a single tax dollar on that fix. Many must think that this deal's still under warranty.
Here's an idea: why hasn't anyone brought up the idea of staggering opening/closing times, like they have for bars and nightclubs? Many think that'll alleviate some of the issues around taxi shortages, bar brawls, etc because of everyone getting booted out at 2am. So let's have some businesses go 10-6 or 7-3. Why not?
Because from what I gather, everyone's trying to find the answer (perhaps mythological) to getting more vehicles off the road. Which is a great idea. But it's naive to think that bike lanes will solve that problem on its own. This is a much bigger discussion than many are making it out to be. And in the process, it's pitted cyclists vs. motorists in a hotly-contested war of words. We need to figure out how to get vehicles, transit, cyclists and pedestrians using all of the means available to them, with the understanding that we live in a cold weather climate. We're not living in Portland, Minnesota, San Francisco, Victoria or any other place. We're living in Calgary. So we'll need to come up with what many politicians will call a "Calgary solution".
This isn't an either/or issue. This is a "strategic planning" issue. We don't necessarily have to get along here. Maybe bike lanes and cycle tracks aren't the answer. But keeping things status quo won't be making things better any time soon either.
