As Toronto cyclists push and push for more funding to help the city realize its own goal of 1000 km on bikelanes, other cities are leaving us in the dust.
Last fall, Toronto cyclists wrote to their city councillors in support of increasing the 2006 budget for cycling facilities in the city from $1.5 to $3.0 million (the Bikeplan originally budgeted $6.0 for 2006).
Meanwhile, over in London, cycling has been extremely popular ever since the bombings last July 7th (although people have returned to public transit).
After a decade of stagnation in the number of bicycle journeys, new figures show there has been a dramatic leap in commuters and leisure cyclists focused on Britain’s cities and the burgeoning network of cycle routes. In London, trips by bike have increased by 50 per cent in five years to 450,000 per day.
This rising popularity of cycling is producing some political influence – funding for cycling facilities is way up in London:
Investment in cycling increased from £5.5m in 2000 to £24m in 2006-07. The projected budget for 2009-2010 is £30m, by which time there will be 560 miles of dedicated cycle paths across the capital, compared to 310 miles currently.
In case you’re wondering, the £24 million London is spending is roughly equal to $49 million CDN. We’re spending $3 million here. The fact that London is bigger than Toronto should be taken into account – it has roughly (~2.5M and ~7.5M) 3 times as many people as us… so if we were spending on their level we’d be spending about $16 million this year (1/3 of $49 million).
There, I’m done with the math. I guess the best thing we can do is do whatever we can to get more cyclists on the roads… to create some political influence.
