Smitherman is sounding like he's taking a page out former Councillor Case Oates' play book; he is searching for a diplomatic way to delay, or even kill, the implementation of the Bike Plan. Smitherman is also sounding like he is reacting to Rossi rather than being proactive on this issue, as well as on other issues.
If there were truly a 'war on the car' going on, then it sounds like he's asking for a ceasefire; just at the very time that we've making some, albeit slow, progress — Is this because cyclists are actually (being perceived as) a threat?
We are nine years into a ten year plan, but we only have 40% of the infrastructure completed. This year we're expected to get another 30km of trails, and — at most — 30km of new bike lanes approved. We still have 600km to go… A moratorium is not that different than the snail's pace we already have.
In addition, other cities, like Chicago, stole Toronto's Bike Plan and actually started implementing it. Now other cities look around and see Chicago doing stuff with cycling, and they think that the plan actually came from Chicago. Back in 1995 the city of Toronto was a leader in cycling, now we're not even a player with the big boys. Yet we're the ones who invented the Bike Plan that the leading cities are using; we just never got around to doing anything with it.
Year after year City Council has repeatedly decreased and/or suppressed the cycling promotion budget. Is Smitherman looking to put out some short-term propaganda to promote the idea of bike lanes? Or is he earnestly going to promote the idea of year-round urban cycling for transportation, recreation and tourism, including its bike lanes and the rest of the bike plan, with proper and sustained cycling promotion funding?
A plan provides both a goal, or destination, as well as something to deviate from. The City's Bike Plan has been more of the "something to deviate from" kind of plan. In some ways the Bike Plan has been opportunistic about the placement of bike lanes (like Jarvis). At the same time this flexibility has allowed itself to be delayed or diverted (like Horner). A more firm plan would lose all of these opportunistic opportunities, but it really could help put the implementation on track; the risk here is that it would be totally the wrong track.
Every Council would like to make it's own plans. But the reality is they never have enough time to work with all of the city's divisions, react to day-today matters, and budget for the existing plans. In the three or four years that a Council sits, it is really lucky of they get to make one plan for one division during their term. The reality is that staff do most of the planning and the Councillors take most of the credit. The other reality is that all of the City's plans are constantly evolving.
One thing that Smitherman really sounds like he is really attempting to articulate is increasing the integration of the Cycling Program and Bike Plan within Transportation services, and in particular, it's planning department. What I find fascinating is how Dan Egan said last night that this integration is already happening, and is continuously increasing, within Transportation Services. Dan mentioned two specific examples of this increased integration last night when he and Lukasz were talking about the state of good repair and the timing for installation of approved Bike lanes, specifically the integration with construction (ie Capital Works) and operations. Transportation planning staff are already including cycling infrastructure in their plans.
Another consideration to realize here is that the TTC does it's own public transit planning, and these plans are only sometimes in sync with the city's larger transportations goals and plans. This is largely a budget constraint issue, but there are other factors and priorities that the TTC has to manage.
The one criticism that I have of our own bike plan, and the only thing that I would change about it immediately, is its modest goal of wanting to only double the number of trips made by bicycle. This goal was achieved long ago, and we should be looking at regional and city-wide targets of the ratio of bike trips, that is modal share. That is I'd like the bike plan to have an ambitious goal of trying to get 20% of all trips in the city made by bicycle in ten years, with 50% of all trips in the core done by bike. And if this is what Smitherman's talking about then I'd be all for it. But I'm not sure that he's articulating this well right now, or if this is even within his understanding yet.
Me, I can't be sure what to make of Smitherman. He wants to position himself as being different than Rossi; yet his proposed 'moratorium' would have exactly the same effect as Rossi's.
One thing is sure to me. Few, if any, of the outside candidates truly seem to understand how cycling fits into our transportation system, or into our communities. My last question: Is the point he's trying to make simply that he doesn't understand the value of cycling to our community and to our city?
