Parking seems to trump sidewalks
I read with interest the recent batch of letters from Elvena Slump in regards to the bike lane and felt the need to clear the air in regards to her comments.
Slump states that bicyclists don’t follow the rules of the road, and that this is an annoyance to them. Of course, many road users don’t follow the rules of the road, but when drivers do it, they can kill people. A driver has killed a person crossing the street in Penticton in February 2021. This driver fled and is still on the loose. Is killing a person, leaving the scene, and failing to turn yourself in a road rule?
The World Health Organization estimates drivers kill 1.3 million people per year worldwide. Has a person on a bike ever killed a person walking in history of the City of Penticton? I’m not sure, but I read an article in the Globe and Mail that analyzed crash data from the City of Toronto between 2006 and 2020. Out of nearly 17,000 traffic collisions, there were 35 between pedestrians and cyclists and no deaths. Since 2011, drivers have killed 591 people in Toronto.
Slump is a proponent of cycling insurance. Insurance or licensing doesn’t end road violence. What insurance policy will bring back the man killed by a driver at Nanaimo and Winnipeg?
As I’ve documented previously with a radar gun, drivers entering the downtown ignore the legal limit of speed, which is the largest determinant whether people live or die when getting hit by drivers.
My fellow taxpayer, who walks and bikes everywhere, subsidizes my driving in every role she plays in life. She pays higher prices in groceries, higher taxes, subsidizes city land purchases to store my car, encounters danger crossing the street (see above) and breathes dirty air. What does she get for saving me money on infrastructure and improving public health?
A terribly incomplete network of narrow sidewalks, very little shade in the form of street trees, and almost no buffer from car traffic anywhere in the city. Parents aren’t comfortable letting their kids walk to school because it’s so dangerous. Where sidewalks could be added, car parking is prioritized.
But, right, she currently has a separated bike lane on one street for five blocks. Pay up, cheapskate!