Cycling infrastructure substandard

RE: ARE SUNDRESSES THE REASON WOMEN DON’T CYCLE (JUNE 20) Thanks for this important article.

You raise important issues about the underrepresentation of women in cycling. As a professor of transportation planning (including a course I developed on active transportation/pedestrian and cycling), and as an avid cyclist, I point out to my students these statistics are a sad paradox. Cycling was an imported contributor to the birth of the feminist movement, starting in the 1860s. The invention of the chain-drive made riding bicycles the first popular outdoor athletic activity open to women and required freedom them from their excessive, constraining Victorian clothing. We observe today the birth of a similar movement for women on bicycles in some Middle Eastern countries, resulting in a new freedom of mobility.

Cycling infrastructure in Hamilton is far below the level of safety and sophistication that would attract more women than cities such as Portland, Ore., Copenhagen and Amsterdam. We have to spend a lot more money than painting some lines on our roads. Portland, a city with the same size population as Hamilton, is spending another US$600 million over and above their already vastly superior cycling infrastructure through their Portland Bicycle Plan for 2030.

Charles Hostovsky, Hamilton