Like geese, cyclists deserve safety
As deaths mount in major cities, we have to ask ourselves: are we doing enough?
Ah, the summer silly season is upon us. It will be the best of times, it will be the worst of times, but it will always be interesting.
My son’s friend was an hour late leaving work the other day, as he desperately tried to get a groundhog out of his engine compartment. The creature had taken up residence sometime in the day, and no amount of banging on the hood or blasting the horn was convincing him to go find a different Critterbnb. As friends helpfully texted suggestions (“if he dies in there, does that mean we have an extra four weeks of summer?”) and I reminded him a passenger of that weight still needed a child seat, things got anticlimactic as the thing eventually waddled away, apparently unconcerned with the circus it had created.
I saw a video of an OPP officer assisting a gaggle of Canada geese across a major highway near my home a week ago. It was darling, this cop on a motorcycle dipsy doodling his ride to round them up to safety. Vehicles trapped in the wildlife shuffle slowed immediately, that true Canadian kindness being used to protect the frailest among us.
Canada geese, of course, have a much better public-relations department than cyclists and pedestrians, who continue to be mowed down by drivers who refuse to share our roadways with all its users, not just the cute ones. As Montreal becomes a world-class city for cyclists, instituting protected routes and new and improved pilot programs, places like Toronto instead wring their hands before throwing them skyward, pretending we can do nothing about the carnage on our streets because of those who scream “but, war on cars!” and “Canadian cities can’t do cycling” because after all, Montreal gets less snow than Toronto, right? Wrong.
My city of Burlington, Ontario, population about 200,000, did a pilot program with bike lanes delineated on a secondary four-lane road that shoots straight across the city. A section several kilometres long was narrowed to encourage and protect cyclists. The program was recently yanked and considered a thundering failure, in part because of the massive traffic tie-ups that ensued.
How massive? At peak rush hour, it added 90 seconds to an average commute. At all other times, it was an additional one to 16 seconds. Seconds. A few seconds which mean nothing unless, I guess, they’re your seconds in which case they must be extraordinarily long seconds. Seconds — that you spend sheltered from the weather in the comfort of your car — to add a tiny layer of protection to those who are also doing the getting around thing while not sheltered from the elements.
My town has crappy transit, but the drivers decided that an ever-growing segment of the population doesn’t deserve the protection and road use of bike lanes. As long as politicians, who fight first and foremost for drivers and continue to paint cyclists and pedestrians as collateral damage, do nothing, we will continue to see more injuries and fatalities. Shame on them.
For those in communities who seek to do better by their cyclists, please don’t view those laneways as, “I’ll just pull in here for a moment” or worse, “I don’t see them at all.” Don’t drive in those lanes; don’t park in those lanes; use your mirrors before turning (and signal that turn); take care opening car doors; and remember that if your car meets flesh, flesh loses every time.
Better yet, let’s remember we’re all capable of taking care of each other and shouldn’t have to wait for politicians and laws to force us to respect everyone sharing our roads. Let’s give at least as much consideration to each other as we give to groundhogs and Canada geese.
Tourists bring more of the silly, of course, but remember, we want them here. They don’t know the traffic corridors that are insanely difficult to navigate, and don’t deserve to be cursed at for getting caught out. Locals, of course, need a smack for tying up intersections, a problem that only redlight cameras will solve.
We’ve tried the carrots; it’s time to bring out the sticks.
It’s summer. We will embark on holidays and participate in traffic jams and curse the construction. We will notice more and more speed bumps as neighbourhoods seek to get cars to slow down — another losing cause because people either embrace or eschew the concept of safety for everyone.
Leave extra time, leave extra space and let’s get everybody home safe.
Everybody.