Fight congestion, save money — ride a bike
Last month, both the federal and Ontario governments delivered budgets promising billions of dollars for infrastructure. It makes sense, considering a 2013 study by CD Howe Institute that estimates the congestion cost for Greater Toronto and Hamilton area to be between $7.5 billion to $11 billion per year. A recent study by the same institute for Metro Vancouver area estimates hidden costs of congestion per year to be between $500 million and $1.2 billion a year. So it would not be an exaggeration to say that overall congestion cost in Canada is over $15 billion per year and growing.
What if you had a magic wand and could reduce congestion by one per cent a year for several years and it required no new funds. Would you use the wand? What if the wand would also reduce pollution and the carbon released into the atmosphere? What if it would help companies with productivity, individuals’ health and even job satisfaction? Sounds like something out of science fiction, doesn’t it?
It’s not. A simple approach that has succeeded in putting over a half million commuters on bikes in the United Kingdom was a creation of an annual tax exemption. The “cycle to work” scheme encourages employ- ees to cycle and allows employers to reap the benefits of a healthier workforce, not to mention the benefits to the population as a whole, including drivers. After all, one more bicycle on the road means one less automobile fighting for precious space. Plus less pollution in the air and less natural resources to be dug out and transported across the planet.
The Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Belgium all have bike-towork schemes, with different incentives such as tax breaks and financial support for buying bicycles. Paris is experimenting with paying people to cycle to work. Twenty companies and institutions employing a total of 10,000 people have signed up to pay their staff 25 euro cents (33 cents) per kilometre biked to work, according to France Transport Ministry.
Could similar programs be implemented in Canada? Federal elections are just around the corner, and perhaps one of the three parties hoping to govern would think that a tax incentive scheme to encourage cycling for Canadians is a smart idea, worth including on their platform. Even better would be a campaign by public interest groups such as CAA, business associations, environmental and health NGOs. I suspect that an electronic petition signed by hundreds of thousands of people would even spark the attention of our current federal and provincial leaders.
Is getting one per cent of drivers a year to abandon the car with such a small incentive realistic? Cycling rates vary dramatically around the world, from 1 to 25 per cent of trips at the national level to nearly 40 per cent of trips in some cities. Canada hovers near the bottom of developed nations. One would hope that with a tax incentive and a bit of funds for cycling infrastructure from the billions of investments planned, achieving one per cent is doable. Henry Gold is the president and CEO of Tour d’Afrique Ltd and all of the employees of the company cycle to work
year round.