Separated lanes improve safety

Dear Editor:

This past fall, a day after a driver killed a child riding a bike to school in Maple Ridge, Coun. Helena Konanz made national news supporting an incredibly regressive motion to not allow the city to use cheap concrete barriers to separate people on bikes and scooters from the things that kill them: drivers and their cars.

This followed her effort to keep South Main Street a life and death proposition for people rolling. Thankfully, she failed on that. The data is very clear. Separated bike lanes make roads safer for all users. Yes, all users.

Given this history, you’d think some self-awareness would be in order when the council started to talk about safety for people outside of cars. If Coun. Konanz had any, she sure didn’t exhibit it.

In a cruel ask, requesting people on bikes and scooters be removed from the Lakeshore multi-use path, Coun. Konanz made it clear she wants those who use bikes and scooters to mix with the exact thing that killed this little girl in Maple Ridge, drivers and their cars.

Fixing the the Lakeshore mixed-use path is easy and could be changed today. It involves giving more space to the people using the path. In doing so we’d all breathe cleaner air and be able to talk to the person next to us during the warm weather months when walking on Lakeshore.

With leaders like this, it’s no wonder we have two bikes in the elementary school bike rack. We want our children to come home and to have autonomy to visit their friends and get to school, but it’s too dangerous to consider empowering our children. Helena Konanz would like to have a political win at their expense.

Coun. Konanz has the ability to make our streets safe, yet has gone out of her way to make them more dangerous. It is clear to the entire country where she stands.

Matt Hopkins Urban Cycling Director Penticton & Area Cycling Association