Pedal-power: How cities compare
CALGARY: The sprawling city, where winter temperatures are generally lower than in Waterloo Region, has 850 kilometres of bike facilities and clears up to 400 kilometres in winter. It spent $5.45 million to put in a 6.5-kilometre network of separated cycle tracks. The new infrastructure doubled the percentage of cycling commuters from 1.9 per cent in 2010 to 3.8 per cent. After the tracks went in, illegal sidewalk cycling dropped from 16 per cent to two per cent and the share of women on bikes jumped from 22 per cent to 30 per cent. The longest delay for drivers was found to be about 90 seconds.
MONTREAL, another wintry city, has 850 kilometres of bike paths — double what it had nine years ago. It plows 430 kilometres of bike paths in winter. About four per cent of downtown commuters bike.
HAMILTON has 255 kilometres of bike lanes and trails, including the three-kilometre Cannon Street cycle track, which the city put in for $524,000. Use of the cycle track has jumped 68 per cent in three years to about 1,000 riders a day. About 2.3 per cent of commuters bike. Hamilton carries out winter maintenance on some trails and spends about $890,000 a year on new cycling infrastructure
OTTAWA has 900 kilometres of bike lanes and trails, including a 40-kilometre winter bike network and a 12-kilometre segregated east-west bikeway. Its budget for cycling infrastructure in 2018 is $7 million, not including new roads. An astonishing eight per cent of commuters cycle.
WATERLOO REGION: The region’s three cities have about 500 kilometres of bike lanes and off-road trails. About 1.1 per cent of people in the region commute by bike, but the three cities vary widely — only 0.6 per cent of people in Cambridge commute by bike, compared to one per cent in Kitchener and two per cent in Waterloo. The region plans to spend $120 million between now and 2031 on active transportation, compared to $290 million for new roads and another $200 million for road maintenance and repair.
KITCHENER’S budget to build cycling infrastructure is about $350,000 a year — just 1.1 per cent of the $27 million spent in 2015 for road reconstruction and resurfacing.
CAMBRIDGE has no dedicated capital budget for cycling infrastructure, compared to a yearly roads budget of $4.5 million to $5 million. It spent $824,000 in 2017, thanks to provincial grants, but in a more typical year spends about $150,000.
WATERLOO’S budget includes about $1 million a year in cycling infrastructure, including funding from the federal government and the province through gas tax, infrastructure funding etc. In the last three years, spending probably averaged $2 million a year.