Opinion: Transportation minister needs to stay in his lane
Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen recently wrote to the mayors of both Edmonton and Calgary with 'concerns' about bike lanes. His first letter to Edmonton called for the cancellation of the 132nd Avenue project, but the letter to Calgary was more vague, stating 'we need to seriously consider on how to maintain adequate capacity for motor vehicle traffic flow for current and future traffic needs, not reducing capacity.'
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If Dreeshen is concerned about the movement of traffic through the city, he should support more transportation options, not fewer. Traffic doesn't just include cars, it includes people who walk, take transit and, yes, ride bikes.
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Calgary city council has, in fact, been too hesitant in building cycling infrastructure. It has allowed the downtown cycle track to slowly crumble year after year, never making permanent what was built in the pilot project phase. This would be unacceptable if it were a road built for cars.
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Much of the pathways end abruptly and large swaths of the city, including some of Calgary's lowest-income neighbourhoods, have little to no cycling infrastructure at all.
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Buying and maintaining a car is a huge financial burden and one that should be optional. Thanks to inflation, people are forced to pay more of their income into their vehicles. If Dreeshen's concern is making life easier for Albertans, he'd make it so we wouldn't need to.
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Adding more car traffic lanes in cities with limited space isn't going to solve traffic problems. If anything, it forces everything to spread out, which in turn forces us all into cars. It's a vicious cycle that we have been doing for decades, and stretches both municipal and personal budgets.
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I know Dreeshen supports transportation options. He made it legal to drive golf carts on roads in his home riding last year. So why does he want to constrain options in Alberta's cities?
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The research is abundant — giving people options to get around not only reduces traffic congestion, but improves quality of life.
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Additionally, being able to experience the city around you in a way that is impossible to do in a car also feels pretty dang good. Since the initial build out of the downtown cycle track, other factors have induced a boom in people riding for transportation. Bike shops saw a boom during pandemic restrictions, and Calgary streets that were converted to active transportation were well used.
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