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Old Posted Apr 16, 2012, 7:38 PM
tybuilding tybuilding is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by racc View Post
If the bike paths are part of a cycling tourism network, they can really help the local economy. Quebec and many places in Europe have done a great job of this.
Regarding sidewalks, the only other option that people have is walking on the side of the road, which is really dangerous especially on narrow country roads with no lights and little or no speed (or drunk driving) enforcement. Even worse, if someone does get hit, the hospital can be quite far away. One option is having separated bike paths that can be used by pedestrians as well. This works fine if there is little ped and bike traffic. In the end, this is likely less expensive than helicoptering people to hospital and patching them up.


An idea worth considering.
Having bike paths in towns is worth supporting. Biking on the main highways suck in some of the small towns. My in laws live in Vanderhoof. It is only 2.6 km into the centre of town but the only way there is the highway. Cycling on the highway isn't great even with the 50 km/hr speed limit on the 4 lane road with shoulders but no sidewalks. In town the highway has no shoulders at all but has rough sidewalks. Not very inviting for cycling. A multi-use path would go a long way there.

Last summer I drove though Norway. There the country highway routes also go though towns, but didn't have any shoulders. So now there is a program to add multi-use paths that people can walk, bike or ride horses on. Paths start at one end of town and end at the other end of town. Many towns in BC could benefit from this sort of infrastructure as often the highway is the only route connecting outlying development with local street routes.

I think the carbon tax funding infrastructure like this across the province would be a good program to support.

As for Surrey, I am very disappointed to see the B line bus and the Highway 1 bus expansion likely on the chopping block. I can't believe we are spending $3 billion on a new bridge and expanded highway with promises for Rapid Bus or even LRT when the project started only to see the service get axed 1 year before completion? Pure broken promises. Part of the toll should pay for the additional money that is needed to operate rapid bus service to the bridge. At least enough to cover any additional funding over what additional fares would bring.
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