Launch of the Green Paper on Bicycling for Ontario
Remarks by Eleanor McMahon, CEO and Founder, Share the Road Cycling Coalition
March 5, 2010
Green Paper: When Ontario Bikes, Ontario Benefits – A Green Paper on Bicycling in Ontario [PDF]
Last fall, our organization, hosted the Ontario Bike Summit attended by active transportation experts, cycling advocates, law enforcement officers, municipal and provincial politicians and officials from across Ontario.
In the months leading up to that event, and since, we have been working on a “Green Paper on Cycling in Ontario” in order to provide to the province, the full benefit of the advice and counsel we received from these stakeholders. We are pleased to make that report public today as a comprehensive, evidence-based document on how to improve cycling in Ontario.
In our travels across Ontario, in meetings with those whose responsibility and or passion includes how to make their communities more bicycle friendly, we listened to how the provincial government needs to play a more active role in funding, supporting and promoting cycling in Ontario. Without this support, they reminded us, our province will lag behind the growing number of jurisdictions – including some right here in Canada, notably BC and Quebec – who have decided to make strategic investments to encourage bicycling.
In B.C. the provincial government created “Bike BC” a $31 million fund available to municipalities in order to enhance bicycling there. In Quebec, the province has invested over $200 million in the 4300 km Route Verte, a combination on-road, off-road bicycling trail which weaves its way through hundreds of communities in that province adding to the enjoyment of their beautiful landscape, assisting commuters and daily cyclists with utilitarian trips, and facilitating trips to school by bicycle and on foot, by that province’s children.
Further, the Quebec government developed a provincial bicycle policy in 1995, recently updated in 2008. This critical document includes that province’s plans for improving cyclists’ safety and mobility; working with municipalities to give them the tools they need to encourage bicycling at the local level; and a vision for the future which leverages the positive economic benefits of bicycling – including promoting bicycle tourism and congestion mitigation. All of this in the context of the province’s recognition that cycling plays an important role in reducing the impacts of climate change, to the benefit of their citizens, their environment and their economies – in short, their quality of life.
Ontario need only look at its Canadian neighbours for inspiration on what it needs to do to play a constructive role in promoting and encouraging cycling. Creating a Bicycle Policy for Ontario, such as exists in Quebec is a critical first step in creating a framework for action by our province. But it is more than that – it is an acknowledgement that our provincial government recognizes that bicycling and bicyclists have value and are net contributors to the health and well being of the communities where they live, work and play.
For too long, bicyclists in many countries including our own have languished on the sidelines, asking to be recognized, respected and valued by policy makers, politicians, seeking support for their chosen mode of transportation. Fortunately for all of us – bicyclist and non-bicyclists -- those times are changing.
There is growing recognition and support for bicycling as a mainstream mode of transportation. This is reflected by the growing numbers of citizens who want a cheaper, more efficient, and non-emitting and in many cases, faster form of transportation. The fact that the vast majority of them are too frightened to do so – as our research outlines – is an issue that we can and must resolve. It is simply inexcusable that thousands of potential cyclists cannot ride their bicycles in a safe environment to the benefit of themselves, and our society.
As our Green Paper demonstrates, there are a variety of important reasons, rooted in research, why bicycling can and should be seen as a solution to the numerous challenges facing our society.
The degradation of our climate, rising transportation costs, an increasingly obese and unfit population – particularly our children. Bicycling is a potential solution to all of these issues.
The document provides clear advice and priorities to the Ontario government in terms of how it can and should play a role in making Ontario more bicycles friendly. To help them get started we are releasing this document in the context of the upcoming Budget and Throne Speech as a contribution to an overall vision for Ontario that incorporates bicycling into our transportation policies and priorities.
To that end, and because the changes in policy and direction we recommend will require the application of resources, we are recommend the creation of a $20 million “Ontario Bicycling Investment Fund”. This amount represents the annual provincial component of the HST as it will now apply to bikes, bike parts and products. By redirecting this revenue to create the “Ontario Bicycling Investment Fund” the province can begin to address the gaps outlined in the Green Paper and correspondingly begin to realize the benefits which bicycling can provide.
The OBIF would provide funding that would begin to address the priority areas outlined by our stakeholders: enhanced resources for infrastructure; the provision of effective education and awareness programs for cyclists and motorists and active and safe routes to school programs for our children; province-wide programs which promote and encourage cycling, and finally the creation of bicycling-friendly policies and legislation.
To put this amount requested in context, the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) for Ontario spends $105 billion a year on its Road User Safety Program, $464 million on Provincial Highways and $1.5 billion on Policy and Planning. Valuable initiatives all, but where is the amount for bicycling and active transportation?
The fact that we have representatives from our Ontario political parties at the launch of this report is evidence of the fact that politicians recognize the potential for cycling. The Green Paper on Bicycling for Ontario will, we hope, provide them with a roadmap on how to begin to realize this potential.
As mentioned, the development of this Green Paper began last year, in the lead up to the Ontario Bike Summit in Waterloo, Ontario. Prior to the Summit we polled over a thousand active transportation and cycling experts from across Ontario, asking them what they think the provincial government should do to play a role in encouraging cycling in Ontario. We had productive discussions at the Summit and in the months since. This data and research provide the backbone for the Green Paper.
As such, this Green Paper belongs to all who assisted in its development. If we are at all successful in shaping public policy in Ontario, in demonstrating to the provincial government the inherent opportunities for investing in cycling and if we can create funding frameworks for that investment, it is thanks to all those who contributed to this process and to this Paper. We are humbled to have had the opportunity to work towards these objectives.
This Green Paper also underscores something important. Cycling experts and advocates have arrived, as a partner to governments and providers of good counsel on how to improve the lives of our fellow citizens.
The time for our province to embrace bicycling in our mutli-modal universe has come. We are proud of this Green Paper and offer it as a resource to everyone who is interested in creating bicycle friendly communities and a bicycle friendly Ontario.
Eleanor Roosevelt said: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”.
Our dream is that our province will become the most bicycle-friendly jurisdiction in the world. The same ingenuity, determination and creativity that has made us a world leader in the fields of medicine and technology, the respect and tolerance we have for each other that is a hallmark of our values as a province and a nation, and the effective legislation and programs that have brought us international recognition for our approach to road safety can and must guide us as we work to create a safer, more bicycle friendly Ontario.
Our future and our children’s future may depend on it.
