Cycling infrastructure saves taxpayers money – Goldstream News Gazette

Stan Bartlett compares the $ 4.09 million the City of Victoria plans to spend on road renewal in 2022 with the $ 13 million cost of the city’s cycle path network. This is misleading for a number of reasons. While the $ 4 million for roads is an annual amount, the $ 13 million is spent over several years, and this follows many decades where governments at all levels have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Victoria’s roads while spending next to nothing on cycling infrastructure.

The other thing Mr Bartlett fails to mention is that the $ 13 million cost for Victoria’s cycle lanes was primarily funded, not by local property taxes, but by federal and provincial grants specifically. earmarked for cycling infrastructure and other green projects, and so on, cannot just be spent on roads instead.

According to a study for Metro Vancouver, an average five-kilometer drive costs the company $ 2.83 (on top of what the individual driver pays). For the same five-kilometer bike ride, there is a net saving to the government of $ 0.75 (mainly due to lower health care costs and reduced need to build expensive road infrastructure. for cars). If Mr. Bartlett really cared about taxpayers, you would think he would support the construction of more cycling infrastructure, as this translates into a net saving for the taxpayer.

Steven murray

Victoria