Cycling advocate pushes for transportation tax vote “yes” to bring in more bike lanes
Posted February 4, 2015 11:56 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A Metro Vancouver cycling advocate is pushing for people to vote “yes” in the upcoming transportation tax referendum. Erin O’Mellin with HUB: Your Cycling Connection says marking “yes” on your ballots could help bring in more bikeways and bike lanes.
“For cycling specifically there’s 2,700 new kilometers of bikeway that can get built and that includes 300 kilometers of traffic separated lanes. Those are really significant investments that actually connect the bicycling network in Metro Vancouver because right now there are quite large gaps,” says O’Mellin.
As part of the plan to improve transportation, $131 million of cycling funding over ten years will be set aside for cycling infrastructure; that’s 10 times more than ever before.
“It is a small dollar amount relative to all of those projects but it would make a huge difference because cycling infrastructure is so affordable to build and maintain, you can get a lot of value for your investment,” she argues.
She’s encouraging her members to vote yes, as she says cyclists will also make use of major transit projects like Vancouver’s Broadway subway and light rail in Surrey.
