Ecology Ottawa and the Sierra Club issued a report card on the current council’s environmental measures. They say that “Mayor O’Brien’s Council lags behind other Canadian cities on the environment.”
One reason for some of the failing grades: lack of funding for cycling. From the Ottawa Citizen:
[F]our years ago, funding for cycling came in at $400,000 per year and out of all commuters, two per cent rode bikes. Funding for cycling is now zero, and Mr. Doucet said it’s no surprise that cycling rates are stagnant “while other cities have caught up to Ottawa and are passing us.”
You can take a look at how your councillor is doing here.
Cycling in Ottawa 
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I’ve got to dispute this on a couple of grounds, not the least of which is that this is a mere gimmick that uses oversimplified information to draw attention.
The Sun made a good point (I know, quite a surprise) that even the Sierra Club admitted that the votes that this assessment is based on were all pretty insignificant decisions.
Also, this was an “environmental” report card; not specifically cycling. It is technically possible, then, that they had improved on cycling but gotten worse in all other environmental areas.
But most importantly, they could not have gotten worse on cycling, because funding in the budget for cycling for 2007 is at $0, from $400,000 a few years earlier. You simply can’t get worse than zero.
Right now, the cycling education and promotion programs are in the 2008 budget (actually, the first time in my memory that we didn’t have to remind council to put it in), albeit tucked away as part of the TDM department.
The Ottawa Cycling Plan, which has been in draft phase since 2003, might get passed this year, but even if it is, there is no funding at all to implement it. The budget has a $75,000 item below the cutoff line for educational programs, but development of the cycling network and infrastructure is still entirely unfunded.
Cycling infrastructure still gets built, but only if it can piggy-back onto larger road reconstruction projects. There are many “missing links” in the cycling network between these larger reconstructions that simply will not get fixed/built.
Council approved $1.1 million in funding for the department that deals with cycling and pedestrian infrastructure and programs as part of the budget deliberations.
It is not yet apparent exactly how this money will be spent, but it is certainly a welcome change of direction!
That is very encouraging. It’s generally nice to see that the “zero tax increase” line didn’t last long.
Grassroots democracy at work?