Two quick things:
The Ottawa Cycling Plan was approved by the city Transportation Committee earlier in the week, and is now off to full Council for approval. The Citizen has a story, and you can read the full plan online. Be warned: it’s a couple of hundred pages long, but the executive summary is pretty thorough. I’ll try to say some more on the weekend (which, admittedly, I’ve promised before), but it is really good news that committee has opted to accelerate the plan first phase of the plan to be completed in 5 years. The city might be short on cash, but these are the sorts of projects that pay off in the long run. The real test will come at budget time, when cyclists will have to fight not to get squeezed out in the annual budget blood letting.
Reevely, in light of the plan, is looking for comments as to where the early-priority improvements are. My biggest pet peeve is the terrible state of some road’s curbside – Queen St. and Lyon can be especially brutal; I inadvertantly ended up in a 2 foot square, 3 inch deep pothole on Bronson last week (I was fine).
Secondly, PEI Liberal Shawn Murphy has introduced a Private Members Bill to remove the GST from Bicycles. I’m pretty sure that Joyce Murray (another Liberal, from Vancouver) had a similar bill on the notice paper yesterday, but it must have been withdrawn. Or I’m nuts. In any case, PMB’s almost always go nowhere: you can introduce as many as you want, more or less, but a lottery determines which bill’s get considered further. In most cases, even if considered, the legislation (often rightfully) won’t go anywhere, and an election would kill all legislation waiting on the order paper.
However, this is still probably worth a letter or call to your MP: the idea is simple enough that it could easily be incorporated into a future budget or integrated into a larger part of an election campaign. By making it clear that people care, that’s more likely to happen. Removing the GST won’t make a giant difference in anyone’s pocket and smacks a bit of tokenism (as Ben pointed out last year), but saving money is saving money and anything that helps people afford bicycles is a good step.
Cycling in Ottawa 