As the Windsor Star reported, Bike Friendly Windsor and the Windsor Bicycle Committee recently went before city council to recommend an increase in funding for bike lanes to $1 million per year.
In May of 2001, the City of Windsor adopted their Bicycle Use Master Plan (BUMP). This plan calls for spending $19,400,000 over 20 years on bicycle network development, as well as $10,000 a year on bicycle parking, and $200,000 on BUMP management (including a cycling coordinator position). The cycling coordinator position was recommended in the 1991 Bicycle Use Development Study which was adopted by council, but we are still waiting for this position to be created.
In total, BUMP states that implementation “can be achieved by
Council allocating approximately $1,000,000 annually for capital expenditures (network development) and $250,000 annually for operating costs”. Over the last few years though, only $200,000 per year has been budgeted for “bikeways development”.
We are now 10 years into a 20 year master plan. Now is the perfect time to assess how well we are doing – but there is no point in issuing a new master plan if it’s recommendations are not going to be followed, the way the current master plan has been ignored.
To illustrate how far behind the City of Windsor is on their Bicycle Use Master Plan, we can look at Map 5 from BUMP.
The solid red lines are bike lanes that should have been built by 2006. Right off the bat you can see streets that still don’t have bike lanes – Pillette, Seminole, St. Luke, Drouillard, Richmond, Dougall, Eugenie, Tecumseh Rd W, College, Erie, etc.
There is a simple reason that we still don’t have these bike lanes – chronic underfunding of bicycle infrastructure by the City of Windsor. If you want to see more bike lanes being built in Windsor, please email your city councillor and let them know how you feel.