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In a triumph of investigative reporting the Vancouver Sun discovered that there is a lot of traffic on both Cornwall Avenue and Commercial Drive. Cars sharing roads with
bikes could be dangerous. These counter-intuitive observations were made
while a reporter was embedded in traffic on his or her bike. see
Kudos.
That's not all! Yesterday, Jeff Lee,
disguised as a cyclist managed to infiltrate the Vancouver Engineering Department
by cycling to work with Jerry Dubrovolny
, the City Director of Transportation. His story explains a lot about
why bike lanes are metastasizing throughout the City.
According to Lee, Dubrovolny admitted that at 50,
he’d discovered he was 50 pounds overweight, had high blood pressure and was
flirting with diabetes. It’s a common issue for those of us who think we’re
young and invincible and who one day wake up to realize we’re puffing going up
a mild incline. Dang, either you physically do something about it or you start
taking pills. His physicians prescribed bike riding.
The City Traffic Engineer was addicted to petroleum. He,
like his predecessor, Ken Dobel was becoming super-sized as a result of a too
easy, carbon fueled commute. I can
imagine people saying hurtful things like, “Hey- Lardass! (referring to his ample
bottom) Where'd you get your pants.. Lardashians?”
The nightmare is over!
Now Dubrovolny pedals to work
from New Westminster and has lost 50 lbs. He is strong as an ox and looks great. He wants all of us to share the benefits of his regime. A man on a mission to help people pedal off their
double sized derriers he is willing to spend another 3 million dollars for more bike lanes.
It is a small price
to pay for reducing both the buttocks and carbon footprints of the body
politic.
Certainly, bike lanes are cheaper than the thousands
of gastric bypasses that would otherwise be necessary. Even if it sometimes appears that the lanes
are cyclist free, I am sure that as traffic congestion, parking rates and gas
prices mount so will the cyclists.
And
if they don't people will stay away from the downtown. Box stores like Sears will shut down.
It's a win win situation.
It is reassuring that with one eye on the bottom line, Vancouver is not frittering the
money away on trendy things like hospitals and schools.
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