Bike lanes and tracks are a scourge on the roads of Canadian cities. They tie up traffic, steal parking from suffering urban businesses and are barely used for half of the year. The underlying reason for expanding bicycle infrastructure has nothing to do with bicycle commuters. Years of studies have shown that despite the addition of countless kilometers of new bike lanes, the number of people who commute daily by bicycle remains a tiny minority of citizens.So why are bike lanes expanding so much when there is no real demand for them?It’s due to density-obsessed urban planners who have infested city bureaucracies. They tend to be downtown living hipsters who believe that if they can live without a personal automobile, everybody should be able to do the same. They are ideologues who are opposed to personal automobiles for environmental, social and economic reasons based on a twisted world view..They understand that people won’t willingly give up the personal freedom and comfort of owning an automobile. Thus, they have been on a crusade to make auto ownership as expensive and inconvenient as possible. They fight against private developers who want to include parking and garages for multiple vehicles in new communities. They expand sidewalks and close lanes to traffic under the guise of traffic calming for safety. And they throttle downtown parking to spike costs. At one point, Calgary was second only to Manhattan for parking prices.The favorite tool for city planning zealots is the bicycle track. It takes entire lanes from the road system and adds traffic lights to every intersection to snarl traffic further. The lanes get priority snow clearance for bicyclists who don’t exist in winter while residential streets deal with glaciers and citizens must pray for warm weather to clear the roads. Emergency services vehicles are stranded in traffic jams while downtown overdoses continue due to permissive policies on addicts.The addicts the city insists upon enabling, congregate in transit zones and on trains and ironically keep people in their personal vehicles despite the city induced expenses and inconvenience..Despite all those efforts, citizens won’t give up their cars. Instead, they are moving deeper into the suburbs and businesses are following them. New business campuses are springing up in outlying areas, and people are shunning the downtown cores. Commercial vacancies remain stubbornly high while city planners dump millions of dollars into office conversions in hopes that people will migrate back to live in a high density downtown.The efforts of these fanatical city planners and the city councillors who support them have been a total failure. They cost productivity, reduce safety, and aren’t bringing more people downtown. Their constant shortcomings seem to spur them to double down despite citizens and businesses begging for mercy.Despite all of that, I oppose provincial Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen’s threats to intervene in Alberta’s cities and block the ridiculous rise in bicycle lanes.Why after a rant like that would I oppose a minister bringing the expansion of absurd bike lanes to a halt?Because it’s not his job.It’s ours..The reason city planners are overrun with zealots is because the mayor’s chair and the seats of city council have been dominated by zealots. Hiring has reflected the ideology of the mayor and council and now the bureaucracy is outright infested.Whose fault is that though? Voter turnout in Alberta’s civic elections is traditionally pathetic. Rarely does it reach 50% and in Calgary it has dropped near the 20% level on some years. If more than half of the citizens won’t get off their asses to cast a vote, why should we be surprised when the city management becomes dominated by extremists and incompetents?.Incumbent city council candidates know they have a plum job and they count on voter apathy to maintain their seats. Many Calgarians don’t even know who their local councillor is or what they politically stand for. It makes it tough for up-and-comers to dethrone the incumbents at election time.The only way to deal with these terrible municipal governments is to fire them. It is possible, but it takes a little time and effort.Alberta is fighting against a federal government that insists on infringing upon provincial jurisdiction. We understand the need for local governance to reflect the diversity of needs of regions and zones. We abhor centralized government..So why would we want more centralized power in the provincial government?The provincial government has enough to do and more than enough local power. They don’t need to be grabbing more authority due to citizens abdicating their democratic duty in elections.I like Minister Dreeshen and am typically supportive of the UCP government. I don’t support them dipping into municipal issues however.It’s a municipal election year in Alberta and if citizens can get off their butts, they can wipe out most of the worthless municipal politicians in one swoop. Or, people can stay home while the lunatics continue to dominate the asylum.In a democracy, you get the government you deserve.
