WHY BIKE LANES SEEM TO BE VANCOUVER'S TOP PRIORITY

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

http://bit.ly/MtGo24

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. 

  

 http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2012/05/18/cycling-with-jerry-dobrovolny-vancouvers-director-of-transportation/

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.