Bell: Smith UCP gears up to stop or rip out bike lanes, now seeks your input

Now Albertans can tell Premier Danielle Smith and her government what they think of bike lanes

The Alberta government is not playing games. The provincial UCP government led by Premier Danielle Smith is planning to roll out a new law for debate this fall. They will crack down on bike lanes in Calgary and Edmonton and now they want to hear from you.

First, let’s go over their plans. “It can stop new bike lanes from being built and it can remove existing bike lanes,” says Devin Dreeshen, of the plan for a new law . “At the end of the day we’re hearing from Albertans that through silly decisions by municipal governments their communities are becoming less livable.”

Dreeshen is Smith’s point man on pavement and a guy who doesn’t fear handling a political hot potato when it’s thrown his way. If a city is proposing a new bike lane, the Alberta government would be able to ask them to hand over detailed reports on the expected impact of the bike lane, on traffic, on parking, on the surrounding roads, in the surrounding neighbourhoods. “Albertans deserve to know what’s going to happen to traffic before we remove any road.

Albertans also deserve to know if each existing project actually works.” The province would also be able to get the city to fork out the information on the number of cyclists using existing bike lanes and yes... remove the bike lanes if warranted. These numbers on how many cyclists are using each bike lane is harder to pull out of city paper shufflers than wisdom teeth.

No surprise. Related Killarney business owner rails against city's bike lane project on 26th Avenue Bell: Mayor Farkas slams Smith over bike lane crackdown, reveals his leftie self On Wednesday morning, the Smith government is expected to launch a bike lane portal on the alberta.ca website where people in Calgary and Edmonton can voice their concerns about bike lanes in the community. “We heard loud and clear from people in both major cities that bike lanes are put into their neighbourhoods without proper consultation, without a good understanding of traffic impacts and what it means to parking.

Municipalities are putting in bike lanes with no regard for the people living in these communities,” says Dreeshen True dat. Dreeshen says people can finally tell the government what they think of bike lanes. He adds it will help the government as they work on the new law they are planning to introduce this fall.

Make no mistake. UCP members of the legislature and the premier back this move. Folks will be able to post photos of nobody using the bike lanes (that’s easy!) or photos of businesses having no parking out in front on the street.

Contrary to the hysterics on social media, this IS NOT a move against bike lanes. In Calgary, the first bike lanes were brought years ago with cycling activists promising the city that cyclists would come out on the streets in big numbers, a sight to behold. Not quite Copenhagen

but you get the picture. With most bike lanes, at least in Calgary, that has not happened. Where are the cyclists?

I’m looking at the new bike lane on 15th Avenue S.W. Where is everybody? Looking back, Dreeshen figures no civil engineer worth their salt would base their recommendation to build something “based on theory and ideology.” “We listen to civil engineers, not social engineers.”

That is not what the city of Calgary did. The Smith government also asked for numbers on individual bike lanes and Calgary city hall coughed up some numbers but they are very much incomplete. Edmonton sent numbers to the province more than a month late.

In Calgary’s case, numbers on the impact on traffic of each bike lane. Missing. Number of cyclists on each bike lane.

Missing. Calgary city paper shufflers provided “network-level” information but not information on individual bike lane by individual bike lane. They drew “broad conclusions.”

This is so Calgary city hall. The Smith government would also like to see more information on the impact of bike lanes on local businesses and way more numbers on traffic flow. “The city did claim traffic impacts were minimal but they didn’t actually have any travel time analysis to back that up.”

Last week, Dreeshen put on a big Stampede shindig in Calgary and introduced Doug Ford saying the Ontario premier hated bike lanes. The crowd broke out in a round of applause. There will be pushback when this column hits the streets.

Dreeshen insists he isn’t blinking. “We’re not backing down. We’re still going to move on this.”

rbell@postmedia.com