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Dartmouth bike lane not needed

It would seem that Penticotn city hall may be evoking a closed ear policy, as far as this bike lane project is concerned.

It would seem that city hall may be evoking a closed ear policy, as far as this bike lane project is concerned. They seem to be turning a blind eye to the possibilities of incident or accident if the bike lane goes in. I suspect now that fall is here crews may be scrambling for work. Hence, a make work project, possibly?

Let’s look at the real picture.  I use the Dartmouth corridor about two to three times per day.  In the last three months, I saw 12 cyclists on that hill as I used the corridor through the day and into the evening.

One day, I parked near the SPCA for 20 minutes and 36 vehicles passed either up or down and not one bike.  Did the city do a bidirectional traffic count?  I suspect not, as nothing was made public. I did the same park and observe about three days later and counted 31 vehicles and again, no bikes.

The following Saturday, I counted 27 cars and still no bikes.  Each of these days, I did the observation stop at different times from early morning; through mid-afternoon to around 4:30 p.m.

Each time no bike traffic, yet, the bike lane is justifiable? What studies were done?  The residents of the area have a right to know as they were subsequently told it was going to happen.

I guess the real question is what justifies the need for this bike lane?

Couldn’t the human resources and taxpayer’s money be put to a more needed and justifiable use? Wake up and smell the coffee, city pundits, taxpayers deserve a better bang for our tax dollars!

Ron Barillaro

Penticton