Re: “Victoria at risk of missing green targets, report says,” Aug. 17.
I read with dismay the news of Victoria’s poor performance regarding greenhouse-gas reductions and increasing emissions.
There has been a major trend in our city to eliminate lanes of traffic to accommodate ever more bike lanes. The object of this exercise, of course, is to discourage driving and encourage cycling. What it is actually doing is slowing cars down more and more so that they spend ever longer times idling at stoplights or waiting for traffic to clear. The emissions from these idling cars are a significant part of the whole problem.
The car is here to stay, preferably electric in the future, but still here. Avid cyclists make up a small minority of our total population — four per cent, according to an unbiased study done by the Capital Regional District — yet they unfortunately have considerable influence on our city council and have succeeded in pushing their agenda to the tune of $7.6 million being spent on the creation of Biketoria.
It is high time we regain our sense of perspective here and admit that more bike lanes are not going to make much impact on the number of cars on the road, only on their efficiency, thus making the emissions problem worse, not better.
Gwen Isaacs
Victoria
