The Hon. Marc Garneau, Minister of Transport, recently announced that Transport Canada and the provinces will establish a task force to discuss safety measures to reduce injuries and fatalities involving cyclists, pedestrians and heavy trucks. This was prompted in part by recent deaths of two people on bicycles in Ottawa and Montreal – a sad, preventable and all too common element of the transportation landscape in Canada.
Canada Bikes strongly supports measures to make our roads, our vehicles and the way they are both designed much safer for people cycling. We will be working with the Government to help ensure measures are implemented soon.
We believe that people have a right to feel comfortable and safe on a bicycle anywhere in any community in Canada. While cycling is inherently much safer than driving, our country still has rates of injury for people on foot and on bikes far higher than those in the world’s bike-friendly countries. More importantly, tangible fear of fast moving traffic and of poorly designed roads and vehicles keeps most people from even starting. That needs to stop. We know the solutions. We know that infrastructure investment and policy change result directly in safe roads, healthier people and more people riding. It didn’t happen spontaneously in other countries; they made a choice. We can too.
(photo: A.Swanson Den Haag, NL)
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