Can this one boy’s wish bestow us with a Christmas miracle and magically turn every road user into “a good Grinch”?
In a 550-word letter to the editor of GuelphToday and addressed to the mayor of Guelph, a city in southern Ontario, an eight-year-old, along with some (read: maybe a lot of) help from his grandpa, co-chair of the Guelph Coalition for Active Transportation, has expressed what he wants for Christmas — and no, it’s not the shiniest new toy or the rainbow-coloured, sugar-coated candy — instead, he just wants safer cycling provisions.
It starts by sharing how “cool” the new protected bike lanes in the city are, with the concrete barriers and posts separating drivers from cyclists and also “connecting people and places so that they can cycle from their home to their work, schools and shopping”.
He writes: “The new barriers also calm traffic as the car lane appears narrower, which I learned are proven to reduce speeding. I am looking forward to biking with my dad and grandpa to get to my favourite parks, stores and schools.
“Unfortunately, there are some people that don't like these bike lanes for some reasons including slowing down traffic.
“And unfortunately, our mayor, Cam Guthrie, has responded to this Facebook group saying he may be looking at removing these bike lanes.”
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The kid added that his grandpa told him that he loved biking in the protected bike lanes and that “a few minor tweaks to the barriers along with improved snow removal in the bike lanes would please the majority of cyclists and motorists”.
He continued: “Mayor Guthrie has also proposed looking at the possibility of installing multi-use paths on these two corridors, similar to those on Woodlawn Road, which would be amazing as it completely separates cyclists and cars.
“I hope the mayor is serious and adds money in the city budget to install these multi-use paths.
“But in the meantime, I hope he consults with city staff and other street users and leaves the new, less costly protected bike lanes in place.
“We also welcome Mayor Guthrie to ride his bike with us and experience these protected bike lanes like the ones he experienced and raved about on his recent trip to Copenhagen with Guelph transportation staff.”
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He was also briefed by his grandpa about all of the recent collisions between motorists, pedestrians and cyclists. “Many of these collisions could have been prevented with safer active transportation infrastructure. He told me about a cyclist friend of his that recently died in a collision on an unprotected roadway in front of a school in Guelph. Her daughter will not have a mom to celebrate Christmas with this year,” he said.
“Santa, this is my Christmas wish. Please convince Mayor Guthrie to speak to all street users and be a good Grinch like the one in my favourite Christmas story.
By the way, my grandpa helped me with some of the big words.”
What may not come as a piece of happy news this Christmas for eight-year-old Noah (and his grandpa) is that Ontario’s premier Doug Ford is hell-bent on not giving cyclists an inch on the road.
In October, Ford, who rather wisely conducted a TV news interview on road safety while driving through a snowstorm back in 2022, was slammed for his “put cyclists on secondary roads” stance, amid “ineffective and dangerous” plans to block bike lane projects, which, in his own words, seemed to be an “absolute insanity right now.”
Just last month, it was announced that cyclists who have been injured or worse in one of the cycle lanes ripped up in Toronto won’t be able to file a lawsuit against the Ontario province’s government, with opposition politicians describing the amendment to safeguard the government’s impunity as “heartbreaking”.
“What this means is the conservatives want to remove themselves from any responsibility if someone is injured or killed in the future,” New Democratic Party’s Member of Provincial Parliament Jessica Bell said. “It’s heartbreaking, because someone will be injured or killed in the future.”
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And a Happy Christmas to you, road.cc staff!