Today Toronto City Council will start debating the 2007 Operating Budget. The operating budget pays for the programs and services delivered by city staff to the people of Toronto. There has been a concerted effort by Toronto residents to have the programs and services that are recommended in the Toronto Bike Plan funded in this budget. Through the efforts of TCAT, the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation, various cycling, pedestrian, environmental, health and community groups tried to make the case for funding programs and services to encourage cycling and walking as forms of transportation. Their actions included a candidate survey during the election, speaking at the budget Committee hearings, writing letters to the Budget committee and contacting the Mayor and Councillors. Now that the budget is being wrapped up it is time to ask some questions. Have these efforts had any effect? What has changed? Where do we go from here?

Initially I think the work to make Active Transportation and the Bike Plan an election issue did have a positive outcome in terms of the Capital and Operating Budgets. The Mayor's Mandate was drafted to include "speed up the implementation of Toronto's Bike Plan" as one of the items. This was important in terms of the budget process since items in the Mayor's mandate were candidates for 'New and Enhanced' funding which means they could receive funding increases over last year's budget. This, however, was no guarantee of new funding as we found out as the budget setting process progressed.

The second positive outcome was the addition of 4 staff in Transportation Services to work on designing and implementing bike lanes on streets and paths in hydro corridors. This was the one plank of the TCAT platform that was actually implemented in this budget. The funds for this came from the Capital Budget and the Operating budget confirmed the use of those funds for the 4 staff positions. This deals with one of the three obstacles preventing the expansion of the Bikeway Network on City Streets. The other two are lack of capital funding for the infrastructure and lack of a efficient bike lane approval process.

The first disappointment was the lack of funding in the Capital budget for cycling infrastructure projects was not addressed in this budget. The amount in the Transportation Services Budget for on-street and in-corridor cycling infrastructure will remain at $3.0 million dollars. The amount in the Parks, Forestry and Recreation budget for 'Bikeway Network Expansion' for in-parks cycling infrastructure is only $400,000, a cut of $100,000 from 2006. There is no money in the 2007 budget for repairs to existing paths in parks that form part of the Bikeway Network. This is not "speeding up the bike plan' as directed in the Mayor's Mandate. The biggest obstacle in trying to convince councillors to increase these budgets was the fact that the Transportation Services Division and the Parks Forestry and Recreation Division had such difficulty completing projects and spending the money they were given in previous years' budgets. The addition of the 4 staff to work on Cycling Infrastructure in the Transportation Services Division should help to address that problem. There still needs to be improvements in the Bike Lane approval process to ensure that the projects funded in this budget actually get completed this year.

The second disappointment was the lack of funding for a staff position in the Parks Forestry and Recreation Division to work on the planning and implementation of Bikeway Network trails in parks. This would have helped the poor record of project completion that has plagued the cycling related projects.

The third disappointment was the lack of any new funding for Cycling Safety Education and Promotion programs. These have seen no real increase since the inception of the Bike Plan in 2001 and in fact have not even kept up with inflation. There was one small indication that the Budget Committee recognized that this was an issue when they referred the issue to staff working on the Climate Change Plan. I have excerpted that recommendation from the Budget Committee April 4th - Decision Document

Recommendations adopted by the Budget Committee on April 4, 2007.
Decision Advice and Other Information
The Budget Committee:

B. requested the following:

v. referred the financial issues related to the following items and the communication (July 4, 2006) from the Policy and Finance Committee, entitled “2006 Draft Clean Air Action Plan - Proposed Action” (BU10.14) to appropriate staff, for inclusion in the City's Climate Change Plan due in July 2007:

a. increased tree protection, maintenance and enhancement;
b. bike plan, specifically for education and safety programs; and
c. other environmental and clean air initiatives;

So now we have an acknowledgment from the Mayor that the implementation of the Bike Plan needs to be speeded up and a commitment through his mandate to do that. We have an improvement in just one element, staff, of one division, Transportation Services, of one component, Bikeway Network, of a Bike Plan that has 6 components that incorporates at least 3 City Divisions and at least one Board, Health. In sum we don't yet have a comprehensive strategy to accelerate the Bike Plan.

So where do we go from here? The next opportunity for the Mayor and Council to ensure that a comprehensive approach is undertaken to 'speeding up' the implementation the Bike Plan is to ensure that implementing the Bike Plan is a major component of Toronto's Climate Change and Clean Air Action Plan and that a significant portion of the funding set aside to address Toronto's response to climate change goes to the implementation of the Bike Plan. The opportunity for you to tell City Council that this should be done is at the April 29th, 2007 Climate Change Action Forum. This is part of the consultation that is being done to determine what the Climate Change and Clean Air Action Plan should include. If you can't attend the forum there are other ways you can let your opinion be known. You can fill out an Online comment card or Email: changeisintheair@toronto.ca.

Emissions from transportation is one of the leading contributors to greenhouse gasses in the city. Promoting cycling by completing the Bike Plan is one of the cheapest and quickest ways the city can provide an alternative for Torontonians who want to make a difference in their personal lives to leave a smaller carbon footprint. The cost of completing the BIke Plan is a fraction of what the major transit projects that have been proposed will cost, and could be fully operational before the first passenger boards a subway on the extended subway line or streetcar on the proposed rapid transit lines. The Councillors who will draw up the Climate Change Plan have to hear about this from their constituents and often.

Now given that I have said that the combined efforts of many organizations and activists have not seemed to have had a major effect on the outcome of the budget you might be tempted to say, "Why bother? What good will it do?" I ask myself that too sometimes. However I am encouraged that we have seen some movement, in areas where there was not progress we have seen what the obstacles and arguments are so we can think of how to overcome and counter those next time. Finally the issue is too important to give up now. As the city, the province and the country come to the realization that we have to address climate change we have to ensure that reducing emissions from transportation by providing cycling as an alternative is a major component of Toronto's Climate Change Plan.