budget

The City of Toronto Official Plan envisions a city where active transportation helps to relieve congestion and improve air quality. Yet, right now less than 2 per cent of the City of Toronto Transportation budget is dedicated to walking and cycling infrastructure.

Now is your opportunity to let the city know that it needs to treat cycling as a serious form of transportation.

Tomorrow, Thursday March 6th, the City of Toronto's budget committee will meet to wrap up the 2008 Operating Budget. The Operating Budget pays for the staff that runs programs and services. For several years now cycling activists have been trying to get increases in this area without success. Although we welcome the 2008 capital budget increase in transportation services from $3.0 million to $5.5 million for cycling infrastructure (needed to install the substantial increased amount of 50 km of on-street bike lanes scheduled for this year) it is now time to ask that the cycling safety, education and promotion programs also receive a similar much-needed boost.

Martin Koob of biketoronto.ca has posted a succinct summary here. It includes an outline of the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation's (TCAT) bike-related recommendations.

They asked council to:

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