[pylon]

The city is an abomination to cycle in its current state.

-Shoulders full of gravel in MID-JUNE.
-Massive potholes in said shoulders.
-One of the most mentally ######ed set of drivers on the planet when it comes to cyclists (and that includes you dad.)
- A 20 km speed limit on the only safe place to cycle, our pathways, which essentially discourages serious cyclists.
- And hardly anywhere to lock a frkkin bike.

I am re-born cyclist as of 2008. Until my mid 20's, I probably logged 5000 kms a year cycling, and I am in that same range again now. This City was bad enough then, it is a scary, horrific nightmare most days now. I own 3 bikes. 1 high end road bike, a pretty decent mountain bike I mainly ride in winter, and I just built a pretty sweet commuter, by flat barring a low end road bike. The reason I built the thing, is this city destroys wheels on good road bikes (which run $2-500/piece), and with the lack of bike parking, you would have to be a moron to lock a $2000 bike to a chain link fence.

Personally, I think a 88 page PDF that probably cost a million bucks is excessive as well. They could have pulled 50, 35+ cyclists that have lived and cycled in this city for years, and understand the value of a dollar, put them in a room for a weekend, and just consulted with them.

It is not difficult.

- Major thorough fairs (Crowchild, Mcleod, Glenmore, Centre, Sarcee etc...) should have a twinned bike path running parallel within 100 m. Most of these roads currently have massive amounts of green space lining them already. It is a gong show trying to find a safe route parallel to McLeod from Shawnessy up to about Chinook Centre without having to criss cross to the east and west sides up to half a km in either direction (Bonaventure/Elbow/Horton/etc).Get the major routes taken care of, then the rest solves itself. Navigating the minor side streets and Aves, is rarely scary or dangerous.

- Clean the frikkin shoulders on the major biking routes first, so you can ride in them safely, and not impede traffic.

- Fix the damn potholes in the shoulders. I got an idea, send a few city workers out on bikes, with a GPS and just tag all the spots each spring. You could do this on an iPhone for gods sake. 5 or 6 guys could do it in a week, only problem is finding a city worker that is willing to do work.

- And lose the bloody speed limit on the paths! Any experienced cyclist that is riding at a pace that exceeds it for long stretches, is probably safer than some tool on his custome built chopper bike with no brakes, weaving all over the sidewalk, listening to Fiddy cent on his iPod.

Yes obviously there is more to it, but that report is just silly. You have all of these trgets, and projections, etc. Make the city safe and convenient to ride in, and people will ride more. It is a simple organic process. You'll never convince Cummins deisel truck balls guy to ride a bike, his truck is a penis thing with him. But for the better part, cities that give cyclists priority, will naturally get more cyclists.