Letter: Bicycles no longer just a leisure item

As for lashing out at bicycles lanes, I’m wondering if not in our streets, where do you propose they go?

Bicycles are no longer a leisure item. Increasingly, they are a means of transportation in a world of rising energy costs, pollution, and associated health problems.

We need more people on bicycles. In addition, cyclists are paying an inordinate amount of their taxes toward road maintenance, given their usage and impact on the roads already. To deny them a place at the table when discussing road changes compounds that injustice.

A recent study by American consumer rights group PIRG shows that we are trending toward a society that uses the car less and less. This trend is being driven by millennials, who by 2030 will be the largest demographic group in peak driving age.

That group is driving 23 per cent less than any generation before it. Let’s not build our city for our parents’ generation, let’s try to anticipate the city our kids will be living in and plan accordingly.

Mark Browning
Sudbury