Accountability

Holding Toronto City Hall accountable for its bike plan commitments is a core element of our work.

Since the city's first bike plan in 2001, the city has never met an annual target for on-street bikeway installations. It often takes years - when it's already too late - for this information to come to light. This is why we have been pushing for greater transparency on issues of the pace of installations, budget spending, and the safety and quality of existing infrastructure.

Bike plans are useful documents, but we can't ride our bikes on plans. In other words, delivery and implementation are even more important. Timely, accurate, and complete information allows advocates to push for action before failure is imminent and unavoidable by demanding a change of pace and a change in course.

We have also been scrutinizing the dollars promised for bike plan implementation (including federal and provincial contributions), the dollars allocated annually, and the dollars actually spent on cycling infrastructure. It is, after all, our money.

The story doesn't end once bike lanes are on the ground. The public is short-changed when the quality, safety, and utility of bikeways are substandard, leaving the community with bikeways that are under-utilized with the full potential of bicycles in our city, as an affordable, efficient transportation option, as opportunities to reduce GHG emissions, and as a useful approach to improve road safety and public health, under-realized.