Beset by allegations of health care contracting corruption, international coverage of a self-inflicted measles epidemic, anger at municipal political parties nobody wants, increasingly aggressive push-back against their separatist project, and a couple of former caucus members looking for a way to breathe new life into the corpse of the Progressive Conservative Party, Alberta’s United Conservative government would really like to reset the narrative.
What would work to put pro-Canada Albertans on the back foot before they get enough signatures on a petition that would sink Premier Smith’s separation referendum for five years, convince Edmonton and Calgary voters to dump progressive city councillors in October’s municipal elections, get worried seniors’ minds off the UCP’s disastrous health care policies, and unite the party’s restive and radicalized base before the party’s annual general meeting in November?
Attacking trans kids has mostly flopped. Five-minute cities? Pffft! Attacking the Libs in Ottawa has lost its allure as Prime Minister Mark Carney tries to fend off the depredations of Ms. Smith’s favourite American politician. Even that hardy perennial, promising a high-speed rail line between Edmonton and Calgary, has lost its lustre now that everyone knows about how much the premier’s husband loves choo-choos!
What’s left in the MAGA playbook that might work?
Bicycle Lanes!
I mean, seriously, what could be more woke than bike lanes? MAGAnificent!
Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen, who hails from the rural Innisfail-Sylvan Lake Riding in central Alberta, has already put his oar in, complaining about bike lanes in Calgary and threatening to bring in legislation that will ban them – you know, just like renewable energy projects.
On Saturday, the UCP turned loose another of their big guns on the issue – Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Williams, resident of the Hamlet of La Crete, pop. 4,000 and one of the province’s current viral hotspots in northwest Alberta’s Peace River riding.
That means Mr. Williams can pretty well say whatever he likes about people in Calgary and Edmonton and the folks they elect, and there’s no risk the voters in his riding might send him back to work at the hamlet’s gravel pit any time soon.
Mr. Williams, hitherto best known for his harsh views on abortion rights (he’s against them) and his porn-star moustache, teamed up with Postmedia’s Rick Bell, the UCP’s favoured conduit to the party base, to read the Riot Act, metaphorically speaking, to those woke, progressive, city councillors the UCP can’t stand.
You know, the ones who are always saying:
I don’t believe in Peter Pan
Frankenstein or Superman
All I wanna do is …
Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle…*
“Do your damn job,” Mr. Williams ordered them. “If they’re doing their jobs and they’re making decisions that are in the interest of their ratepayers around affordability and safety and creating livable communities then I will let them have as much bandwidth as they need to do that.” (Emphasis added.)
Disagree with him about what needs to be done, though, he threatened, and “I will course-correct them. If you’re trying to do my job and the provincial government’s job you will be put back in your lane.”
Asked to explain what he had in mind by his simpatico interlocutor, he wouldn’t. But we all get the picture, as intended. The UCP runs an authoritarian government, and they mean to get more authoritarian.
Now, up to here Mr. Bell’s column was just about woke stuff generally – do not go declaring a climate emergency, Mr. Williams warned, as long as the UCP denies that there is one. But Mr. Williams just couldn’t stop himself from veering into the bike lane.
“Williams mentions a judge ruling Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s plan to remove three Toronto bike lanes unconstitutional,” Mr. Bell wrote. “He thinks the court decision is ‘beyond bananas’ and removing bike lanes is for the province to decide.”
Obviously, Mr. Williams – like almost everyone commentating on the decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruling last Wednesday – doesn’t know what the ruling actually said.
Basically, what Justice Paul Schabas’s decision says is that governments have the right to make policy decisions, including removing bike lanes, even if they put people at risk. But if they put people at risk while demonstrably ignoring the evidence and making patently false claims about what their policy change will achieve, the Charter may come into play.
And while politicians may not like that, and you can even make a coherent argument that it ought not to be that way, it’s not bananas.
Legal experts say: The circumstances in the Ontario case are so unusual and egregious that they won’t establish a precedent and will almost certainly never be repeated elsewhere.
Mr. Williams responds: Hold my beer!
In fairness to Ontario Premier Doug Ford, hating on bike lanes and public transit is sort of a family tradition. Alert readers will recall how the premier’s late brother, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, declared upon his election in 2010 that “the war on the car is over!” It wasn’t, but at least it shows that in Ontario this isn’t just a MAGA thing.
Interestingly, Mr. Dreeshen’s plans are too much even for some right-wing Postmedia commentators.
After spending a lot of time complaining about bike lanes in Edmonton, columnist Lorne Gunter conceded that the province shouldn’t be meddling with decisions made by city councils. If city voters don’t like them, they should vote for politicians who also don’t like them.
“The UCP government should butt out,” he concluded, qualifying that a little by suggesting the province could refuse provincial funds for bike lanes.
They won’t butt out, of course, as long as butting in keeps our minds off the things they’d prefer that we ignore. And they’d really, really like us to all vote for a municipal political party with the UCP stamp of approval in October.
*Queen, 1978
Jason Kenney: ” the lunatics are running the asylum.”
Are we Kansas yet? There would seem to be a surfeit of flying monkeys!
He let them in.
Smith’s UCP government that often talks about the Feds and municipal governments staying in their lanes, seems to not take its own advise. When she is not dabbling in foreign affairs with trips to Florida and elsewhere, she and her minions seem to delight in micro managing cities.
No doubt bike lanes are becoming the last refuge of political scoundrels. They are potentially a nice distraction for a party that is not running things that are in its lane well. I’ve observed that those who can’t do their job well often try to do others. It generally does not work out well or help.
I suppose the war on bike lanes may help shore up their rural support for a bit. Perhaps they will at least forget for a while the chaos of AHS or whatever it is called this week. However it is not a good sign for the UCP that even anti bike lane Gunter thinks that they should take their own advise and this time stay in their lane. Advise, I feel Smith and her gang are unfortunately unlikely to take.
Dictator Danni just keeps on sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong, in spite of her calls to others to stay out of her lane.
I found it funny that while on vacation in the Maritimes a couple of weeks ago, specifically Halifax, the news talked about a similar bike lane controversy in Halifax.
“Halifax bike lane issue
The ongoing debate in Halifax regarding bike lane construction and maintenance has been marked by a series of motions and decisions made by the city council. Mayor Andy Fillmore’s motion to pause bike lane construction was defeated, and the council has since passed a motion to review the rising costs and consider alternatives. The Nova Scotia Premier has threatened to overrule the council’s decision if it does not reverse its stance on the Morris Street bike lane project, citing traffic congestion and public safety concerns. The situation highlights the tension between urban planning, infrastructure development, and public safety in Halifax.”
It just boggles the mind of how much money is being spent to appease bicyclist groups, when in the old days when I was young, cars and bikes respectfully shared the roads and there was no need to spend hundreds of millions to separate them.
David, thank you so much for writing about a topic that is very close to my heart.
When Devin Dreeshen talks about removing bike lanes, the biggest bee in his bonnet regarding Edmonton is the 132 Ave rebuild currently underway. The links below are to the City of Edmonton’s website, and discuss the background to the 132 Ave project.
Highlights include:
1. The project history, as outlined in the first link, shows there were 2 or 3 years of public consultation that went into the project before construction actually started in 2023.
This really begs the question where has Mr. Dreeshen been since he was appointed Transportation Minister in 2023? It was under his watch that several kilometres of bike lanes were built, and now he wants to rip them out. It is pretty hard to claim to be opposed to government waste when you sit idly by why millions of dollars are spent building bike lanes, then call for millions more to be spent removing them.
2. The second link is a summary of information the City collected during consultations they conducted before the final design of 132 Ave was completed. On page 15 of the document the city reports that the original four lane version of 132 Ave was often underutilized, and residents that took part in the consultation claimed speeding along the avenue a real concern.
Although not in the documents, I think it is noteworthy that 132 Ave is roughly 7 blocks north of Yellowhead Trail, and when it was built Yellowhead Trail was not the major freeway it is now. It is my guess that some of the traffic that would have used 132 Ave in the sixties now finds it quicker to use the Yellowhead instead, rendering 132 Ave partially redundant.
I have biked on the new 132 Ave bike lanes, at rush hour, and found traffic to be very light.
A cynical answer to my rhetorical question about why the 132 Ave project is suddenly on Devin Dreeshen’s radar is the construction schedule and the municipal election. My first exposure to Mr. Dreeshen’s anti-bike lane crusade was when he appeared at a press conference with Karen Principe, the city councillor for Ward Tastawiyinwak. The eastern section of the 132 Ave project crosses Ward Tastawiyinwak. Ms. Principe challenged Kerry Diotte for the CPC nomination for the riding of Edmonton Griesbach, so she is clearly a UCP favoured councillor.
The City’s construction schedule calls for construction across Ms. Principe’s riding to start in 2025, so the timing couldn’t be better to appeal to the MAGA residents in Tastawiyinwak.
https://www.edmonton.ca/transportation/on_your_streets/132-avenue-renewal
https://www.edmonton.ca/sites/default/files/public-files/132AveRenewal_WhatWeDecided.pdf?cb=1754132334
The real reasons Devin Drunken hates bike lanes? Because: 1. It’s hard to ride a bike when drunk. 2. Oh and dirt roads don’t have lanes. 3. Plus a bike in the office is a poor substitute for a drunken ass-hole who thinks he has a license for co-worker/subordinate harassment!
I posted the following on David’s previous column about Thomas Lukaszuk’s petition. David, I apologize for the redundancy, but a couple of commenters asked about how they could sign the petition, so I thought it could be useful, for people living in Edmonton at least.
A group of volunteers were at the gazebo in McIntyre Park, just west of the Old Strathcona Farmers’ Market collecting signatures on Saturday morning. They were doing a brisk business, and the woman I spoke to thought they would probably be there again next Saturday. (Actual location 104 St. and 83 Ave. in Edmonton)
There was, incidentally, also a fellow in the same park with a big banner that read ‘Alberta Sovereignty Now’. He was standing all by himself.
Mo problem, Bob. It’s good to spread the word. DJC
As the stomach turns – Berta baby – what an absolute GONG show.
Pre-approved script for all UCP ministers and MLAs, from Premier Smith’s office:
“We will do our best to prevent fallout from the CorruptCare Scandal, and deflect from our unthinking, knee-jerk support for the oilpatch–SQUIRREL!!!”
Mike J Danysh: On that topic, there will be a lot of screaming going on, as the UCP get taken down by the MH Care (Corrupt Care) scandal. Watch how worse it gets.
Wouldn’t it be wonderfully entertaining if in the next municipal election the people voted in very progressive city councils in Edmonton and Calgary and Smith was so enraged by this she disbands the cities and installs a single overlord in each city. Now that would be worth the price of admission to watch.
Neufeld and McFee?
Jimmy: That would be on brand. Police City State. DJC
Both UCP connected. Suspect this is not a new consideration.
Remind: Danielle Smith, elected Calgary School Board Trustee, 1998 Redux: because Smith’s ideological obstructionism persistently made the board effectively dysfunctional, the Progressive Conservative provincial government dismissed it just eleven months in and assumed its duties for the remainder of the term.
Revenge always has a backstory…
Living in a realm beyond healing and forgiveness wounded narcissists seek only revenge.
Meanwhile, she jets off to Boston (on our dime of course) for reasons unknown. Do you, DJC, know why she is there? Also, do you have any (repeat: any) suggestions for The Invisible Man* to counter Dani Distraction’s Dastardly Demonic Democracy Destroyer.
* NN or Napping Now
“Meanwhile she jets off to Boston… for reasons unknown.”
She could be on a fact finding mission. According to a Boston Globe editorial published two years ago, “Boston has about 76 miles of on-and-off street bike lanes, with ambitious plans to expand that network… And last year the state was ranked the most bicycle friendly in the nation.” Perhaps on her return the publicity department will release photos of her zipping around Beantown on a penny-farthing.
Tom: Alternatively, perhaps she’s on Beantown to help Gov. Abbott of Texas round up a few recalcitrant state Democrats. DJC
I like your analysis. Maga calls, she comes running!
So Mr. Dreeshen would like to ban bike lanes.
Since his appointment as minister of transportation and economic corridors he seems to have been mute on how he would manage a possible second highway blockade at the Coutts /Sweetgrass border. We may recall its seventeen day duration, economic cost of $44 million a day, and the presence of armed blockaders.
Yes Mr. Dreeshen go after cyclists and bike lanes. Softer targets are easier, and one of those darn lanes near a brewery could slow deliveries.
Jason Markusoff wrote about the same topic on CBC this morning. In his article, Mr. Markusoff looked at the judge’s ruling which overturned the Ontario government’s legislation authorizing them to tear out the bike lanes in Toronto.
It seems that before the Ontario government introduced the legislation, they commissioned a engineering firm to analyze the effect of removing the bike lanes. Unfortunately for Doug Ford and his disciples, the engineering firm cited a well established truism with regards to congestion levels, which is that if more driving space is created, more traffic will start to use the route, and it will soon fill the extra space until the level of congestion returns to where it was originally.
So what did the Ontario government do when the expert opinion that they paid taxpayer dollars for was not what they expected? They ignore it.
I guess its not just Alberta.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-calgary-bike-lanes-1.7599932
“Beyond bananas.” So will he “let” Calgarians ride banana bikes, which are the right balance of being bananas without going beyond bananas?
Fred Flintstone of La Crete has a moustache that is beyond Joseph Stalin’s. That’s my opinion.
I fully support no bike lanes in LaCrete, Alberta, pop. 4,000. However, if the people of La Crete think they can send their emissary to tell Calgarians what to do, they should be reminded that only fools start wars when they’re vastly outnumbered. Stick to your lane, La Cretins!
As for Devin Dreeshen, the E-bike revolution is on, sir. In the 20th century, farmers lobbied the Alberta government to run electric lines to the countryside and telephone lines, too. Everyone wanted those newfangled technologies. Nowadays, farmers own cellular phones and some might even be thinking of electrifying their properties with solar panels, wind turbines and battery banks to reduce their dependency on Alberta’s (increasingly unreliable) grid. Farmers appreciate saving money and self-reliance. Don’t be so sure they’ve got your back. Hate electricity all you want. Put yearly fees on E-bike owners for daring to use the roads. Return to the 1800s with horses and buggies if that’s your jam. Just remember the rest of the world will keep moving forward, probably on E-bikes and in EVs while you sit in your office with your styrofoam cooler. Shields up!
Very insightful!
“Are there no prisons?…Are there no workhouses?”
God Save the Buggy Whip!!
Hey, it works great in Ontario.
Bike lanes are a municipal decision. They don’t cross boundaries into other territories, they have zip to do with the province unless cyclists want to advocate for a cross-province bike lane.
The fact that DoFo is just a bullying, over-reaching whackjob that hates Toronto and who will do anything to undermine the city council isn’t an admirable public stance for the chuckleheads in the UCP to follow.
Looks like another one of Dixie Dani’s Trumpian distractions from her massive level of sheer stupidity, corruption and Americanized oil grubbing agenda.
Look over there while I pull a dead bunny outta a hat.
Well said. “Never surrender.”
If Mr. Lukaszuk’s referendum succeeds, how much fur will fly at the magist’s agm?
Depends on how many rotations Danielle’s empty head makes…
“Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, declared upon his election in 2010 that “the war on the car is over!””
There isn’t, and never was, a war on cars…this is just something that, as you have well surmised, David, conservatives and right-wing populists gin up for a distraction (or to rally a cranky part of their base).
When in doubt, attack the bicycle-lane creep that is ruining every driver’s life.
Being an avid cyclist, I use bike lanes, but I also don’t get why some of them are they way they are. Bike lanes along a very busy main thoroughfare is a head scratcher, because I wouldn’t want to ride on that road, bike lane or not. It’s always better to drop that lane on a less travelled, nearby road. But I really don’t think any bike is helpful because not enough cyclists, and there are too many idiots in cars.
Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and France are much places better for cyclists. Germany is a hallmark of excellent cycling infrastructure. The driver culture in these countries knows how to drive with cyclists, and it’s always an enjoyable and safe experience. Even the UK is moving on that path nicely. (Now, if they can only get rid of the idiots in cars, things could really improve.)
So, in a weird way, maybe the knuckle-dragging idiots in the UCP are doing something productive, and forcing city planners to think of better planning for cyclists?
A nearby straight, direct cycling alternative to that stretch of 132 Ave simply does not exist.
Also, personally, I never treat 132 Ave as a thoroughfare while driving (mostly because of the 30 km/h zones needed alongside its schools and playgrounds). If I drive on it at all, it’s because I’m headed somewhere in the neighbourhood.
Not a good example of the quality of education in Alberta, imo. Certainly not La Crete at least.
People like Mr Williams and Minister Frodo Baggins say the same things all country bumpkins say about bikelanes. Of course, being that most rural municipalities can’t afford basic infrastructure projects because we have an infrastructure debt with a tab running into the billions, so called rural albertans have almost no experience with bikelanes, or really even cyclists of any kind. They see cyclists as a demographic of poor, unsophisticated rabble adjacent to homeless folks.
What these mouth breathing idiots do not realize is that cyclists are actually usually centrist, upwardly mobile financially if not wealthy, well connected, and with the time to spend on their pet cause of “active transportation”. These people are lawyers, they’re doctors, they’re professors, they’re professionals. This is why a lot of the bike network is corralled into the wealthier communities. (Riverbend has an extensive network of bike paths that are as old as the neighborhood itself, actually). I’m not from Ontario but I’m guessing Doug Ford is starting to realize how bad of an idea it is to mess with this demographic. Minister Boogie Nights and Minister Hobbit are free to “fool around” and find out themselves. If they didn’t have ZERO capacity for joy I would invite them out for a pedal around the city, which in some areas is truly world class in terms of cycling, but make no mistake; in the world of cyclists ; this bird is a far outlier.
They may be trying this as a distraction, but it’s only calling attention to how ridiculous and incompetent these country bumpkins are.
Devin Dreeshen might be willing to back bike lanes if he thought they were strictly for those party bike pub tours that let the punters drink and drive. This thought occurred to me today when I was in Calgary’s Inglewood. “Minister Boogie Nights” might find it grand, too, given his propensity to combine drinking and other functions.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/devin-dreeshen-drinking-allegations-alberta-ucp-1.6237656 DJC
Is it really an allegation when there were glass bottles, in the shapes of wine and spirits bottles, visible in his office?
Even Premier Kenney, who was known to be an enthusiastic cough syrup imbiber, admitted having had drinks with Dreeshen in his office.
JM: Everything faintly controversial or performatively denied by a perpetrator is an “allegation” as far as the CBC is concerned nowadays. DJC
Mike— as per d’rumps deflections, rather than “squirrel” , the word of day, which I found amusing and quite appropriate is “locusts”..
Lol ( thanks Claus)
Dan Williams…” Do your damn job “…..doing his best P.Hegseth impersonation?? while boss lady is doing her best d’rump improve..?? Trying to keep up with Alberta political distractions, makes you feel like your listening to- ‘murcan news. Which reminds me, if anyone has noticed Skippy’s flagrant breaking of Alberta’s driving laws, it obviously isn’t the police, unless he’s been given exemptions by Dani’s personal force.
But in the meantime, the homecoming queen who seems to have a penchant for convertibles, he’s up to 4th one.
The best one for mixing with the locals was a white Excalibur and with the white cowboy hat..had me wondering who he reminded me of?? Light Bulb….it’s the Alberta version of Boss Hogg… ( I know that somewhere in the archives, I’ve seen a picture of him with a cigar)…..Lol
I really think the UCP should deal with urban cat licenses next. End the war on feline freedom. My cat should be FREE to terrorize mice and poop where she pleases, unvaccinated, her reproductive organs intact! Why should she be forced to wear a piece of cloth around her neck?
Where’s the convoy when you really need them?
“MAGAnificent!” And as for Stalin of LaCrete, well it does not warrant more than a passing reference to cousins marrying cousins, then isolating the whole lot in the far, remote, reaches of Alberta wilderness. Expecting to find cabinet material up there?
Maga mentality has found fertile footings in Alberta: AISH agents are posturing like ICE agents. They are better to reflect on the roles as public servants rather than UCP Gestapo. Even AUPE would agree, and AUPE would wise to nip the drift toward an authoritarian (centralized) goose steppers, and remind members that they are, by definition, public servants, not UCP tyrants.
I appreciate your poignant insights always David.
Stalin was a porn-star?
Hm, when I lived in Alberta and attended the U of A and later worked in and around Edmonton Strathcona and Downtown Edmonton I got around by 3 speed bike spring to fall, and in winter by ETS. This was 1976 to 1990. It was efficient and low cost, as well as healthy. A well designed bike path system complemented with bike friendly public transit ( not existing in that time) takes cars off the road. The benefits don’t need to be said. Car drivers will get to where they are going faster too. Other Large cities have “road planners” devoted to planning bike paths and testing existing ones. See you tube for examples. Time for the UCP to enter this era, and abandon their buckboards and buggy whips. P.S. the dude looks like comrade Stalin.
FA: There is a certain resemblance, yes. DJC
Emily ..LOL , thanks for the giggle…!!! There’s a couple of great cartoons in there….AFF, come on down.
Speaking of staying in their own lane, I wonder if Skippy is going to be busing in more supporters to the Drumheller candidates forum? Shame on “I wasn’t thinking about ‘s-x’ Genuis, and shame on Damien driving the home coming queen around town with his own name on the car. Why does that seem like it should be a conflict of interest or something; not that it would stop Skippy impo…
Isn’t this part of the Shit governments plan, get rid of the bikes, to make room for more cars, to increase demand for more oil and gas, so she can be a hero? I guess the next question for the puppet Dreeshen is, do we really need sidewalks? They serve no purpose, I mean who wants to walk or push their newborn in a stroller, when we can drive.
I’m ambivalent about bike lanes—as a car driver AND pedestrian. I always carry a hefty shillelagh and assume a Vlady Guerrero pose when I see a cyclist approaching me on the sidewalk. Works pretty good. Even better ‘n’ bike lanes.
Downtown Victoria is a vehicular mess most of the time and bike lanes made it worse (but, then again, one doesn’t go to the Garden City to be in a hurry—one simply can’t…) Our kids live on a dedicated bike route through residential Vancouver, on a hill, on a rightward curve so that, even if one looks over the left shoulder before opening one’s parked car door, it’s unlikely one will see a cyclist coming from behind in time to withdraw one’s left leg and shut the door so there won’t be be a potentially fatal collision. Of course the onus is on the car driver, not the cyclist, many of whom are actually travelling at double the speed limit (a really good reason to mount a rear-view camera in the car, maybe with some Doppler features). And still, cyclists seem to avail the pedestrian sidewalk with impunity (I saw a vid of a Victoria pedestrian smashing an offending cyclist in the face as he illegally threatened the safety of all pedestrians gambolling on the crowded pavement —where one might expect to get away with it—but the pedestrian, spotted by one of those ubiquitous security cameras, was of course tracked down by police and charged, the question remaining about a lesson well-learned—and I can’t honestly say if it will ever be answered).
But it’s the thought that counts, right?—because if one counts the total costs of, say, banning plastic drinking straws or implementing curb-side, “blue-box” recycling, or providing bike lanes, these thoughtful programs smack of tokenism: plastic manufacture and use—including discard—continues to rise, nonetheless, costing luxury beach resorts extra to pick up daily and natural ecosystems untold but certainly significant costs in extra-dollar terms (not saying banning plastic straws isn’t a good idea—I won’t be dining at Dani’s Denier Diner to hear the MAGA milkshakers bitch about soggy cardboard straws anytime soon anyhow); landfills continue to turn geological depressions into altitudinal expressions of throwaway-society’s mountainous towers of trash at an ever-increasing rate (not that sorting household trash isn’t a good thing—it’s supposed to cut down on methane gas generation from unsorted, rotting garbage—plus they say it might be a mineable resource one day—you know: when, like carbon sequestration, the technology is developed. One day…{{:~º) And the number of cars trying to squeeze onto already gridlocked roads continues to rise (not saying bicycles aren’t a good alternative for some—although you gotta be crazy to ride a recumbent bike in city traffic, IMHO).
But tokenism isn’t really the problem. How could it be?—it’s so small that suspending it is hardly a rational savings compared to the massive expense of running any city. In Alberta’s case it’s more like UCP petty mean-spiritedness—which only seems to betray its real intent, which is to distract from such really, truly, appallingly bad governance. But it does in fact work politically, in its finest sense, by assuaging fears that our Gaiageneric sins will buy us humans—and everyone else— a oneway ticket to a hellish future (just read the fine-print under the “Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free” part of the stub). The “artistes of the possible” can claim they are addressing these concerns by way of these very tokenish measures and, civic government being precluded from running budgetary deficits, and thrice-burdened city taxpayers (federal, provincial, and municipal) being thrice-sensitive, the issue of cost is legitimate and minded carefully: urbanites accept it not only to assuage future-fear, but also because more effective, expanded programs cost way more—exponentially way more. Do rural MAGAnauts really think they’ll have something over urban Albertans? More below.
One might say bike lanes, blue boxes, and cardboard drinking straws exist on a sort of paradigmatic break-even point. It is politic in the sense that most people know, even if euphemistically or not openly acknowledging that the point is sitting on a knife-edge. We’ve been told, after all, that we’re living on the brink since they dropped the atom bomb (I’m old enough to remember those late-50s-early-60s US Civil Defence TV ads that used to beam across Lake Ontario from Rochester and Buffalo and into our Saturday morning cartoons—school kids obediently crawling under their desks to the clarion “This Is Only A Drill”; I was probably too young to mutter, “Well, that’s a relief!”)—which I guess is how Small Modular Reactors lost the “N”-word, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima notwithstanding?
It’s understatement to say cities are hardwired and deeply founded (not ‘haywired and deeply flawed’ as some hayseeds might suspect). The most valuable, private marine waterfront real estate will be afforded the most expensive shoring up, some or all at public expense, as sea-level ineluctably rises. We simply can’t afford more while we await inevitable abandonment (although, IMHO, inundation needn’t preclude conversion to, say, desalination plants which could supply Alberta with fresh water via the repurposed TMX system after the upcoming paradigm shift —but I digress…) Retrofitting the civic commitment is like a never-ending contractual ‘extra’ which, according to experience, quadruples every ordinary cost (which have become extraordinarily high since Covid to start with). Even refitting—as opposed to retro—is complex because, with respect bike lanes, it only includes a single project, not the whole polisglot whence all those bicycles come. Even dedicated thoroughfares need level crossings—and those speed-bumpy ‘cloverleafs’ are maddening (ask any Victorian who, despite the fair city’s reputation as a bit of jolly old England, get the heebie-jeebies when they encounter a new roundabout installation—even the tweediest cyclists do). I’m inclined to think that, short of eliminating automobile traffic from a few main thoroughfares, it should be possible for bicycles to share the road with cars and trucks like they used to, as vehicles themselves—which, naturally, they legally are. But Squeezmeister Devin Dram’oshine is all over that one like a banned Olympic swimsuit.
Btw, it IS possible to make pedestrian plazas where the automobile once ruled, given certain preconditions of geography and civic history. If ancient European cities can do it, so should we be able. Mind, we haven’t yet had to rebuild any city after clearing away Roman macadamization exposed by modern carpet-bombing. Only thing is, in most of southern Canada all the good locations for cities are already taken, otherwise we’d just start building cities afresh while economically accommodating modern infrastructure from the foundation up. Remember “satellite cities”? I’m from one—that never got built after the mass expropriations were over (it became “Greenbelt” forty miles outside Hogtown—that’s getting premier D’ohFo into so much hot water right now). But there’s always the North—you know, after the permafrost melts a bit more: one month of 24-hour solar power and eleven of good, wind-powered sledding.
Now, this is really a pretty political picture—almost textbook, one Barry Cooper will never write, I’m sure, but one which, by whomever author, will exemplify the fact that the UCP government doesn’t do politics, rather only partisanship which, when it feels the need, will trespass into the art of the possible—bike lanes being apropos—only for that purpose, in this case to make a partisan mockery of the traditionally nonpartisan nature of municipal politics. Naturally the Smith&Parker Gang don’t get how that’s even possible. (On the flip-side, coming out of nonpartisanship, Mr Nenshi is now learning how—or at least many Albertans better hope he is…)
Did I mention that they, the UCP caucus, are therefore psephologically gormless? Heh, well, I guess I already did, didn’t I!
Enjoy the summer, my Alberta friends! Always something interesting, eh!
How long before the UCP goes down? Soon. Hence all these detractors.
Bicycles before conservative BS………
Dreeshen’s ongoing dismantling of photo radar — since April, Alberta cities can’t use their green light speed cameras anymore — has also mostly, er, flown under the radar. I’ve noticed speeds creeping up on the St. Albert Trail. On the Henday, where photo radar was removed entirely in 2023, 115-120 km/h is now the norm.
Like this battle against bike lanes, it’s a theft of measures proven to make roads safer (and actually improve the flow of traffic) – solely to pander to some voters (although Notley’s government was the first to weaken photo radar) and take power/cash from cities.
What’s next? Higher speed limits? (For instance, Dreeshen told the Calgary Herald that ring roads in Edmonton and Calgary are designed for 130 km/h and that the 100 km/h speed limit is too slow). Christy Clark’s government tried that in British Columbia and had to reverse it in many locations because fatalities went up.
But I’m not sure that the UCP would let a few road deaths get in the way of its plans.