Monday, August 21, 2006

Transparency at City Hall

There is no longer a bike rack outside of the City Hall council building. For awhile, there was one sitting at the Main Street side, but for the last couple of weeks it has not been there. The only bike rack you will find at City Hall now is largely hidden behind shrubs and shadows outside the Administration building. Of course, compared to the Maryland Bridge, Main Street underpass, beligerent hillbillies, undercover cops, etc. this is small fries for Winnipeg cyclists. However, it sends a loud and explicit message to all citizens and visitors of Winnipeg: We refuse to join every other city across North America--from Vancouver to Phoenix--in at least pretending that we care about cycling.

And really, in a city where the mayor in 2005 told reporters that "ideally, they [car and bicycle traffic] should be separated," it makes sense that there would be no bike racks outside of City Hall. Good for Sam Katz' City Hall for having the courage to express to the public how they truely feel about cycling; no more gestures of cycling downtown being something that is encouraged, or that City staff might actually have a place to lock their bike should they choose to get to work sans Taurus. For this City Hall, that bike rack out front was a serious conflict of interest.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

After reading this post, I spoke to a friend who works at the Admin Building at City Hall and I think I have the answer.

The (one) rack just outside the front doors at the Admin building was becoming over-used, but nobody was parking at the one out facing Main.

So apparently at the suggestion of the cyclists in the building, they moved it beside the other rack, where it is being happily used.

Looks like politicians had nothing to do with it, this action was by and for the commuter cyclists at City Hall.

3:03 PM  
Blogger The Rise and Sprawl said...

Thank you for that piece of information. Regardless, the lack of visable bike racks at City Hall sends a strong message about this city's attitude towards cycling.

10:01 PM  

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