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Regina cycling advocates “extremely disappointed” about lack of bike consideration in city’s budget

While Saskatoon takes steps to factor cycling more significantly into its urban planning, members of the bike scene in Regina, on the other hand, are saying that there's a troubling indifference to cyclists in the city's municipal budget.

December 7, 2015
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While Saskatoon takes steps to factor cycling more significantly into its urban planning, members of the bike scene in Regina, on the other hand, are saying that there’s a troubling indifference to cyclists in the city’s municipal budget.

Representatives from Bike Regina, a local advocacy group, call the budget “extremely disappointing” on the cycling front.

“We were extremely disappointed to observe cuts to previously planned cycling infrastructure,” said the organization’s president, Sara Maria Daubisse, in an address to Regina city council. In 2016, the CBC reports, the organization expected to see several key projects—a study for a bikeway, as well as improvements and extensions of bike lanes— that weren’t a part of the budget councillors put forward.

“The removal of planned cycling projects from the budget,” the organization explained, “and the failure to implement planned improvements identified in the past three budget meetings leads Regina’s cyclists to feel that improving the cycling environment in Regina is a negligible priority for this council.”

The situation in Regina contrasts sharply with the city’s Prairie counterpart, Saskatoon. There, the city’s government has made assurances that it will keep bike lanes snow-free, while also prioritizing safety for local cyclists over re-introducing things like bike licensing, which some have called for. Between the two Canadian cities, the differences when it comes to cycling—and the relationship of both riders and bike advocates with their city’s governments—are striking.

Still, it’s not all bad, Bike Regina said.

Some members of the city’s government, the CBC reported, have been warmer to the idea of enshrining Regina cycling in the way Bike Regina is advocating—as viable, essential urban transportation. Councillors, they noted, say they’ll consider bike lanes in official studies of the city’s winter maintenance, something expected to happen in late 2016.