If there are significant numbers of people on bikes, then the case can be made for adding bike lanes or segregated bike paths. It simply makes sense. If there are not many people riding bikes, then bike lanes become an expense, borne by all taxpayers, for the benefit of a few. This does not make sense.

Where I live, we recently had a survey of residents. Of those who responded, 60 per cent did not want to see taxes increase, including 10 per cent who want services cut in order to have lower taxes. This is close to the same as a the results from survey conducted a few years earlier. It will be a very hard sell to add any sort of bike paths unless there is a way to do so without any increase to the tax bill.

On a more positive note, although we do not have much in the way of bike paths and bike lanes here, motorists tend to be incredibly considerate of cyclists. I'm not sure if this outweighs the lack of routes dedicated to cyclists.