Originally Posted by budster
I believe in the power of the bicycle to cure a lot of what ails us, and I find the biggest obstacles to convincing others to bike are: 1) the behavior of many car drivers; and (more especially) 2) a transportation system set up solely to accomodate cars.
And yeah, I resent the hell out of that second one.
What gets to me: Ottawa, like many other North American cities, had a perfectly good light rail system until the late 50's/early 60's
which they tore out!. Then, in the 80's, they realised the "oops" and started taking public transit seriously, but went with buses. Now, 50 years after removing the last street car, we are spending big $$ building a light rail system. Hello, does no one think about the long term?
Also like many other cities, we (and the former municipalities now amalgamted into Ottawa) allowed massive sub-urban developments in the 80's and 90's. Again the clue arrived to late: we now have an "in-build or don't build" policiy, but we are stuck providing city services to all sorts of places outside the core.