Hi AT folks
I must share this news with you
- can barely type it out!
Pass this on to your members /
friends / anyone interested in AT.
Tonight I attended the CAA
election forum on infrastructure, consumer and safety issues at the Free Press
News Cafe. (photo attached)
- Dan Lett Free Press columnist
moderated.
- A lot of heavy weights were
there asking questions - CAA President, MPI Insurance, AMM President, and
others.
- Jeremy Hull from Bike to the Future also
attended and asked a question on education / road
safety.
As a CAA member and WTA
representative - I was able to ask a question of the three candidates -
Goertzen, Mackintosh and Stewart.
Fortunately Mackintosh -
through previous questions from the audience - spoke multiple
times of how the NDP were 4 years into an unprecedented $4B roadways
investment and how CentrePort investment was going to be the 'jewel' of Canada
from a transportation perspective - thus setting the stage for my
question/s.
I spoke as a 'vulnerable road
user' (explaining the MPI term), articulating that we too pay taxes to
use roads - spoke of
current situation:
- as these billions of roadways
money were being spend - the complete lack of an AT policy meant there was no
lens of active transportation being use to consider AT
opportunities
- not one single person in
gov't solely dedicated to AT
- simply no mechanism to
gather public input on AT issues
Then highlighted the Greater
Strides report with 25 recommendations - a PLAN - which was released
in a ditch in Southdale this June - and 500 printed copies were sitting in a
closet in gov't offices and were not being distributed for purely political
reasons (and gave them each a copy) - and asked the
QUESTION:
Within one year of
becoming elected - would your government commit to:
- developing a
Provincial active transportation policy
- dedicate full time
resources to oversee implementation of policy, education and
AT planning
- ensure formation of an
avenue to gather public input / advice?
I did not highlight these
are the three actions that are resulting in the City being so successful in
moving AT forward - there is always a friction between the two levels of gov't.
Each one of them, said yes
- and as the first one started
to ramble an answer ( I believe it was Mackintosh)
I interrupted -
articulating the question to get a black and white answer vs jargon -
Dan Lett jumped in,
drilled them a bit more on it - and YES - they all clearly said
these were significant points in light of the increase in public's engagement of
active transportation AND they would commit to these
actions.
POST
FORUM
I went up to each one of them
to AGAIN confirm - and yes -
Goertsen said it was in the PC
health announcement from today - and exact details would be forthcoming soon
Mackintosh said yes - for sure
- but wasn't sure how the public input aspect would look
exactly
I thanked Stewart for being
involved in tonight's event.
VALUE OF AN ELECTION
PROMISE:
In last Provincial election -
NDP promised WTA $1.8 M
They delivered on every single
penny (albeit with some heavy handed hounding) -
WTA used the promise to
leverage an additional $5M in trail funding from Feds / City
and private for trails and trailheads.
VALUE OF AN
ELECTION PROMISE . . . x
THREE:
can it get any better ? the odds seem very good.
Am now hoping we have a more
'official' AT announcement from each party - I expect it will occur.
If I can get recording in an an
MPwhatever format - I will pass it on also.
this is almost surreal.
Janice
Lukes