Hi,
You may have seen some of Russ Wyatt's accusations about limited public consultation and early access/undue influence on the part of Bike Winnipeg (http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/Russ-Wyatt-proves-to-be-...). You can view our response at our webiste (http://bikewinnipeg.ca/2015/05/14/russ-wyatts-antics-nothing-more-than-fear-...) or on our Facebook site (facebook.com/BikeWinnipeg). Please feel free to share widely.
Here is the letter to the editor we submitted to the FP
I told you the day would work out ok!
Cheers, Mark
Wyatt’s Antics Nothing More Than Fear Mongering
Russ Wyatt claims the Pedestrian & Cycling Strategies are flawed because of a lack of consultations, alleging that advocacy groups like Bike Winnipeg have undue influence at city hall (we wish!).
Like the rest of the public, we first saw the completed strategies (and proposed cycling network) on May 1^st . That’s not to say we and the rest of the city didn’t have plenty of time to review and comment on the strategies. 18 months of public consultations on the strategies culminated in three open houses in April 2014. The consultation process engaged over 3,000 people.
Bike Winnipeg and hundreds of other Winnipeggers took advantage of that time to comment on the draft network and recommendations. We were pleased to see those contributions reflected in the documents released May 1^st .
Wyatt’s so-called evidence that Bike Winnipeg had prior access to the strategies is an email we sent him on January 23, 2015 asking for a meeting to discuss opportunities to improve cycling options in Transcona and throughout the City of Winnipeg. You can read the full text of that email at bikewinnipeg.ca. Councillor Wyatt failed to respond to our invitation.
Mark Cohoe
Executive Director
Bike Winnipeg