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 1st. 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 1st.
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