The proposed cycling funding in the city budget for this year is a welcome change, as is the extra staff to support Robin Bennett. It’ll be interesting to see what they do with the downtown: an obvious solution would be to convert the albert/slater bus lanes to cycling routes once the transit tunnel is completed, but that’s a long ways away and would be sure to cause a stink.

Even so, we need segregated lanes in Ottawa not for people like you and I who already feel relatively safe, but for the huge percentage of the population that doesn’t cycle, but could given the right conditions. Sense of safety (perceived or real) is consistently cited as the number one reason for choosing not to cycle.

On the funding front: the city has 16 million from the Feds for cycling infrastructure in 2010. The Ottawa Cyling Plan calls for 5 million of municipal revenue to be spent per year — admitedly, this has been on hold so far, but should begin very soon.

The question of feasibility is an interesting one. We often can’t simply add bike lanes downtown because, by and large, there is no space. This is why cycling infrastructure requires a change in thinking: city planners needs to start thinking about converting some infrastructure currently dedicated to cars, to cycling lanes. Ottawa’s cycling coordinator knows this, but I’m not sure he has much support on the issue. Fortunately, in every example I have heard of, this type of approach has reduced congestion, not created it.