This blog, ofcourse, is paying particular attention to the budgets cycling commitments. I’m still working through the budget, but Citizens for Safe Cycling has prepared a useful breakdown of the budgets cycling commitments (PDF). The focus is, ofcourse, the Ottawa Cycling Plan. To implement it in 5 years as the city has committed would mean a commitment of around $5 million from the city this year;there is actually about $700,000. As we said at the time, the real test of commitment will be how much funding they are willing to designate.

The Citizen has a story today highlighting the results of contract arbitration between the city and the firefighters union. I won’t comment on the merits of it because I don’t really have any point of comparison as to whether or not it is reasonable (nor do I think that is really an relevant issue within the contexts of this site), but do think that it is worth pointing out that the $5 million annual cost of the “recognition” awards roughly corresponds to the annual implementation cost of the first stage of the cycling plan.

Now, obviously the introduction of one does not mean the death of another, but this arbitration agreement does mean that the city will be facing an even deeper budget shortfall, and this is one that council is not able to move away from. Moreover, this isn’t likely to be the last unexpected expense as the budget process moves forward (even if it is, hopefully, going to be the largest.) What it reinforces is that the cycling community needs to continue to be on the ball to make sure that the cycling plan remains fully funded in the budget process – remember that it is only 1% of the city’s annual capital budget – and that the inevitable distractions don’t hold back its implementation any further.

(I’ve been travelling overseas for the past few weeks, by the way, and do have stories to tell. I’ll start a series of posts on this blog and at mikepowell.ca this weekend.)