Cycling in the City Budget
It is city budget time in Ottawa: an annual event where everything is seemingly threatened with cuts, fistfights erupt in coffee shops over whether individual taxpayers should pay 11 bucks a household to fund arts programs, and no one is entirely clear what will be offered next year until the damn thing is actually passed. It is pretty incovenient for residents, but I can only imagine how trying it must be for the city staff and individual groups who don’t know if they will be employed or exist next year.
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.