Elections 2006 Blog
“I’ve done pretty much everything I said I would…” part II
November 1st, 2006 by Edward Keenan
Miller told me last week that he’s confused by disappointment in him because he’d done most of what he said he would do.
Here’s something he told me in 2003 when he was running: “as part of the ridership growth strategy I’ve promised to bring down the price of passes in 2005, and that probably will require a bit of funding from the province.” (emphasis mine) He mentioned a $5 reduction as being the target.
Price of a Metropass in 2003: $98.75
Price of a Metropass in 2006: $99.75 (fare info from Transit Stop)
Of course, they’re now transferrable. So you judge how that works in the balance.
Miller’s dismal cycling record
November 1st, 2006 by Edward Keenan
Tammy Thorne over at Spacing Votes had an excellent post last week about David Miller and the bike plan. She rightly asks if the mayor has admitted defeat on getting bike lanes installed.
When I spoke to candidate Miller way back in 2003, he finished his spiels about his three biggest priorities (without me mentioning cycling at all): “…Our air is terrible and there’s lots of things that the city can do, we’ve got great plans. There’s great bike plans, probably the best bike plan in North America, but it doesn’t happen because there hasn’t been leadership and I think there’s a real opportunity to make the services the kind that we’ve come to expect from a municipality, that kind of excellent quality that we aren’t getting.”
A few minutes later, he said: “The [bike] network has to be completed, that’s a way to make this safe. A lot more things can be done I’m sure, too, but to me that’s the number one priority”
Just by way of background, that “best bike plan in the world” called for us to build 1000 kilometres of bike lanes by 2010. Three years later, Mayor Miller’s council has built: something like 26 kilometres of bike lanes — which is half as many kilometres as we built under Mel Lastman. (Let me dig out the exact numbers and edit this later today).
After his big transportation announcement at Downsview last week, during which Miller promised to continue with the bike plan, I asked him about the absolute failure to make progress on what was one of his top priorities when he spoke to me in 2003.
“We put an extra million dollars in, and the money wasn’t spent. The money wasn’t spent because of local political opposition. And so I don’t have an easy quick answer.
…What we need is the cycling community to get out front and… The cycling community has to be our partner so we can demonstrate to communities why bike lanes matter. We also have to — the strategy so far has been to take the easy wins, to build a piece where we know it’s not going to be controversial. In the next four years we need to make the pieces that we have to make. The answer is about politics because the obstacle is some local councilors — some, not all — fight these things tooth and nail. And I think we have to think about it as a system, and the strategy in the past has been whatever’s possible makes it better. And we have to think of it as a system, just like public transit and push the network.”
Hmmm. A minute later, when I asked him about the generalized feeling of disappointment among his supporters, he said “I’ve done pretty much what I said I would.” Double hmmm.
Going through this 2003 interview transcript could be a lot of fun.
(Photo from Bike Toronto)
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