When I was a kid on an Abbotsford farm, my day started and ended with “chores”. If I was lucky — and if I had been good — and if it wasn’t labour day (when dad said we had to labour) … I could get Saturday off to do whatever I wanted.
So — Friday night, there I was, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling at 2 a.m.… couldn’t sleep for anticipation of my friend and I getting on our bikes and “travelling”.
Those were the days between childhood and manhood, the time when bikes were a “forerunner” of a driver’s license. Our bikes were loaded with accessories that had something to do with cars. They sounded like a car with our cardboard and clothespin spoke flappers. Our horns sounded like cars, we had mud flaps and steering knobs and all the adult things we were not old enough for.
One of these years we would get our licenses and travel “by car”… but for now, here I was at midnight, thinking about the “open road”… my Saturday, to go “anywhere that I wanted” on my bike.
Times have changed, and here I am, an old man. I should be retired … life should be easy … MY CHORES ARE DONE!! What am I doing lying in bed at 2 a.m. … can’t sleep in anticipation of Saturday. Where am I going on “Saturday”? Why, of course — I have to work overtime — get in my car like everyone else and “pollute the planet” one “extra day” a week, to pay for my taxes, to pay for those new BIKE LANES, which the cockamamie politicians are putting in.
If I live to be 140, my taxes will never pay for those millions. I demand that the municipality puts up signs like they do on highways … telling us how much this strip of pavement costs … or — maybe I don’t want to know — I’ll still be awake at 13 o’clock!
DON WARKENTIN,
MISSION, B.C.
Comments: 2
Zdenek wrote:
No one's forcing you to work overtime, that's your choice based on the lifestyle you created for yourself...quit your bitchin and embrace the future. And if you don't want to pay taxes, move away. Welcome to Canada.
I gotta say though, you wouldn't be complaining about bike lanes if you've ever biked through downtown traffic. Where cars pack the city streets, and you on your bicycle, smile and bike right past the whole lot, delighting in the thought that we once thought cars were almost godlike, but now they're becoming symbols of a fading and degenerate ideal.
on Aug 14th, 2009 at 2:09pm Report Abuse
MrMuckles wrote:
Calgary has some pretty high civic taxes due to the sprawl and these initiatives do nothing to lighten that burden. This old cowboy (Warkentin) doesn't sound so much like the robber class who deserves to be reprimanded. You make assumptions he is living a life of excess, when more likely, being a Canuck, he has sent his kids to Uni, travelled and is a baby boomer caught in socio economic mire. Maybe he has to pull another shift at the McDonald's on seventeenth or something. Who knows how much he makes? Twenty five years ago would anyone have thought their mortgage payments would be rivaled by their city taxes?
The issue here, though is..
Bike lanes..
if they are wide enough for bikers to avoid being "doored" by careless drivers exiting their vehicles and at the same time have a large enough buffer to avoid the meanderings of errant drivers, they save taxpayers money through serious harm reduction.
Helmet use is the most widely criticised cause of injury to bicyclists. In a recent D.O.T. study regarding bicycle deaths in New York city, among the over 200 victims only one was killed while using a marked bike lane(statistically weak due to low number of bike lanes). However powerful is that 97% were NOT wearing a helmet. And statistically important is the large vehicles (trucks/buses) were responsible for almost TWICE as many accidents as their percentile among vehicles sharing the road.
It is obvious that a well defined and separated lane for cyclists is a necessity too long in the coming.
And helmet awareness should be plastered on every piece of literature and education regarding bikes.
trivia bit.
A mountain bike rider and a motor biker both hit the same pot hole and crash at 35 kph. Who typically suffers the worse injury?
The mountain biker.
The fall from a higher center of gravity results in more, and more severe, head injuries. Add to that the quality and size of the helmet and it is safer to ride a motorcycle in the city.
on Aug 23rd, 2009 at 1:25pm Report Abuse
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