November 20, 2022 - The City of Calgary’s proposed 2023-2026 budget allocates just $1.4 million to building active modes of infrastructure. This is less than 0.5% of the total Streets budget and is less than what it would cost to build the few blocks of the 7th Street Cycle tracks today.
Project Calgary has a good breakdown of the Proposed 2023-2026 Streets Budget here.
Bike Calgary’s Response to The Budget:
Bike Calgary has sent a letter to administration and city council and will be speaking on Nov 22, the day of public submissions.
A brief summary of our 5 key concerns and questions are below.
1. Several programs, from previous Council budget asks and recently approved strategies, are not explicitly mentioned in the proposed budget, including: Pathways Missing Links, Active and Safe Routes to School, Safer Collector Framework, and Neighbourhood Streets Policy – Why did these not receive dedicated funding?
2. Proposed capital funding for Pavement Rehabilitation is set to increase from $53.5 million in the previous budget cycle to $71.5 million. We believe that pavement rehabilitation projects should include the development of active mode corridors. When a roadway along the 5A network is repaved, will this significant budget increase be used to also provide a safe walking and wheeling route within the road right-of-way?
3. In contrast, a large capital funding cut is proposed for the Community Mobility Improvements program. This is one of the few programs that consistently delivered new and improved 5A network routes in the previous budget cycle. Why is this program being cut by 83% ($27.8 million to $4.7 million) without a replacement for these key community investments?
4. One of our top advocacy priorities is ensuring equity in transportation choice across all areas of the City. Our assessment of this budget is that it is very city centre and established areas-centric. Which programs in this budget offer opportunities for 5A network development in the rest of the City, including North/Northeast, and Southeast Calgary?
5. Performance Measures (PM) in the Sidewalks and Pathways portion of the budget seem to be operational in focus and do not reflect city policy and long range plans such as the 5A principles, The Climate Strategy, and The Calgary Transportation Plan. Why have the Performance Measures changed so substantially from the 2019 budget? The Climate Implementation document PMs related to mode share appear to be decoupled from the budget PMs.
Read the full letter here.
What You Can Do:
We invite everybody to speak or submit a written submission to city council on Nov 22 to show Council why active transportation is important.
The budget has not been approved yet and there are councilors that support active transportation and want to hear from you – take action – read more here.
