Raise the Hammer

To Mr Meister,

Please consider two facts before claiming that Hamilton is fundamentally different from those cities that have managed to encourage high rates of cycling:

Cycling in European cities had reached very low levels before efforts (such as cycling lanes) revived it as an everyday activity. When I lived in Paris from 1994-1998, no one cycled (including me), and the conventional wisdom was that cycling was dangerous and unsuitable due to heavy traffic, aggressive drivers and bad weather from November to March. The efficient Metro system was also far more convenient.

I just spent three weeks in Paris, and now one sees bikes everywhere (although still not up to the levels of the Dutch). This is because the city built cycle lanes and set up the Velib bike rental service. This transformation has occurred in a period of about five years.

If you want to compare Hamilton to a spread out city with bad winter weather, consider Berlin. It's a very spread out relatively low density city with winter weather comparable to Hamilton, and yet cycling is popular thanks to an extensive network of cycle lanes.

Finally, as a (more or less) year-round cyclist, I can definitely say that dark rainy weather is far more unpleasant to cycle in than sunny cold weather. Copenhagen in January is not cycle-friendly weather, and yet people do cycle.

p.s. When comparing densities and populations, it is important to compare like with like. Since amalgamation, Hamilton includes the metro area. Geneva's total metro population is actually 1.2 million over a very large area (my sister in law lives in a village between Geneva and Lausanne, so I know the area reasonably well). It doesn't make sense to include the rural or suburban parts of Hamilton when comparing to the central core of Geneva. If you consider Wards 1-9, the densities and distances are well-suited to cycling (and Ward 2 has densities similar to European cities).

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2010-06-19 10:13:03