King St is good for downtown & for business
With recent news that Councillor Hillier is advocating for the removal of the new King St protected bike lane, we wanted to share some important points about why we need more protected bike lanes in London not less:
We’re in a climate emergency – cars are the #1 emitter of greenhouse gas in London emitting 55% of our total household emissions. If we’re serious about protecting our Earth, we need less cars which means improving alternatives such as cycling, walking and transit.
We need safer streets – we’ve already had 40 collisions reported to police between drivers and people on bikes this year. One resulted in death. Another person is in the hospital in critical condition. Physically protecting people on bikes from vehicles is paramount to ensuring we make our streets safer for everyone. Did you know that bike lanes make the street safer for pedestrians and drivers as well?
Protected bike lanes increase the number of people on bikes – the City used 55 cyclists a day as their baseline on King and we’ve counted 54 in an hour with the new configuration.
We want a city and downtown that’s people-focused – we are social creatures drawn to nice places that are comfortable to walk in and where we can see other people. This is why Dundas Place is so great, why it is fun to be downtown when there are events on and why downtown offers an experience very different from suburban big box stores. Bike lanes support people-focused places, while more traffic detracts from it.
The complaint from Councillor Hillier is that parking is harder to find and therefore businesses will close down. We affirm that having nearby parking is vital to businesses and that the introduction of the King St bike lane has made it slightly harder to find parking. In the City’s most recent parking count, peak parking demand downtown was only 71% of the available 15,000 spaces and only 54% of on-street parking spaces. King Street still has on-street parking full-time throughout the day compared to Richmond Row, which only allows on-street parking from 10am-3pm and after 6pm. Richmond Row continues to succeed!
In fact, numerous studies show converting road space from cars to people on bikes has either a positive or a negligible effect on sales and revenues.
What can you do?
If you agree that protected bike lanes are good for London, please
Ride your bike using King and Colborne as much as you can and post a selfie with the tags #wewantmorebikelanes #kingstbikelane #ldnontbike.
email your councilor (see list below) letting them know that you want the King Street bike lane to remain and to build more bike lanes like King. Feel free to copy and paste this blog post or share the link.
Also, support the local businesses along King and let them know you support the bike lane
Votes supporting the bike lane
Stephen Turner, Ward 11 sturner@london.ca
Elizabeth Peloza, Ward 12 epeloza@london.ca
Arielle Kayabaga, Ward 13 akayabaga@london.ca
Mo Salih, Ward 3 msalih@london.ca
Jesse Helmer, Ward 4 jhelmer@london.ca
Maureen Cassidy, Ward 5 mcassidy@london.ca
Anna Hopkins, Ward 9 ahopkins@london.ca
Josh Morgan, Ward 7 joshmorgan@london.ca
Votes against the bike lane
Ed Holder, Mayor mayor@london.ca
Michael Van Holst, Ward 1 mvanholst@london.ca
Shawn Lewis, Ward 2 slewis@london.ca
Phil Squire, Ward 6 psquire@london.ca
Steve Lehman, Ward 8 slehman@london.ca
Paul Van Meerbergen, Ward 10 pvanmeerbergen@london.ca
Steve Hillier, Ward 14 shillier@london.ca