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LETTER: Mission is not a bike-friendly environment

Due to geographical design as a mountainside community
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I certainly understand trying to participate in events – in this case, safe cycling – but I don’t think the idea was accomplished in any way.

I live on Seventh Avenue and literally I observed maybe six bikes a day: two by local street kids checking blue boxes for bottles on their bikes and a couple of parents walking with their kids on small bikes in the lane.

It was stated that the lanes would be monitored, but they were not monitored at all.

As stated, I understand the concept to participate, but Mission is not a bike-friendly environment, simply by geographical design as a mountainside community.

The letter (sent to area residents) said it would encourage people to bike to work. I could not figure out what businesses on Seventh Avenue one would bike to when the vast majority of business in Mission resides on the Lougheed Highway and First and Second avenues. So are you suggesting people cycle up and down Cedar Avenue, riding onto the Lougheed to go to work?

Secondly, the high school kids do not bike to school. They either drive once they turn of age to possess their N and otherwise walk with friends, talking and texting along the sidewalk for those who live within a reasonable walking distance.

How does the Mission district propose to promote safe cycling when it’s extremely dangerous to bike north and south on our roads, which are steeply graded and all roads travel through extremely well-known dangerous intersections?

A prime example is Cedar and Seventh, where every car runs the lights, changes lanes at high speeds to run the intersection, and generally travels way beyond the speed limit both north and south. I would consider this the most dangerous intersection in Mission.

Parents who live throughout the area of Mission basically have to use the one high school; therefore, they drive their kids to school and pick them up.

They certainly would not entertain telling their kids to bike to school on such dangerous roads with such steep grades in order to connect to a bike lane that cannot cross intersections due to the danger they pose.

Finally, I must address why use the north side of the road when the south side of Seventh from Wren to Stave Lake is primarily non-residential, bordering on parks, and very few small business requiring few parking issues for residents on Seventh Avenue?

Solution: Create bike lanes at our main parks so that people can take their bikes to the park and cycle around the park with their children in a safe manner – for example, a community centre from Taulbut to 14th and around through the community centre parking arena or Heritage Park around the park and through the walking path, creating a very nice cycling environment as two major examples.

B. Edwards

Mission