Re: “Cycling getting trippy in Vancouver,” May 15.
I am familiar with the cliche, “lies, damn lies and statistics” but Jerry Dobrovolny surpassed even that idea with his bizarre definition of a “cycle trip” in Vancouver. What normal citizens would consider one cycle trip to give Mr. Howell his mythical cheque and go on home would be a total of four trips, according to the number crunching at city hall. Might Mr. Howell follow up this story with a photo of the 10-to-12 thousand cyclists crossing Burrard Bridge every day? (300,000 cyclist per month = average of 10,000 trips per day.) I have yet to see crowds of this magnitude crossing the bridge.
I was at a city council meeting two summers ago when a professor (retired) of statistics demonstrated that Mr. Dobrovolny’s published figures of the number of cyclists riding on Cornwall Avenue was an impossibility in the time frame given. Needless to say, the professor’s data fell on deaf ears when presented to council and staff. I did not believe Jerry Dobrovolny’s stats then and I doubt the validity of his “data... grounded in numbers” now.
I have lived on the rental side of Kits, between Burrard and Macdonald, for 22 years and I am sure I would have noticed this dramatic increase in cyclists traversing the neighborhood. I haven’t, but the number of cars and trucks has risen exponentially. Our north-south streets have become secondary thoroughfares between Cornwall and Broadway.
Likewise the east-west avenues are popular routes to avoid the congestion on Broadway and on Fourth Avenue; especially the latter with the stop-and-go traffic caused by the many traffic lights.
Gerri Patriquin, Vancouver
