City council will decide next week if the cycle track project will become permanent, but support for the project could be lacking.
The Manning Centre has released a report on the project that says the city is playing with the numbers to make the tracks look more popular than they really are by combining the number of people who like the tracks with those whose opinion hasn't changed since they were built.
“I would give the city full marks for running a good pilot that collects good data but overall it's impossible to tell whether the cycle track succeeded or failed because there was no overall metric tracked as to whether it would be a success or failure,” said Peter McCaffrey, Manning Centre.
The Manning Centre also said the city lowered its targets for riders and track safety.
“So even though they were set very low two years ago, they still haven’t been met on three of the five streets, and the collision data, the whole point of the cycle track, the justification for building it is that it’s meant to improve safety,” said McCaffrey. “And yet we see that it has not improved safety.”
The city says the Manning Centre either missed or ignored the fact that council publicly decided to change some benchmarks of the project a year ago.
“We're new at this, cycle tracks had never been done before, we had 105 data points we are collecting and we were looking at what was working,” said Evan Woolley, City Councillor. “It's a pilot, right? In pilots you try out different things and as they evolve, you tweak them, there is nothing nefarious."
Supporters of the cycle tracks say they have been nothing but good for Calgary.
“They bring customers, our back racks were full at 7:30 this morning, they are a safe way for my staff to get to and from work, I love what they do for the neighbourhood,” said Brendan Bankowski, The Beltliner Diner.
City council will vote on December 19 whether the cycle tracks stay or go.
