Tuesday, as every spring day, another Air Quality Advisory Warning was issued urging people to stay indoors because of the air pollution and dust caused by motor vehicles driving through our city streets.
I understand that it is cheaper to urge people to stay indoors instead of cleaning the roads from the sand and gravel that was used to keep our roads safe for motor vehicle users during the winter months. Now that the snow is gone, all that sand and gravel is pushed onto the bike lanes, making them dangerous and hard to ride on for those bikers who ignore the air quality advisory and prefer to bike into town as their way to help minimize pollution.
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It is ironic to realize that as bikers are trying their best to reduce air pollution, they are not only suffering most of the consequences of that air pollution, they are also urged to stay off the roads so that air pollution can continue unabated since it is not a problem for motor vehicle users in their air sealed and airconditioned cars.
It stems to question why our city officials are spending our tax dollars to create bike paths, while those bike paths are unsafe to use during spring and into summer because of the lack of timely maintenance.
It is equally ironic to realize that city bylaws are being enforced to make property owners remove snow from the pedestrian walkways while similar bylaws urging the city to make the bike paths safe after the snow has disappeared are not on the books.
On that note, it is important to mention that the highways beyond city limits have already been cleaned from sand and gravel on their bike lanes by the Ministry of Transportation.
Norbert Maertens
@VernonNews
letters@vernonmorningstar.com
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