Editor, The News:
Re: Cycling club has prescription for out of shape, sick Maple Ridge residents (The News, July 3).
I found it astounding to read that Maple Ridge residents are fatter and sicker than the rest of the Fraser health region.
Where are the stats for this allegation?
I see people out on the dikes in all weather, constantly, day in day out, walking and cycling, old and young.
Can we have some actual numbers from the health department to back up this statement?
Or is this a ploy to get more bike paths to be built by our scarce tax dollars for the few who use them.
There is a new bike path along Abernethy Way that my husband and I use regularly, in the day and the evening, in good weather and bad, and the number of bikes we have seen at any time since it was constructed is pitiful.
What a waste of our resources.
Who can carry a cart-full of groceries for their family on a bike?
If we want people out of their cars, give them reliable public transportation, that takes them where they need to go, when they need to go, on a regular basis.
If Portland, Org. has attracted only six percent of their people to travel by bike, I cannot see Maple Ridge attracting more. What we need to attract is more jobs, so people can work where they live, enabling them to walk or cycle more in their leisure time.
A million-dollar bike path between Laity and 216th streets could be better spent.
Joan Carr
Maple Ridge