What if having car-free days, more parks and safer paths for people lowered the crime rate ["qathet cycling association completes Townsite/rec complex survey," March 14]?
It turns out, that's what happened in Bogota, Colombia, when former mayor Enrique Penalosa opted to invest in making the city safer, instead of investing in motor vehicle infrastructure. To learn more, look up The Politics of Happiness article by Susan Ives.
As Penalosa commented, "All this pedestrian infrastructure shows respect for human dignity. We're telling people, 'You are important—not because you're rich or because you have a PhD, but because you are human.'"
For the most part I feel quite safe on my bike. But the stretch of [Highway] 101 from Willingdon Beach to [Brooks Secondary] school is really not safe for bikes. Once a car even grazed me along there as there are spots where they go fairly fast but there's no room for bikes, and also often loose gravel.
Jan Slakov,
Texada Island
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