I am a person who has used…

I am a person who has used most modes of transportation from walking, cycling, transit and the automobile. I currently use a multi-modal approach to get to where I'm going (car -> train -> walk).

I'd like to keep this very succinct and based on a single core principle: people need to move their bodies to stay healthy and we should strongly encourage/support an environment where people are able to get where they need to go by human power first (if possible).

The best people to organize how that could work should be the people closest to the issue (ie: municipality) but that can be unreliable depending on the person to whom you may be speaking. I believe the core principle should be used as the measure of how to proceed. If the municipality can support the core principle then the province should not have to interfere.

Perhaps the province (if not the nation) should adopt a set of principles that can be discussed and agreed upon. What do we mean when we say we want to improve traffic flow. Why aren't we prioritizing how we organize ourselves so people can walk/bike (assuming general good health) to their place of work. It truly confounds me why we would make life harder for people trying to be healthier with their commutes. We should be begging people to walk/ride more often as the alternative modes are so much more expensive to provide and the health benefits of moving ones body more could introduce greater savings to the health system in general. Most environments are downright hostile to people who cycle from where they can/can't store their bikes to not having anywhere to get changed once they do arrive.

I'm far from anti-car. One of the best ways to improve my time traveling by car would be to remove cars from our roads. If people don't have to drive then we don't have to spend billions on roads and the volume of traffic can reduce naturally.

I'm also a person who had spent years riding to work (15-18 km plus an escarpment climb) all year round. I'm not a small person and I'm not a young person. If I can do it, many people can. The one thing that really made that possible to achieve was the availability of a proper bike lockup and changing facilities at the office. Something that was only present because a senior person at the organization demanded it. This is a rarity though.

The gridlock problem is multifaceted. There are people who need to drive but there are other people who may be able (if supported/encouraged) to use alternative locomotion that simply involves moving their bodies. Before we can enforce any strategy, I'd like to see Canadians support organizing ourselves around a set of principles that facilitate healthier locomotion first. Then spend money on the more expensive solutions, second. We need to leverage and optimize the cheaper, healthier options first.