Last week, The Hook reported Vancouver’s cycling community is mad at NPA mayoral candidate Peter Ladner for voting down an additional $1.5 million in bicycle-friendly infrastructure. Ladner, whose web site boasts “Peter has been a bicycle commuter for more than 25 years," had signaled he was sympathetic to the funding bump, but only Vision Vancouver councilors and COPE's David Cadman voted for it.

Ladner emailed The Hook, saying his critics “may not understand the difficulty of making capital plan decisions . . . that difficult decision came just after we had exceeded our capital plan ceiling by $23m to finance the Trout Lake Community Centre, forcing us into unchartered tax increase territory.”

Ladner said the $1.5 million he shot down is “more than covered from other sources, such as:

$4m for Greenways, which includes cycling improvements;

an additional $2m for Carrall Street, which includes our latest and best separated bike lanes;

another $20m towards the Burrard Bridge, which will include bike improvements;

numerous pedestrian/bike crosswalk signals, roundabouts and other bike-friendly road improvements buried in the engineering budget.

“As well, we still have a lot of partnership opportunities with TransLink, developers and the Province that will push the $5m a lot further. Just one example: we raised $1m for cycling improvements on Heather St. between 7th and 10th in a recent rezoning deal, without any draw on the city’s cycling funds.”

Ladner also noted that the B.C. government has promised “$31 million for cycling infrastructure in the province, of which Vancouver will get a good share” and he says he’s trying to pry a public bike-share program out of TransLink.