Enters the motorcycle

Some genius staff member at Edmonton's city hall had the idea to provide free parking spots for motorcyclists in downtown Edmonton. The reasons are that motorbikes blow out fewer emissions than cars, need less parking space, get along better with bicycles (as if anybody cycles in downtown) and there's already a bylaw in place that makes sure motorcycles are only so noisy, ah quiet. Great you may think but I'm still sighing in a little disbelief and it's not because certainly nobody will ride a motorbike in winter in Ed - it's too cold and the road conditions too dangerous. No it is because this idea might seem innovative for a city like Edmonton, but seriously, when do they come up with bike lanes  and bike racks all throughout downtown and a bylaw for apartment buildings that requires to have bike storage spaces? Or why not adopt a program like in Paris and other European cities where bikes are provided all over town for a small flat-fee per day, week or year. There's no need to return the bike to the station where it was picked up. Stations are fairly close and bikes plenty. The city also made sure to provide plenty of bike paths. Check out http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19685323/ns/travel-destination_travel/ (or the official website in French http://www.velib.paris.fr/ ) for details on the program that took off in 2007, thanks to Paris' city hall.
 
And if you are interested punch into Google "Paris bike". You will get lots of websites offering bike tours in Paris and announcing cycling as the best way to get around the city. Punch "Edmonton bike" into Google and you reach the websites of Edmonton's major bike stores and the Edmonton Bicycle Commuters. The latter one has a page called ghost bikes, a project dedicated to the memory of cyclists killed on Edmonton's roads. http://edmontonbikes.ca/projects/more/ghost_bikes/ 

One more word  on Google. Google maps now has a function to show bike routes between selected destinations, just like it used to show routes  for cars, public transit and walking. Although I am fairly happy with Googles advice on Edmonton's buses the bike routing mapping leaves much to be desired. The routes shown seem to pretty much ignore the official bike paths that currently exist in Edmonton but maybe that's because the paths are not well connected and therefore of limited use.