"I realize there hasn’t been a lot done in the province in the last 100 years as far as bicycle goes..."

Some encouraging discussion about cycling during Question Period in the Legislative Assembly yesterday, prompted by a question from Steve Howard, Green Party Shadow Critic for Transportation, Infrastructure, and Energy:

Mr. Howard: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Electric bikes are another emerging trend. These can be used to get around outside of winter months. This combination of active transportation and small scale electrification will become more prevalent. Are there any plans to encourage the uptake of electric bikes?

Speaker: The hon. Minister of Transportation, Infrastructure and Energy.

Mr. Myers: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this point we haven’t even gotten a program off the ground to help people get into electric cars, so we’re working towards that. As we talked about in House here last week, I believe our solar option is stage one to living a sustainable lifestyle and as I’ve said to you in private discussions, I believe that electric vehicles is clearly stage two – something that I’m committed to work towards, it’s something that our government is committed to work towards and I’ll take any recommendations you have seriously and I’ll bring them back to our efficiency people and to our energy people and make sure that they get on the agenda.

Speaker: The hon. Member from Summerside-South Drive.

Mr. Howard: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The active transportation network’s bike lanes and regulations will be sufficient to encourage the safe use of these of these types of active transportation. The range extension that electric assist affords means it would become much easier to bike into town from rural areas – meaning we will see an uptake in bicycles on our highways. Can we expect to see any improvements to highway planning infrastructure that will accommodate the inclusion of more bicycle traffic?

Speaker: The hon. Minister of Transportation, Infrastructure and Energy.

Mr. Myers: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So we have a sustainable transportation committee – the Minister of Environment, Water and Climate Change; him and I set that up not that long ago. We have a strategy that we’re about to unveil that’s going to cover a number of topics, one of them will be active transportation links and how we plan to deal with them moving forward in the future, so yes, it’s on our agenda. I realize there hasn’t been a lot done in the province in the last 100 years as far as bicycle goes. Prior to that probably there was. At this point, since there are some vehicles on the road there’s been very little done to accommodate any other type of vehicle on the road. Yes, it’s something that we’re looking at. It’s something that’s in our planning, and it’s something that we’re going to try to get to as we build new highway structures across Prince Edward Island.

I’m happy both that the question was asked, and also the spirit of the reply.