Raise the Hammer

Yes, bikes are affordable transportation and I push around an economical CTC special on my own few, sad forays onto the trails. For a while I even tested my adaptability on a re-built used model. However, I think it's time to talk about the role of biking as economic stimulant to encourage the development of trails.

First, in my experience few of the successful, independent bike shops I've visited survive by competing with the low-end economies of the chains. There does seem to be a market for the latest expensive technologies and biking fashions. True such items might not add up to the price of a new car, but affordability does bring more people into the market, and frees up funds for more purchases in a consumer society.

It also seems to me that biking, as opposed to driving, has many of the advantages attributed to slowing traffic through commercial districts. It's easier to see store-front displays or stop for a refreshment than when racing down an expressway. No need for expensive drive-thru conversions either.

I suspect a shift to more biking will support smaller merchants who offer products that will appeal to more specialized, individualized tastes too, merely by slowing traffic. It's part of a more service-oriented economy. Wally World won't disappear anytime soon, but who seriously wants to bike through commercial power centres? Biking supports economic diversity.

Diversity is what makes cities interesting. No point going to Chicago, Montreal, New York etc. if they were merely bigger versions of Mississauga. So by supporting local economic diversity, the development of bike routes helps to support tourism.

I've long wondered why Blue Mountain Resort, now owned by a very large and sophisticated marketing organization, could develop the Collingwood ski resort to include summer mountain biking while Hamilton couldn't figure out what to do with Chedoke & King's Forest hills since snow seasons have grown so short, but then I'm not too clever myself.

Change itself is an economic stimulant. It may be the only truely reliable one.