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City of Vancouver spends $3,000 for a bike pump

The current regime at Vancouver's City Hall is pro-bike — we all know that. Mayor Gregor Robertson and his crew have spent millions of taxpayer dollars for separated bike lanes in the downtown core.

But this is a little ridiculous.

As explained by the Vancouver Courier newspaper, the City has spent $6,000 for two bicycle air pumps for the public to use free of charge. One of them is along the Union-Adanac bike route in the Strathcona area while another is front of Science World.

In an email exchange with Yahoo! Canada News, a spokesperson for the City of Vancouver confirmed the $3,000 price tag and that the money came out of city coffers.

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As you might imagine, the expense isn't sitting well with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

"A bike pump costs a bike owner about 20 bucks. You can go down to Canadian Tire today, you can get one. They're not expensive. The really good bicyclists...have them handy," Jordan Bateman of the CTF told Yahoo!.

"It's not something the government needs to be funding. Certainly not to the tune of $3,000. It's really an outrageous over payment for a service that isn't even that necessary.

"This is one thing about this City Hall is that when it comes to cyclists they are completely blind to costs."

To the chagrin of the CTF, City Hall might even buy some more of the pumps.

"If we get good public feedback and people want more bike pumps, then I think [10th Avenue and Ontario] are future choices that would be good ones," Dale Bracewell, manager of the city’s active transportation department, told the Vancouver Courier.

This could get pricey.

(Photo from Twitter, posted by @pwkrueger)

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