Picaroons is the local micro brewery on Queen St. This would be an ideal location to sacrifice a parking spot or two and build a bike rack.

Fredericton, New Brunswick, is a quaint old town on the St. John River. Frederictonions frequently refer to their home town as a small version of Ottawa. It is a green and spacious place. A river runs through it, it is hillier than Ottawa though. During a visit to Fredericton, Dutch ambassador Wim Geerts was approached by deputy major Chase for advice on cycling, being the ambassador of the world’s bike friendliest nation. The ambassador, who has been promoting cycling during his five year stay in Ottawa, approached me to see if I could contact councillor Chase for some advice.

The Happy Baker has an interesting bike trailer. The bike itself is just as interesting. It looks like a bob sleigh on wheels.

Off to Fredericton

I had a number of email exchanges and a few months later I was on the plane to Fredericton for a presentation for an internal city work group and a presentation to the public. I have done a fair number of presentations to the public, from planners to to councillors to Kiwanis and the general public, but this was a presentation in which I was going to use a lot of Ottawa materials too for the first time. In fact, I gave two presentations, one being the 10,000 ft overview of cycling in the Netherlands, the myths surrounding cycling in Canada and how Canada can build on the Netherlands’ experience. While embassies often have the reputation of a a world of receptions, some are quite involved in more local issues, such as knowledge exchange in certain areas of expertise, be it cycling, soil remediation, sustainability or reforms in certain sectors to name but a few.

The book store had a store window dedicated to cycling.

Motivated by Ottawa’s progress

The second presentation was about advocacy.This is more about public engagement, communication and is focused completely on Ottawa. I find that you can show a lot of pictures about Denmark, New York, Seoul and Melbourne but the bottom line is that we live in Canada and what better motivation than to see all that great material appearing from our own Nation’s capital. (I use many pictures that you can see on my blog).

There were some bikes out there, but few people cycled, in fact I only saw two cyclists in two days; the weather didn’t really encourage cycling either.

Problems not unique

Often, cities think that their problems are unique, but they aren’t. So when I address problems, the audience is often relieved that the issues have already been recognised and addressed in other places. While the bigger cities have large bureaucracies to do studies, smaller towns often have a harder time collecting all the relevant information.  So I make sure I pack as much in a presentation for the audience to run with it and develop their own plans. Although the Internet is a great place to find information, the information is also very scattered. Having some one presenting the whole bundle helps people getting started, I learned from the feed back.

There is a secure parking location next to the police station.

Here are some impressions of my visit. It rained from when I arrived to when I left three days later. So while the pictures look a bit dreary, the many people I met insisted that they do see the sun quite often. While everyone mentioned ‘the Hill’ as a major barrier, the city is fairly flat along the river.

The Radical Edge (bike store) has clearly marked their bike space.

I am not really surprised that the ‘Hong Kong Waffle’ didn’t make it in Fredericton.

The path along the St John River is beautiful; getting across the river is a bit more of a challenge but doable.

There is a little cabin offering rentals & tours near the small light house.

Down town Queen St could be a part of a bike Sunday loop. Stop for breakfast or coffee at one of the several funky coffee shops.

I had breakfast at funky M & T Deli on Queen St. where I actually read my interview with ‘Here’ newspaper. Black board and art on the walls.

A Dutch bike by Trek at Second Cup.

The Legislative Building in Fredericton  (1882) is impressive but not much deeper than my 60′s suburban house. It is so laid back that you could lean your bike against the back and no one would probably care.

Retail appears to hold up, from what I learned. There is a number of parking garages one street over which appeared quite empty (and cheap). I loved this sign (store was empty though).

Mistake: a developer bought a piece of land that included part of a trail route. Now private property, the Lawrence Close, the beautiful bike route is rudely interrupted. There is a sneak through at the east end but this should have been designed much more elegantly and bike friendly.

A lovely spot in downtown is the Protestant Burying Ground between Brunswick St and George St.

Interested audience

The public presentation attracted about 70 people. That is a good number, considering the 9 am start time on a Saturday morning and the really crappy weather. I had a great time, I was invited by Charles to come to Fredericton for a year, met briefly with Gerry Blom who organised “Go Green, Go Dutch, Go Bike’ and had a quick chat with the Fredericton Freewheelers. I had a separate meeting with the Fredericton Community Bicycle Organisation. The mayor, the deputy mayor and councillor Megarity were in the audience too. During the break, we organised maps of Fredericton where people could leave notes with comments for Darren, the city engineer who will oversee cycling improvements.

Post it notes are always a good idea to collect input. It will provide you with work for years to come.

Room to grow

Fredericton has room to grow for cycling as a means of transportation. While there are challenges, such as the hillier landscape, there are already some gorgeous trails going right through town. Connecting existing paths is essential and  concentrated bike parking can grow. More joined bike events organised by advocacy groups and the city would be a good idea, such as a bike Sunday and a kids bike parade. These are all low cost initiatives to increase cycling.

Cool kids on cool bikes in cool neighbourhood.

Vanier is a former municipality in Ontario, which was amalgamated with the City of Ottawa in 2001. It is situated at the east end of down town, east of the Rideau River. It only got the name Vanier in 1969, after Governor General George Vanier. It was unfortunately also known for being rough around the edges. But it has a an urban maple groove and a sugar shack in its former city limits.

Lately, like Hintonburg, it is going through some real change. There has been gentrification, there are active  community groups  and there appears a new pride in the place. The ward councillor is Mathieu Fleury, who always makes me think of Tintin; you can often see him on his bike between meetings.

Councillor Fleury is the councillor of Vanier.

High density: ideal for cycling

Vanier’s density is 6017 persons per km² (2001 Census). That is fairly high and a good starting point for a great bike culture. Remember you always hear the excuse that Canada is a big country and we don’t have the density? Let’s compare Vanier with the city of Schiedam in the Netherlands, situated right next to Rotterdam. In fact, you can’t even see where Rotterdam ends and Schiedam begins.

Volunteers at Safer Roads Ottawa booth.

Schiedam’s density is about 3780 person per km², nearly half of Vanier. Yet the bike modal share in Vanier is likely only 2-4 percent, while Schiedam’s bike modal share is 19% (and 28% for trips below 7.5 km). So why is it that Vanier has a higher density, yet the bike modal share is so much lower? That doesn’t make sense.  We can only guess: lack of infrastructure? Lack of bike education? Lack of encouragement?

Sarah on the left

Enter Sarah Partridge

Sarah is a board member of the Vanier Community Association. The association is encouraging people to cycle more and has set up a sub committee to get organised: Vanier Cycles.  This year, Sarah organised a  bicycle event with information booths by cycling related organisations such as Safer Roads Ottawa, Citizens for Safe Cycling and Ecology Ottawa. You could also repair your own bike and even make a smoothie on a bike, by powering the mixer with pedal power.

Vélo-Vanier is a free bike share program run by the Vanier Community Service Centre that started its operations this morning at 290 Dupuis Street. Rose-Anne Leonard is in charge of the program. Club Optimiste Vanier, on the other hand, organizes a bike skill event every year.

Bike skills organised by Club Optimiste

Rob Wilkinson of Safer Roads Ottawa had to make the same joke for four hours with his reflective bracelets. Rob is connecting a lot of community partners in the background. I have never seen him stressed or angry.

Sarah is a joy to work with. Rather than complaining, she set out to help change the bike culture for the good in Vanier. Therefore Citizens for Safe  Cycling didn’t hesitate one minute when she approached us to come out for the Sunday bike event. I volunteered that day to be in the booth with Isabel, who is just getting her feet wet in cycling advocacy.

Bike repair on site

Dogs are especially bred for bike baskets. Nice helmet too by the way.

We talked to quite a number of people: some sitting on the fence, others already cycling. We sold a few new memberships and bike seat covers and generally shared lots of information about new bike infrastructure and the rules of the road. It was very nice to see such a diverse community come together and work on bike promotion. We really enjoyed the event. And, I learned that within 30 minutes the bike skills event already broke last year’s numbers of participants. I sense a bike culture in the making here.

Citizens for Safe Cycling booth with Isabel and Hans (modestly looking down as usual)

Velofest supported the association in the background as community spoke partner.

More info:

Vanier Community Association

Velo Vanier (Twitter account)

Vanier Cycles email: vanieravelo@gmail.com

data source: Wikipedia and Fietsberaad

photos by Urban Commuter, Rob Wilkinson and Sarah Partridge (although I forgot who took which pics)

Last Saturday was the National Health and Fitness Day in Ottawa. Or was it Sunday? Or Monday? It is not entirely clear to me when I read the website of John Weston, MP for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast. Dick Louch (Velofest) told me Sunday night there was a bike ride on the Hill the next day (Short for Parliament Hill in Ottawa among Ottawans) to celebrate the Health and Fitness Day. It was the same day that Olivia Chow’s National Transit Strategy Bill was voted down. Oddly, no one I asked had heard about the ride but then again, Parliament Hill is a bit of a world on its own.

“Go back to the Street”

I approached the Hill from the west end at a snail’s pace, but as soon as I entered the property, the ‘parliamentary precinct’, an RCMP man in bullet proof vest pulled up his car, switch on his sirens and parked his cruiser right in front of me. No I was not supposed to enter here: “Go back to the street”.

Welcome to Parliament Hill.

Parliament Hill sees protests and celebrations. It is a very big place. It is also very hard to get both people and the Peace tower in a picture.

It is hard to believe that it is not even that long ago that you could drive your car around the back of the Centre Block. I suggested to walk my bike up the side walk on the Hill, but there was a stern no again: “Go back to the street”. I cycled back, cycled vehicular on Wellington, taking the lane as it is fairly narrow at places and turned into the Hill once again near the other end. The Nation’s Main Street is unpleasant to cycle. I prefer the next street over, Sparks Street. O wait, can’t cycle there.

Mandatory helmets

There were about 30 bikes at the bottom of the steps. This in a city of tens of thousands of cyclists. There were some members from Cycling Canada in their white and red jerseys. I saw @modalmom on her bike, just back from her ride on a Dutch oma bike to Montreal, Howard and Dick, the VeloFest folks and @Muddybike on (in) his recumbent. There were speeches and photo opps and waivers to sign; helmets were mandatory. Which is nonsense, as Ontario has no helmet law for the over eighteens.

It was a politically correct event with Kristy Ducan (Liberal Party, although I don’t know how she looks like so I can’t say if she was there), Peter Stoffer (NDP) and John Weston (Conservative Party of Canada). I would have expected the Green Party to be there but with one member in the House, it is not easy being green. Two senators were there too. The others must have had sober second thoughts about this whole thing.

Shaking hands is second nature for Peter Stoffer.

By coincidence I learned from a Cycling Canada gentleman who participated in the ride that they have breathed new life in the CAN-BIKE courses and that they updated the schedule. That is good news, eventually CAN-BIKE will gets its own web site.

Breaking the rules

And then the 15 minute bike ride began. Some cyclists disappeared before the ride began to pick up their kids, I estiamate we were left with 20-25 people. Man, did we ever broke all the rules that you can possible think of. We left the Hill westbound, through the entrance that I was just sent away from, friendly waving to the RCMP officer (na-na-nana-na), ignoring a stop sign or two, we cycled behind the Confederation building and the Justice Building, in front of the Supreme Court (judges shaking their heads behind the stately windows of the Art Deco building), through the park on Wellington and on to the side walk in front of the National Library and Archives (Hola, hablamos Español already?).

On the side walk near the Archives

Virtually everyone ignored the bike lane on Wellington and chose to cycle on the side walk, much to the displeasure of some pedestrians who grumbled that cyclists should be in the bike lane. A lane which appears from nowhere, near the Library and Archives and can easily be overseen initially.

What is a house leader?

Just in front of the Portage bridge (shoot! we missed 20 counts on the bike counter) we turned right, down the steep-ish Brutalist path that connects to the paths along the Ottawa river. We happily cycled east bound again, ignoring the two signs to get off your bike in the tunnel and the narrow stretch behind it (MP Weston was one of the few to get off his bike from what I saw) . Further east we cycled up along the locks again. I had a chat with John Weston’s wife Donna and his daughter about living in two places (John goes back to his riding 50 weekends a year and has an incredible track record of good stuff. He’d be an ideal future Green Party leader candidate actually.)

Back on Elgin, the side walk was the route of choice

After the locks, we cycled underneath Wellington to Elgin. Everyone cycled across the cross walk (is this legal, a blond lady wondered. I said no it isn’t, but she kept cycling anyway), then in front of the war monument towards Wellington on the side walk, crossing Elgin to get back on the side walk along the Langevin Block that houses the Privy Council Office and back on the side walk to the Hill acroos Wellington, passing two RCMP’s who looked somewhat puzzled to see all those cyclists cycling on the side walk.

Hopefully PM Harper wasn’t at work at the Langevin Block.

Back towards the Hill passing the RCMP folks.

We bumped into the deputy house leader, introduced by Peter Stoffer. The young racers didn’t know what a house leader was so I suggest Peter to explain it: “a referee”.

And so ended one of the most interesting bike rides I have ever taken. On the National Health and Fitness Day no less. We broke all the rules but did wear a helmet. It is dangerous out there on Parliament Hill.

Fruit and two bite brownies for everyone who made it back safely.

Despite the wild ride, that could have been coordinated better, it was a start of a good initiative to get the Federal Government involved into cycling. Perhaps it is better to get local cycling advocacy groups involved that are familiar with the area. I’d like to see John lobbying with Olivia Chow (NDP)  to get that Safe Trucks bill passed. The Minister of Transportation doesn’t think that side guards for trucks are necessary, but since everyone chose to cycle on the side walks, I would guess that the electorate disagrees with the Minister.

For next year, I suggest the route goes from Parliament Hill via the parking lot to the Portage Bridge, across the Ottawa river, turn east along the Ottawa river to the Alexandra Bridge and back on the Ottawa side across the locks and back to the Hill. A nicer and calmer  route with great views on the Parliament buildings. This year’s route was more like a runners route actually.

Access to the Farm is poor when the gates are closed.

I have been advocating for better access to the Experimental Farm. It took nearly two years before I finally got a chance to talk to some one. Initially, I just rang the door bell at one of the administrative buildings. You have to start somewhere and I am not a big fan of firing off emails. The lady who opened the door referred me to some internal call centre guy who never called me back, after several phone calls from me. It didn’t go anywhere, as expected in the bureaucracy.

No through traffic on Irving Ave in Ottawa to cut down on traffic taking a short cut to Carling I assume. This is Irving north bound.

Central Experimental Farm Advisory Council

Eventually, I had a chance to become part of the Central Experimental Farm Advisory Council (yes, there is such a thing) as a representative for the Federation of Community Associations (yes there is such a thing too). At the same time, I put a document together for Councillor Maria McRae’s office as the Farm is in her ward. The Farm is run by Agriculture Canada, the path by the NCC but the peripheral access infrastructure by the city. Indeed, Ottawa is a complicated city if you want to get something changed. You have to start chipping away somewhere though. After having met with Councillor McRae’s office (Thank you Nicole Espenant), I asked for a meeting with Farm staff in order not to take too much time of Farm Council’s time. I presented all the good stuff that is going on in Ottawa, showed a number of stats and asked for several changes. I learned that the Farm has tried to get Bixi bike stations this year, has added more bike racks and is happy to do something for the community. (that is before they announced lay offs last week). It was a very positive and engaging meeting.

Brand new bike racks waiting to be employed at the Farm earlier this year.

Closed gates

Anyway, when the Farm gates are closed, pedestrians and cyclists have to negotiate pretty bad access conditions, with concrete curbs, metal poles, serious dips in disappearing gravel and sharp angles to get around the gates. It is also really too bad that they don’t plow the Farm in winter, as it will be a great connection in the eventual winter bike routes. Which I mentioned. They did bring a plow out at the end of the winter and plowed McGooey Lane three weeks before the last snow disappeared.

proper access to the Farm from Irving was technically not allowed.

Poor access

Fisher, Merivale and Prince of Wales are the only access roads for the people living south of the Farm, not ideal. There are about 31,000 people living immaterially south and south west of the Farm.

From the north end, Irving provides a nice access from Civic Hospital and Hintonburg residents, but once you get closer to the top of the hill of Irving, approaching Carling, on your way to cross at that enormous intersection, there is a “no through traffic” sign (See picture further above). I asked Councilllor McRae’s office in October last year if that could be adjusted with a “bicycles excepted” sign as it was silly not being allowed to use Irving to have access to the Farm. And let’s face it, every cyclist probably ignores the sign anyway. I never heard back, got already annoyed, but low and behold, last week I am cycling up the hill and there is the sign: Bicycles excepted”. Advocacy is a slow process and you need a lot of patience. There is a lot more to do, but there is a another, albeit small success: the steady wins the race!

There she is, the new bicycles excepted sign, taken at night coming from a Citizens for Safe Cycling meeting last week.

Our booth along the Rideau Canal, a World Heritage Site.

One of Citizens for Safe Cycling’s goals is to make the public more familiar with the many issues that arise around cycling. There are many ways to stay in touch through social media and meetings, but we often preach to the converted at our meetings and to our followers on Twitter and Facebook. Those are the people who put effort in finding us. But there is a whole demographic out there who cycles but doesn’t realise what it takes to build Ottawa’s bike infrastructure. And with infrastructure we don’t mean bike lanes only, but also bike parking for example.

Risa, talking to passersby who ended up buying two of our new T-shirts.

So last year we initiated a new activity, our ‘Tulips on Two Wheels‘, spearheaded by Risa and Simone. We put up a booth along the Canal near Canal Ritz (a local restaurant, once visited by President Clinton, not that that influences the choice of the location though). We planned it such, that the tulips should be starting to bloom. It was a sunny day and we had lots of people stopping by. Fairly late in the planning, we learned we had chosen the same weekend as Jane’s Walk Ottawa. We added a bike tour along the tulips, led by Alex deVries. There were also two bike mechanics of Cycle Salvation, a social enterprise operating under the umbrella of Causeway Work Centre, who looked after free bike tune ups in our booth.

Citizens for Safe Cycling organised two free well attended bike tours along the canal and the tulips about the Netherlands tulip legacy.

This year, in 2013, we officially integrated with Jane’s Walk Ottawa, with Alex’ bike tours in the 2013 Jane’s Walk schedule. We had another great day, and it felt like a thousand cyclists were passing our station. It was a constant flow of families cycling by. Our mechanics were busy all the time. The weather was great and we talked to lots of new people who had never heard of us. Our new banner worked great in attracting attention to the booth.

Our bike mechanics were busy all the time.

If there is one message we took home from all the people we talked to, it was that people love to bike more, love to see more bike infrastructure and love to see the city to become a real bike city. We talked to people who just started to cycle (again) encouraged by either friends or family or discouraged by the ever increasing cost of owning a car. We talked to out of towners from Haliberton to BC and Newfoundland who wanted to see the tulips and chose the bike to get around, we talked to people who needed maps, we sold a few T-shirts and bike seat covers with our logo.

It was a great day to connect with people. Look out for us again next year. After two years, we have refined the event, although it stands and falls with descent weather. Here are a few impressions of the day.

This was pretty much the picture for most of the day.

Father and child reunion on the bike.

Lots of people on casual bike trips.

An endless stream of cyclists. Later in the season we can check the counter results on the City’s Open Data website.

One of Alex’ bike tours is just starting here.

Two women who used the OC Transpo bike rack service to get into town to bike around.

And of course, the Bixi bikes were in high demand too.

We could not have asked for a better day to promote cycling: sunny, 24 degrees (75F), no wind and the first tulips were blooming. At times, it felt like standing along a Dutch bicycle path along the canal in the middle of the famous Dutch tulip fields. Who said that Canada is not suitable for cycling again? Thanks to all the volunteers to make this possible and to MP Paul Dewar for supporting us with this event.

Faded sharrow in Ottawa

Here is a brief update on Ontario’s draft bicycle policy survey.

I am told that the Ministry of Transportation received tremendous interest. There were close to 1000 submissions, over 90% of which are from individuals. The tone is generally very supportive of the fact that the Ministry is taking the issue seriously for the first time in 20 years – putting out a strategy and consulting. Initial estimates have the suggestions split fairly evenly between infrastructure, legislative changes and education.

The draft plan suggests access to $50 million in infrastructure for 2013, but comparing with a cancelled gas plant in Mississauga at a cost of $275 million, that is peanuts. I think it is not unreasonable to ask for more allocation of money to active transportation. Keep asking your MPP for attention to this file. A cycling strategy is more than a faded sharrow.

A woonerf in Maasland, the Netherlands

A world without signs?

We have one woonerf in Ottawa: part of Cambridge is designated as a woonerf. An ‘erf’ is a somewhat old fashioned Dutch word for the area around the farm house, where chickens roam, the dog guards and the cow explores. ‘Woon’ comes from the verb ‘wonen’, Dutch for ‘to live in a place’.

Now there is a real erf!

Woon-erf more or less literally translates to “living yard”. Here in Canada, we’d like to translate it with ‘complete streets’ sometimes, but typically a woonerf has few curbs; traffic calming measures are taken to the extreme with planters, coloured pavers, bike racks and curbless divisions between the different modes of traffic.

Access roads to woonerven are often virtually free of signs too. This is Maasland, the Netherlands

This down town Rotterdam Avenue (Weena) is a complete street, including street cars even, but it is not a woonerf. I wouldn’t send my kid out to play soccer in the street here.

Woonerf is a public space, where everyone moves around. When cars are gone, the space becomes the kids’ soccer patch. A complete street doesn’t necessarily have that. Speed is reduced to 15 k/hr (10 m/h) on a woonerf. Sounds fuzzy? Today, 20% of the Dutch houses are on woonerven (the actual plural of woonerf). It must work somehow. Extra advantage is that you use the public space more optimally.

A woonerf intersection in the small town of Bergschenhoek, near Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Also here, no signs.

Bold traffic engineering

Woonerf is the brain child of Hans Monderman, a Dutch road traffic engineer with somewhat radical ideas 40 years ago. While here in Canada engineers appear convinced that car traffic shouldn’t really have any hindrances in order to get from A to B and therefore get their own space, Mr. Monderman already figured long ago that safety and efficiency can be improved when everyone has to negotiate their movement directly with others. In other words, neither signs nor road markings should set the tone, but eye contact and slower speeds instead. Basically he relied on common sense and responsibility. He believed that sharing and slower speeds must go hand in hand.

Give me a pole, and I give you a sign.

The mistake we make too often in Ottawa –and in North America for that matter- is that we want everyone to share the road, but don’t design the roads so that it is actually a safe shared space. It is built for fast traffic, and we expect others to adjust: a bike lane is fine, as long as it is not a nuisance for car traffic. Pedestrian crossings are fine, but it shouldn’t interfere too much with traffic flow. Kids on bicycles are welcome, but we are not slowing speeds down in our neighbourhoods.

Carling north of Commissioners Park. More signs than tulips.

Just pick one

In North America we don’t want to choose for both sharing and slower speed; we just pick sharing as the solution. It is the most convenient one because it doesn’t require any money or new design solutions. And that is a fundamental flaw if governments want to promote serious active transportation.

In Linkoping, Sweden, Multi Use Pathways and a bus stop meet. The road is narrowed to one lane, so that no one can pass when the bus (un)loads. Brilliant and simple.

To compensate for the lack of design, we start to warn people: we bring in signs to share the road, to take the lane, to warn for elderly people crossing, or visually impaired people, how to cross a roundabout, how to use a pedestrian circle; we paint lines, sharrows, boxes and bays to guide people, but the road stays wide and fast and dangerous. We try to battle the effects with signs, rather than tackling the causes with better design.

Bilingual sign on how to cross a roundabout in Ottawa.

And how to cross a street at a traffic light.

Removing signs sounds very counter-intuitive. However, there is evidence that signs actually don’t help that much. A Dutch connection told me once that they had put out a sign at a certain location to slow traffic down, but it didn’t have the desired effect. Then they put a bigger sign out, then a well lit sign, than a one of those electronic road signs. Nothing worked.

One doesn’t see the forest through the trees on Prince of Wales at Carling.

Size Matters

To stay closer to home, in Ottawa, I was discussing the intersection at Wilton Crescent in the Glebe. Neighbours complained that everyone turning right ignores the stop sign at the end of Queen Elizabeth Place. The city engineer suggested a bigger stop sign than the current one. But that doesn’t help. Why?

Prince of Wales near the Farm. Despite no parking signs, the shoulder/bike lane was full of parked cars on Easter Sunday. The biggest sign wins.

Drivers adjust their speeds depending on the design of the road and the situation. Bronson is a perfect example. Speeding is rampant, because 50k/h on Bronson “feels wrong”. I am guilty of it myself I think too once in a while.

Let’s average out on 35 km/h in Fisher Heights.

Around the corner, a new stop sign was put in place recently, that virtually every one conveniently considers a yield sign. Rarely does someone come to a complete stop here.

Someone from Carleton U. told me recently that a law is expensive to uphold. Roundabouts are a good example of places where you can barely break a law even if you want. You can’t speed through an intersection, you can’t drive through red and you can’t swerve into another lane. Woonerven are good examples too. Few signs required, few laws to write; it all organises itself.

Over the top on Booth.

Down town Ottawa: “Memories of Singapore”

I give you ten seconds to figure out if you can stop on the right at 4:15 on a Saturday afternoon.

Parkdale off ramp driving north towards the hospital.

Therefore people believe that proper design to slow traffic saves lives and money and law enforcement, not an ever increasing amount of signs. Isn’t that what we all like? Ultimately, signs are ignored or a mere distraction.

Coincidentally, when I was writing this blog post, an article by Sarah Goodyear on a public space based on Hans Monderman’s ideas appeared in the Atlantic Cities about a British town that just implemented a sign free intersection. It is worth reading: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/04/lots-cars-and-trucks-no-traffic-signs-or-lights-chaos-or-calm/5152/

Another article you may want to read is: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/distracting-miss-daisy/306873/

Ottawa pics by me, Dutch pics from Google Streetview and Google Images.

Entering Ottawa from Gatineau via the former Alexandra train bridge with added cantilevered ‘shoulders’

No changes for 2013

In 2012, CapitaleBixi added 150 bikes to the fleet of 100 and increased the number of stations to 25. This year, in 2013, no changes are coming, other than some tweaks in the locations. Rolling out a system like this is somewhat finicky as you don’t want the stations too far apart: if one of the stations is out of bikes (or full for that matter), you should be able to walk to the next one to pick up or drop off your bike. Just like Vrtucar, one has to add stations like layers of an onion. It is probably not a bad idea to take a breather because comparing data might be easier with the same number of bikes and stations. There was tremendous growth year-over-year. In 2011, we saw about 21.000 rides, this year the numbers doubled, showing a rapidly growing appetite for casual cycling in the region.

Ottawa-Gatineau Bixi stats: blue bars show the 2011 data, green bars the 2012 ones. July saw nearly 10,000 rides, November still over a 1000.

Bixi 2012 data promising

Two weeks ago Citizens for Safe Cycling organised its second highly successful ‘Spring.Bike.Otawa’ bike season opener and invited a number of local organisations and individuals to talk about cycling. The NCC, a strong promoter of cycling in the National Capital Region as a means of clean transportation for both commuters and tourists, shared some interesting data with us. I copied a handful of sheets to share with those who couldn’t come.

The best day in 2012 was the day before Canada Day, with 499 bike rides.

Of the subscribers (i.e. members) , 75% is Anglophone, 40% is female. No personal data are collected from the casual riders, who pay ‘as they go’.

While the majority of subscribers lives in the down town areas, note that some live further out. Perhaps they arrive by bus and cover ‘the last mile’ by bike.

The top five stations are all in Ottawa. It comes as no surprise that the Elgin station is busy, with many tourists stomping around. It might also indicate that the choice to take a Bixi bike is a spontaneous one, because they are in their face.

Usage of Bixi bikes grew both in Gatineau  and Ottawa. Percentage of trips originating in Gatineau with a drop off in Ottawa decreased, percentage of trips originating in Ottawa with a drop off in Gatineau decreased too.

Subscribers see three peaks, in the morning, around lunch and at the end of the working day. Casual users peak between 1 and 6 pm.

After the second year, some careful conclusions:

Rapidly growing appetite for casual cycling

40% of the trips made by 300 members, 60% by casual users

Casual users cycle longer, likely tourists

Tourists embrace cycling as a means of transport within the city

Tourists embrace cycling as one of the ‘things to do in the Capital region’ activity

The Bixi Bike is growing in popularity in both cities

Percentage of interprovincial drop offs is lower, indicating people chose a tour rather than a destination?

The city and the NCC should expand on this growing interest in casual cycling in their communications towards both commuters and tourists.

Better planning, better building and better education. Money and a willingness to invest it in cycling. Most of all, it requires politicians, planners, engineers and voters to believe it is both possible and worth the effort.

If you think it’s worth the effort, please consider a donation to help produce Bike City, Great City, an informative, crowd-funded film that promotes the values of urban cycling. This independent documentary will show how any city that encourages cycling by making it easier and safer becomes a more vibrant, attractive and healthier city for everyone.

David Chernushenko, Ottawa city councillor and cyclist, has already assembled considerable research, interviews and film footage to demonstrate the benefits of cycling as a way to improve our quality of life, encourage better health, reduce congestion and save tax dollars. Now, we are calling on people who consider cycling an important aspect of a sustainable future to help them complete this 30-minute film in time for a world première in late May 2013.

How to support

Visit www.bikecitythemovie.ca to make a donation in any amount on line. Canadian residents are eligible to receive a tax receipt from our partner organization, Tucker House, which is collecting the funds on the producer’s behalf. Obviously, councillor Chernushenko doesn’t make a dime of it (see below), but someone will need to professionally produce  it. Therefore, I was approached by Terry Kimmel, Producer, Bike City, Great City: 613-295-7283 terry@bikecitythemovie.ca

About David’s role

David Chernushenko has directed two previous films on sustainability and energy issues: Be the Change (2008) explores the challenges and rewards of trying to live more lightly. Powerful: Energy for Everyone (2010) examines alternatives to conventional energy systems. He is directing Bike City, Great City in his capacity as city councillor in order to promote the universal benefits of active transportation and better city building, and is doing so in consultation with the City of Ottawa’s Integrity Commissioner. He will receive no fee for his work on the film, and is not personally soliciting funding either in his capacity as councillor or as a private citizen, given the difficulty of distinguishing between the two.