I have started wondering why some cities are listed and noticed as being "cycling friendly" and others not. I see a lot of praise for facilities in various cities. And I see that Ottawa has had them for a while. Back in the 90's we had Contra flow lanes, and we still have one for access to bridge into the city center. Thanks to the NCC we have had multi use recreational paths through out the core. We have had roads built with larger lanes so cars can share. We had campaigns before the web was around calling for vehicles to "share the road". A successful advocacy group the brought Canbike courses to the masses. A sporting group that has weekly rides with some special activity rides for members. We have had very successful valet bike parking at our world class music festival "Bluesfest". Advocacy and education is promoted via Citizens for Safe Cycling, who have been a strong force since the 1970s. We have bike stores who are involved in all aspects of cycling, bike polo, bike racing and even bike riding. We have bike builders who build and ride bikes that the Atomic Zombie would be proud of. The only thing I can think of is we have no custom builders who are local and well known. Does anyone have any other ideas, what are we missing? Do we need famous racers (Gord Fraser, Jim Glover). Fancy night rides, wait we have one the second one is coming this year. Famous ride with lots of riders, how is 2,000 riding from Ottawa to Kingston and back the next day. I have got the ideas started, fill in folks.
Brian
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We're missing contiguous bike lanes on major streets. We have no East/West consistent routes. While bike paths may do in Summer, as soon as the weather turns and you have to venture onto city streets you're on your own. In European cities since the bike paths on major routes are (a) there and (b) separated, there's a level of acceptance about how long you can bike throughout the year and feel safe. I, for example, have to get from the core (Bank St./Billings Bridge) West to Greenbank. On Carling, a road which has been resurfaced many times throughout the years of me riding it, has NO cycling lanes yet at points it's 3 lanes wide on either side. If I choose Baseline then there are little spurts of bike lane (I actually like the West part past Woodroffe where it's shared bus/bike because there are not that many buses) but it's really scary to ride it. These are just two. I could do many videos of 10 metres of bike lane here, 20 metres here, 5 metres there but nothing that provides a consistent, known path that bikes can be sure to use. Sorry, Hunt Club is almost good but again they messed up at the airport where it disappears for a bit. But that's too far South to go East/West for most people. The paths are awesome, I agree. But for road commuting, there really isn't that much yet.
We also have re-Cycles, Ottawa's very popular community bike shop. A lot of work has been done to help folks learn bike repair and keep their bikes on the road, help others by having cheap bikes for sale, and also take any unwanted ones off their hands. (I of course say this in my most biased way as Coordinator of the place.)
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