Chaudière Island in Pictures

February 18, 2015 Hansonthebike 0

Reading Time: 4 minutes In January 2015, I had an opportunity to visit the Domtar and Hydro Ottawa sites on Chaudière Island in the Ottawa River between downtown Ottawa and downtown Gatineau. As you all likely know, the site will undergo a complete metamorphoses, starting soon. The property is closed for the public as it is still a working Hydro Ottawa site so I thought it was really cool to see it, before it will be completely transformed over the next twenty years. In a way, although it was cold, I was happy to see it in winter. It really adds to the atmosphere [Read more…]

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Large Turnout for First Fisher Heights Bike Day

May 26, 2014 Hansonthebike 0

Reading Time: 4 minutes Wow, was that ever a fun afternoon. The whole week we had been watching the weather at Fisher Heights. The entire week, the weather forecasters predicted a gray and rainy Saturday. Until it was Saturday: wall to wall blue sky in the morning, clouds in the afternoon, but sun all day. Fisher Heights and Area Community Association Bob McCaw had suggested a bike afternoon already months ago. The association wanted to have a spring event and asked if something like that would be feasible. We invited the City Wide Sports department staff, who design a few mini road situations with [Read more…]

Citizens for Safe Cycling AGM 2013 recap

October 15, 2013 Hansonthebike 0

Reading Time: 5 minutes We aim to be the least boring AGM in Ottawa and according to several members we are successful in that. Organising the AGM starts already a year in advance, by securing the Tom Brown arena. In spring we start to discuss a speaker and in the summer we put the to do list together, analyse improvements (not enough coffee) and we start to prepare the financial reports. As a non profit incorporated organisation, lots of work happens behind the scenes to make sure that everything is accounted for.  The trick is to keep things simple and standardised in order to [Read more…]

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Going Dutch? Ontario's Cycling Strategy Released!

August 30, 2013 Hansonthebike 0

Reading Time: 8 minutes Summarised for you: The Ontario Cycling Strategy in 1000 words: How Ontario will look like in 20 years. This afternoon, August 30, 2013, the Ministry of Transportation released its first provincial cycling strategy in 20 years. This is a much better document than the first draft that was floated around at the beginning of the year. Over 1000 individuals reacted when this first draft document was open for public input, a number that is unheard of in Ontario, which shows the desire for change. From this input and the input of many professionals comes the Ontario Cycling Strategy. The document contains [Read more…]

Canada Day: Checking Out the Capital by Bike

July 2, 2013 Hansonthebike 5

Reading Time: 7 minutes We’re not big crowd fans. We’d rather be on our own on days like Canada Day, than be with 500,000 others in down town Ottawa. There is not much attraction in seeing people with flags wrapped around their shoulders and belting out “O Canada’ at any given moment, in pubs, in buses, walking along the road or sitting in parks. But it is a day off, the weather was nice and that makes for a good bike ride. To stick to the Canada Day theme, we thought we should cycle past about 20 national treasures in the Nation’s capital. We [Read more…]

Main Street Will Become a Complete Street and Here is Why

June 20, 2013 Hansonthebike 5

Reading Time: 8 minutes Update July 17, 2013: council passed the proposal for Main street with 18 in favour – 6 against (Moffatt, Blais, Hubley, Desroches, Deans, Harder: worries about traffic flow from suburbia to down town and timing of reconstruction). The City of Ottawa has active transportation high on the agenda. The highest priorities are pedestrians and cyclists. After active transportation comes public transportation. At the bottom of the pile is the car, the 3000 pound gorilla that has shaped Ottawa over the last 60-70 years or so. But the car’s hegemony over infrastructure is starting to show cracks. Rescue Bronson Ave has [Read more…]

Fledgling Bicycle Advocacy in Fredericton

June 7, 2013 Hansonthebike 5

Reading Time: 6 minutes 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. Off [Read more…]

Vanier Prime Candidate for High Bike Modal Share

June 4, 2013 Hansonthebike 8

Reading Time: 4 minutes 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 [Read more…]

2013 Tulips on Two Wheels: a Bit of Holland in Ottawa

May 6, 2013 Hansonthebike 0

Reading Time: 4 minutes 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. So [Read more…]

Ottawa’s Second Annual Winter Bike Ride in Perfect Conditions

January 29, 2013 Hansonthebike 2

Reading Time: 5 minutes If you mention winter cycling, one tends to think of bearded middle aged men, who’s mission it is to prove that one can live without a car in Ottawa under any circumstance, come hell or high water, or in this case, high snow. Ottawa, for those who are not from here but perhaps from a more tropical place like Toronto, is the second coldest capital in the world, leaving to Ulanbatar the first place. Which means we have to put up with fairly chilly conditions. Temperatures can go as low as -30C and to -40C if you take the wind [Read more…]