Post Velo-City event in Ottawa

And you thought that cycling was a 21st century fad...Here is a traffic jam in front of the Blockhouse in Merrickville at the locks about 100 years ago.
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And you thought that cycling was a 21st century fad…Here is a traffic jam in front of the Blockhouse in Merrickville at the locks about 100 years ago.

In 1643 John Owen wrote : If the mountaine will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will goe to the mountaine“.

It is a phrase I remembered when we were putting a post Velo-City event in Ottawa together. Velo-City is a large four day bicycle conference and I am sure most of you have heard about it, so I won’t go too much into detail. Apparently, there were about 600 professionals in Vancouver, where the event was held earlier this year.

Every even year, the European Cycling Associaition organises the event outside Europe, every odd year somewhere in Europe: last year it was in Seville and next year it will be held in Vienna. All these cities are very exotic, but also out of  budget for those who are casually interested. An entrance ticket was $1100, add an $800 flight and 4 nights in a hotel and your food, and the total bill is $3000. Not something I am willing to spend and if I spend it, I’d rather go to Vienna, which cost just as much.

So while most of us couldn’t make it to Velo-City, a dozen or so Ottawans did make it, partly on grants, partly for the City and the NCC and partly at own expense.

As you know, Citizens for Safe Cycling  does not only work with city staff to improve cycling, we also organise events on a regular basis to bring cyclists and cycling planners together. Advocacy is all about a positive experience for everyone and what better way to extract the Velo-City experiences than to get a number of participants together at a Citizens for Safe Cycling event.

And so it happens that the mountaine does come to Mahomet this week…

Guests

Citizens for Safe Cycling found Robert Greenwood and Colin Simpson of the City of Ottawa, Jamie Stuckless of Green Communities Canada, Pascale Laliberté of the National Capital Commission and Catherine Henry of MP Olivia Chow’s Office willing to talk about their experiences, what they liked and didn’t like, what they learned and which ideas they took back home to Ottawa.

We’ll meet on August 9, 2012 at 7:15 pm at Causeway Work Centre at 22 O’Meara in Hintonburg (just southwest of Bayview Station).

If you’d like to listen in or just hangout with 40-50 other friendly people, sign up. It doesn’t cost anything, but we’ll ask you to sign up so we know how many people to expect: http://safecycling.eventbrite.ca/

Looking forward to see you there.

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