Month: January 2018

Empty stores, despite tons of free parking. Mmm, is lack of parking not the reason for disappearing businesses after all?

Cycling from Gracefield to Messines, Quebec: the paved railway track to the butcher

January 17, 2018 Hansonthebike 3

Reading Time: 5 minutes Nothing beats the winterblues than sunny summer pictures. After my last two posts on bike modal shares in Ottawa based on the Statscan census, we are going to take a look at a paved path near Gracefield in rural Quebec. This fall, we went out for a bike ride a bit further away from Ottawa at a place called Gracefield in Quebec. It required a considerable drive, about 100 km north of Ottawa. We used to visit a cottage at Lac Pemichangan at Thirty One Mile Lake, but since the owners passed away and the cottage was sold, we don’t [Read more…]

Ottawa’s inner greenbelt bike commute approaches 5%

January 9, 2018 Hansonthebike 5

Reading Time: 7 minutes Ottawa is a large place. We have a photo of my wife’s father standing in front of a row of brand new houses. The trees behind him look about 5 years old at the most. He is four years old and the neighborhood is called Old Ottawa South. ‘Old’ was likely added later as there was no New Ottawa South. Ottawa stopped at Billings Brickyards, now Billings Bridge Mall; Altavista didn’t exist. We are talking about the mid 1920’s. The automobile was just 40 years old. Amalgamation Through amalgamation Ottawa is now ridiculously large. Several small European countries fit together [Read more…]