Cycling with Professor Buehler

Group of cyclists at Lansdowne Park
Left to to right: Ralph Buehler, Karl Saidla, Frank Hartmann, Brigitte Pellerin, Eva Willems
Reading Time: 7 minutes

It is already seven years ago that Professor Ralph Buehler visited Ottawa to speak at the Bike Ottawa AGM with support of the German Embassy. In 2012, together with several city staff, we cycled on Laurier and made our way to Quebec via Portage bridge and then back via the Alexandra bridge. There was really not much else. This time it was different.

Professor Buehler

Professor Buehler, PhD, is originally from Germany but lives in Washington for many years already. He is an Associate Professor and Chair of Urban Affairs and Planning in the School of Public and International Affairs at Virginia Tech’s Research Center in Arlington, VA. Most of his research has an international comparative perspective, contrasting transport and land-use policies, transport systems, and travel behavior in Western Europe and North America.

He was back in Ottawa last week to give a short talk at the NCC Urbanism Lab, lead by Stan Leinwand, whom -can you believe it- I recently bumped into at the Atwater Market in Montreal.

Bite & Bike

About around the time I was planning to connect with Professor Buehler to see if he had time for a bike ride again whilst in Ottawa, the German Embassy here in Ottawa connected with me again and we cooked up a quick plan to have a bite with Ralph as well as go for a short bike ride.

Hipster Ploughman’s

Let’s start with the bite. I had the Ploughman’s platter at the NAC’s Le Café (apparently called 1 Elgin now), but that was a bit of a hipster Ploughman’s, which left me more hungry than before I walked in: a few flimsy shavings of meat, two cm3 of paté, a few pickled veggies, 4 slices of baguette and a bowl of soup. Nice food, but I could have had four times as much…..O, and I was sitting three tables away from NCC CEO Tobi Nussbaum I noticed.

12 km route

Having some time and location restrains, I quickly designed a route to show Ralph some of our latest infrastructure achievements. We had about 1.5 hour so we could not veer away too much from the NCC headquarters on Elgin, but with some new infra around the corner though I was able to put together a nice overview. Frank Hartmann and his colleague Eva Willems from the German embassy also invited Ottawa Citizen columnist Brigitte Pellerin and Bike Canada board member Karl Saidla to come along.

Escape Bicycle Tours

We started at Escape Bicycle Tours on 65 Sparks to pick up a bike for Ralph Buehler (Thank you Maria) and I asked Maria to explain a bit about the company. I thought it was fitting to hear that Maria started the company because she believes that cycling in Ottawa is a great way to see the city; Maria believes our infrastructure allows her to do that.

O’Connor

O'Connor bidirectional bike lanes
O’Connor bidirectional bike lanes

We rode down O’Connor and discussed a bit of background. While a large improvement with about 1500 cyclists a day in the snow free months, generally cities don’t build bidirectional bike lanes in downtown cores with lots of side streets anymore. The city went against the advise of the consultant and I am not even sure why. I am assuming because the other solution would have meant another bike lane going north on another north-south street.

Lansdowne Park

Aberdeen Pavillion Lansdowne Park in the Glebe
Aberdeen Pavillion at Lansdowne Park in the Glebe

Flora Foot bridge and Old Ottawa East

We made a quick stop at Lansdowne Park and I shared a bit of the history. Did you know that as recently as the 1980’s city council approved to flatten the Aberdeen Pavillion? I talked a bit about the mixed use concept here and the struggle to make it livelier and about the initial concept of shared spaces that was misunderstood by drivers as ‘free parking where ever you want’.

Flora Foot bridge over the Rideau Canal
Flora Foot bridge over the Rideau Canal

After Lansdowne we crossed the canal via the recently opened Flora foot bridge to explain the improved connectivity between the Glebe, Old Ottawa East and Main Street and even Altavista. We cycled a bit on Main Street’s raised bike lanes to explain how it used to look like. The community and councillor Chernushenko had a big hand in the current design.

We turned into the Oblate Lands, now Greystone Village, to see some urban infill and to explain how the developer initially had a very suburban-ish style plan. Input from the community again brought considerable changes and it is nice to see how things are slowly coming together.

Houses at the former Oblate Lands in Ottawa
I am not even sure if this is the front or the back, but lots are small to allow for higher density
corner of Telmon at De Mazenod Ave
corner of Telmon at De Mazenod Ave
Scholastic Dr. I wasn't sure if this was a concrete median, but when I looked over my shoulder, I noticed that the right lane veers into a the park and connect to a pathway
Scholastic Dr. I wasn’t sure if this was a concrete median, but when I looked over my shoulder, I noticed that the right lane veers into the park and connect to a pathway, so I think on your left is a one way road and on your right is a multi use pathway

Hurdman Station

Hurdman station
Hurdman station. Not sure how safe those windows are for birds with the trees right next to it
Hurdman station bike parking
There were about 20 bikes (not all in the photo) on this Thursday afternoon

The route continued along the Rideau River northbound, crossing the Rideau River towards Hurdman Station because I wanted to include an LRT station. Here I showed the shared space for cycling and walking around and underneath the station.

path to river
Just outside the station, the path leads to the VIA Rail station and the Rideau River. Some directional signs would be helpful
Rideau River pathway
Cycling along the Rideau River towards Adawe bridge
view from Adawe bridge
View from the bridge towards Strathcona Park

Back at the Rideau River we pointed out the MUP connection to the VIA Rail station and then we continued north towards and over the Adawe bridge, which should be included in every tour I think. It sees close to a million pedestrian and cyclists every year and the numbers are going up. We cycled through Somerset St East to show the advisory lanes towards Ottawa U.

Somerset St east
On a road with advisory lanes, there is only one car lane. As it is a two way street (as are so many things in life) cars are allowed to veer into the bike lanes when needed

This has been implemented somewhat quietly and I learned last year from the city there have not been complaints. At Ottawa U I showed the second LRT station in our little tour, including yet more shared space in front of the station.

Corktown bridge

Ottawa U station
Zipping down the pathway, but keep an eye on pedestrians

It is always fun to zip down the curvy path at the station and so we were at the Corktown bridge in no time. I recently read somewhere that up to 7000 people use the bridge daily in summer. But I also read two years ago a number of 5000. It doesn’t really matter, it is a high number.

Rideau Canal
View from the Corktown bridge over the Rideau Canal towards the Chateau Laurier

Then the Germans and Brigitte peeled off back to the embassy (which overlooks the canal) and waiting children respectively while Karl, Professor Ralph Buehler and I biked back along Laurier where a cyclist was recently killed by a driver to show the temporary cart before the horse changes.

group of cyclists on bridge
Photo credit: Karl Saidla who was very excited to meet his hero, Professor Buehler. Left to right: Eva Willems, Frank Hartmann, Hans on the Bike and Professor Ralph Buehler
Laurier Ave
Someone was killed by a driver a hundred meters further from here in a floating bike lane, as a response this temporary bike lane was ‘built’ using curbs. Drivers used to be able to use the lane on the right, encouraging acceleration, which is now partly closed off

Network and shared spaces

A few things stood out for Professor Ralph Buehler: he really appreciated the connected network of pathways and bridges, the separation from fast moving traffic and the shared spaces we saw at Lansdowne, Hurdman and Ottawa U. He also noted the permanent nature of O’Connor with the concrete barriers and the several bike signals. In a follow up email he wrote me that he “really enjoyed the afternoon with you and I am impressed with Ottawa’s progress and nice facilities“. And he didn’t even see our new protected intersections!

2 Comments

  1. Hans, you are right about the bidirectional paved pathway which follows the river and walking path in Greystone village. Better signage is needed,presumably coming. A nice way to avoid Main street for those of us who live in Old Ottawa East.

2 Trackbacks / Pingbacks

  1. 3 examples of poor bike infrastructure design | Hans on the Bike
  2. People for Bikes Collects Data for Promising City Rating Score | Hans on the Bike

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*