Ottawa cycling updates – October 2025

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Riding on the side walk

Recently, the City of Ottawa suggested that cyclists should not cycle on the sidewalk. That is fair, because a bicycle is a vehicle after all and shouldn’t be on a sidewalk. On the other hand, some avid drivers sometimes rudely suggest we should “bike on the <insert rude word here> sidewalk”. But did whoever wrote that city piece understand why cyclists sometimes ride on a sidewalk? It is definitely not convenient to bike on a sidewalk. There are signs, pedestrians, curbs, driveways, sandwich boards and side roads to deal with. Perhaps because they want to come home safe?

Source images: Cycling Guide App

My guess is that the City mostly focussed on downtown complaints, because I can’t fathom why I shouldn’t bike on the northbound sidewalk on Merivale approaching Hunt Club for example, after I dropped off my car at a garage on Jamie Ave. There is rarely a pedestrian and I gladly pay a fine if that is the price I have to pay for a safe crossing of Southern Ring Hunt Club Road at the very same intersection where Mario Théoret was killed 12 years ago this week.

Sometimes, people bike on the sidewalk because the safer alternative is so much longer and they don’t want to be squished by a tractor trailer turning right. In the theoretical ride home in the image above you can see why people may want to take a more dangerous suburban route, while mitigating risk by cycling some distance on a sidewalk. Just some thoughts to ponder.

And if you want to have the free Cycling Guide app I took the screenshots from on your phone to find a safe route, then you can find it here.

Why Glebe Ave bike tracks were repaved

After I asked a few months ago why the brand new bike track on Glebe Ave needed repaving, I received an encouraging email back from the City. Program Manager Josée Vallée wrote:

“The City predominantly follows the Ontario Provincial Standard specifications for asphalt placements. These specifications are most specifically developed for highway road asphalt placements and not well suited for very constrained areas where handwork is often required or the use of very small pathway pavers. We continue to build out our cycling system and are reviewing how we can apply more specific and quantitative workmanship criteria to this type of paving applications”.

This should sound like music to your ears if you can’t stand sloppy and careless work.

Some infrastructure updates

Reader and avid cyclist Zlatko Krstulic sent me a photo of Carling where the train overpass used to be. No more squeezing through that narrow funnel risking your life. A wide shoulder is now in place.

Sherwood Drive saw some additions at several intersections as part of long awaited bike lanes. This is a photo I took at the intersection where Sherwood Drive meets Kenilworth St. and Fairmont Ave. There are several more. You can see a bike lane approaching an intersection, with ‘ride through bulb outs’ on the corners.

Already in place for a while, but for those who haven’t been on Laurier Ave and Percy for a while, there is now a fully protected intersection. This one was installed primarily for pedestrians. The light is green for Laurier unless there is cycling and pedestrian traffic coming from the pathway or pedestrians want to cross Laurier, Percy or the pathway. I spent a bit of time there twice and it appears that compliance is fairly low. I saw quite a few people walking through red.

Civic hospital at Dow’s Lake

There is also more work being done along the stretch of Prince of Wales across from the new parking garage, so be very careful when you come down that hill from the roundabout. The pathway is now closed at the bottom but there is a new lane created on the road, lined with orange road barrels to keep other traffic at bay. It is so hard to believe the hospital will be ready in 2028, around 30 months from now, and that someone will wield a scalpel on the fourth floor in a sun filled room while the patient takes a last look at Princess Juliana Park the parking garage.

Cliff Heating and Cooling Plant viewing deck

I also dropped by to see progress at the Cliff Heating and Cooling plant next to the Senate building. It is not ready yet, but there were lots of people working on curbs and landscaping now. It will have a viewing deck (on the right in the screen grab below) with views on the Ottawa river, which I think will be a big attraction. I hope they don’t forget the bike racks. More here about the plant and what it does. I am concerned about the two shiny towers and the impact on birds. The towers’ walls will receive feather friendly dots, but I am not entirely convinced if they will help on such stand alone towers.

There is also still work being done on the cliff above the temporary ‘tunnel’ on the pathway behind Parliament Hill (on the left in the screen grab). I risked my life for you and leaned over the edge to take a photo of the progress. Large netting is mounted on the rock and large bolds have been driven into the rock to stabilise it.

Don’t rely on social media alone for your cycling information

Traditional media in Ottawa rarely report on cycling anymore. But there is a lot happening. Safer infrastructure is being built, advocacy events are being organised. Sign up for free for new posts if you want to know what is happening, delivered right into your inbox. Because it is so easy to end up in a negative echo chamber without getting updates on what is going on.

Neighbourhood calming

Here are two streets in the Bungalow Belt. One is traffic calmed, the other one is not. Can you see which one?

A bit more on that. We have a Flexipost in our street on the centre line near the local park and community centre. After the no stopping sign, there is often a car parked, owned by one of the several people living in the house near the Flexipost. That is inconvenient for the school bus driver who barrels through our street, so the driver often passes the Flexipost on the left rather than on the right, to avoid having to slow down for the overnight parked car. Ironically, if you leave the park with its play structures, the school bus driver now comes from your right on the near side of the road, not having slowed down. I have seen children scootering or biking into the road from the park. Given this week’s terrible drama in Overbrook, it is an unpleasant thought that something could happen.

Automated Camera Speed Enforcement (ACE)

I recently spoke to a neighbour who didn’t fully realise that Premier Ford wants to remove all speed cameras. “Even the one on Fisher?” Yes, even the one on Fisher. He further responded that the cameras made him aware that he was driving too fast.
He is not the only one. A large majority of Ontarians believe speed cameras are a smart addition. It saves on already exploding police cost and it slows traffic down. If you believe cameras do help road safety (they do), please do raise your voice. You don’t have to go out with a banner under your arm to some nearby arterial road, fist in the air, but at least let George Darouse, MPP in the Conservative caucus of our region, know that you disagree with the removal of cameras. Here is a graph that Jamie made, in which you can see how average speeds are going down after implementation of a camera.

It doesn’t have to be a long email. It can be as simple as: I disagree with the removal of the automatic speed cameras, Kind regards, xyz” Here is George’s email: george.darouze@pc.ola.org; you should also contact the premier via this on line form. City councillors are pretty much convinced cameras are a good thing, so no need to email them. Rumour has it that Tim Tierney is travelling to Toronto soon to throw a road barrel at Queen’s Park.

The CAA, the Ontario Police, the Federation of Municipalities, the City of Ottawa and many others are in favour of keeping the cameras; they have shared all the data with Premier Ford already. It is not a cash grab, because the ultimate goal is that people comply with speed limits, not to collect money perpetually.

October 20: School Streets Day of Action

If you do want to head out with a banner, fist up in the air, please see the poster below. There are several morning events organised to protest Premier -‘I’m going to kick your ass’- Ford: at Woodroffe Ave Public School (behind Carlingwood Shopping Centre) on 281 Woodroffe Ave at 8:15 am (!) and at Queen Elizabeth School at 689 St Laurent at 8:45 am. With a bit of luck you are on local TV.

Geek tip: California Typewriter documentary

I was in school at the time when the typewriter was disappearing and the word processor started to appear. I typed all the stuff in high school on a typewriter but when I switched to university, my parents bought me a PC, which was a huge expense, but definitely a wonderful investment in their nerdy son. The PC came with a 5 1/4″ inch floppy disk drive. The floppy disk had a storage capacity of 360 kilobytes (KB) or 1.2 megabytes (MB), depending on its density: that wouldn’t even hold a single 5 MB photo nowadays. Unbelievable. Soon I had WordPerfect which came on two floppies. My dad stuck to the typewriter.

Recently we watched California Typewriter, “a 2016 American documentary film directed by Doug Nichol that explores the enduring cultural significance of the typewriter”. We really enjoyed watching it. “The film features prominent figures such as Tom Hanks, John Mayer, David McCullough, and Sam Shepard, who share their deep connection to the typewriter as both a creative tool and a muse. It also documents the challenges faced by California Typewriter, one of the last remaining typewriter repair shops in the United States, dedicated to preserving these aging machines”. For the trailer, look here. You can find the documentary free on Kanopy, which you can access via your library card. Who knew Tom Hanks was a typewriter afficionado and collector.