Advocacy

Not sure why I choose for red, I guess I was brainwashed by the many Dutch images I studied. Looking northbound.

Could Ottawa’s Percy Street Become a Bicycle Street?

August 1, 2017 Hansonthebike 1

Reading Time: 6 minutesPercy Street In the previous post, we read about the Dutch bicycle streets and the Dutch quest to design guide lines based on best practices. With the information under our belt we can take a look at Percy street in downtown Ottawa. Percy is a north-sound street that runs through residential areas. It is a desirable route for cycling in the west side of downtown because it crosses underneath the 417 Queensway highway, which runs east-west through downtown; it is mostly an elevated highway. North of the Queensway, Percy is a one way south bound street of about 1200 metres, [Read more…]

Bicycle Street in Utrecht, Netherlands in front of the Gerrit Rietveld huis. Note that the bike street still has a refuge too.

Bicycle Streets: A Next Step for Ottawa?

July 25, 2017 Hansonthebike 3

Reading Time: 7 minutesAs Ottawa sees the number of residents who bike increase, it is time to improve our existing infrastructure. The NCC pathways, built in the seventies, are becoming overcrowded by commuters, tourists and utilitarians alike and therefore the federal agency is planning to widen the paths likely starting with the ones that were flooded this spring. To give you an idea of numbers, June, despite being fairly rainy, saw 60,000 bike trips on each side of the canal. I was pleased to see that west of the Adawe bridge, the city slipped in an advisory lane, and there was no negative [Read more…]

Portage Bridge in 3D. The counter is on east side in the red circle.

Death Trap on Portage Bridge: Systematic Safety

June 27, 2017 Hansonthebike 3

Reading Time: 5 minutesFor a number of years now, cyclists pass a bicycle counter totem on the Portage Bridge across the Ottawa River on the border of Quebec and Ontario. The totem shows to everyone passing the inter provincial bridge the number of bike trips when people cycle over the conductivity loops embedded in the bike tracks. Gradual growth on Portage Bridge The numbers show a gradual growth since 2014, although the wet spring might have an effect on the 2017 numbers. Yet, three years of over 300,000 trips annually is considerable. Bear in mind that the counter doesn’t operate in the first [Read more…]

Newly paved path on Colonel By.

Colonel By – A Missed Opportunity

June 20, 2017 Hansonthebike 4

Reading Time: 3 minutesLast week, I cycled along the renovated canal walls on Colonel By. The path there has been repaved after extensive work on the walls, but I was a bit disappointed that the path wasn’t made any wider now everything was open anyway.   Most of the multi use pathway is a fair bit away from the road, which makes it a much nicer cycling experience. Unfortunately, the stretch east-ish of the Bank Street bridge runs right next to the road, a stretch of about 400 metres. At the other side of the road there is an area that is really [Read more…]

Dutch style intersection with separate bike tracks in green

Dutch Style Intersections at Dynes Road

April 13, 2017 Hansonthebike 5

Reading Time: 4 minutesDynes Road will get a make over as there is sewer work to be done. Much of the cycling infrastructure is usually put in place when the sewers have to be replaced. Main Street was an example of that. The road is open anyway, so this is a good reason to rebuild the street and these cost don’t eat into the cycling budget. So essentially we’ll get free Dutch style intersections. The residents at Dynes complained about speeding and part of the reason is that the road is very wide. (Mind you, it is drivers who speed, not roads). The part [Read more…]

Emotions at Dynes Road Info Session

April 11, 2017 Hansonthebike 2

Reading Time: 4 minutesLast week, Karen and I were at a public information session for the reconstruction of Dynes Road off Prince of Wales Rd just north-west of Hog’s Back Falls. The road will be ripped up between summer 2017 and 2019, so the city brought the residents together to explain what the plan is. Poof, slip lanes gone There were drawings of the street on display with a cool new element, plus bike lanes and bike tracks. The slip lanes at Dynes and Prince of Wales are gone in the drawings, thus making the intersection a lot safer for everyone. The engineers and councillor [Read more…]

Working towards Ottawa's Cycling Ecosystem

June 17, 2016 Hansonthebike 1

Reading Time: 4 minutesWhen advocating for cycling, I have always envisioned more than just safe bike infrastructure. I think Ottawa has the potential to grow into a leading North American city for cycling. But that requires more than a high bike modal share and a high number of kilometers of bike lanes. It requires an ecosystem of governments, companies, consumers and academics who are all cooperating to raise the level of cycling knowledge. Cycling part of a city image I  hope that Ottawa’s Economic Development agency and the city’s and NCC’s marketing and communication (“marcom’ I learned recently) people eventually understand that cycling [Read more…]

A recumbent, a Paramedic and an Xtracycle. This is Ottawa in winter nowadays.....

It's Bike to Work Month

May 2, 2016 Hansonthebike 0

Reading Time: 2 minutesMay is Bike to Work month in Ottawa. Are you counting your km’s and your saved CO2? Sign up for biketoworkottawa.ca and see how much CO2 you are saving.