NCC

Attractive New Low Impact Pavilion in Vincent Massey Park

August 22, 2011 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 3 minutes Vincent Massey Park, across the Rideau River from Carleton University, North of Heron Road and West of Riverside Drive, is well known among immigrant groups, it appears, as often I see large numbers of East Asian immigrants barbecueing in the summer. The bike path along the river in Vincent Massey Park was closed for a while as the NCC has been widening the path. The NCC and the city didn’t really think of cyclists and simply closed the path, not realising the impact. Consequently, all of a sudden cyclists had to figure out another way around the construction site, which [Read more…]

Is Ottawa’s Bixi Bike Missing Its Target Group?

August 14, 2011 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 9

Reading Time: 6 minutes (See for a spring 2012 update at the bottom of this page). Since the Bixi bikes (Bixi bike is rental bike that you can pick up and leave at a number of unmanned fixed locations) were introduced in Ottawa on May 18th 2011, over 13,000 (13,187 to be precise) times a bike was taken out of one of the ten stations. There are one hundred bikes, divided over ten stations. De average time a Bixi was used is 85 minutes. 24% of the bixis is used in Gatineau versus 76% in Ottawa. That makes sense as there are seven stations [Read more…]

NCC Bike Sundays: 10 Great Summer Pics

August 1, 2011 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 3 minutes For a North European, closing the road for people to cycle feels a bit odd; people simply cycle every day everywhere over there. As long as you have to close roads, you obviously have a (perceived) safety issue among the population. However, North Americans consider cycling still mostly a sport (although it is changing), which you do in an enclosed environment, like on track, in a hall, or in this case a closed circuit. Canada’s National Capital Commission has been closing a number of parkways (kind of beautified roads, with lots of landscaping to impress locals and foreign dignitaries alike) [Read more…]

Capital Velo Fest Ottawa a Relaxed Affair

June 4, 2011 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 3 minutes Today was a gorgeous day for Capital Velo Fest, the first bicycle festival in Ottawa. The weather was cooperating, the 60% change of showers never came and the twenty or so booths of companies and organisations like Envirocentre, Citizens for Safe Cycling and the Ottawa Bicycle Club attracted enough people to make it a nice social outing. Although most visitors were cyclists already, there was new stuff to see for them too. Especially the two cargo bikes, brought in by Tall Tree Bicycles, attracted a lot of attention, as did the recumbent bikes of Ergo Cycles in Ottawa. Everyone agreed [Read more…]

No Image

The Mystery of the Scenic Orange Road Barrel

May 15, 2011 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 2 minutes We’re obsessed with safety. We make big orange road barrels to mark an upcoming danger to make sure no accidents happen. However, if someone calls in for a large dangerous pothole, you’d think road crews just go to Tim Hortons, have a smoke, stare to the pothole and eventually fill the hole. No such thing: the city or the NCC sends out the truck with orange paint, steel plates and/or orange road barrels visits the site to mark the appropriate spot as dangerous. About three weeks ago, in the last week of April, someone went out to put a road [Read more…]

NCC study on winter pathway usage

May 11, 2011 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 2 minutes The NCC commissoned a study on the usage of their pathways in wintertime. Although some claim that the winters in Ottawa are ‘cold and dark’ the numbers might stun you. Here are some results: Close to four in ten (36%) Canada’s Capital Region residents aged 16 and older (some 196,000 individuals) have used a recreational pathway during the winter months. An additional two in ten residents (21%, some 114,000 individuals) say there are winter activities they would do on the pathways if they were better maintained. Winter pathway users tend to be younger, and have higher incomes than do non-users [Read more…]

Bike Sign Ottawa

Bike lane ends

May 9, 2010 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: < 1 minute So I am cycling home this week. Turned from Preston into Prince of Wales and all of a sudden there is this sign in the middle of the road. No alternative, no temporary bike lane. I often see the same for pedestrians:”please use other side” it would say. But sometimes there is no other side, or you have to jay walk. (Update on August 10, 2010: Citizens for Safe Cycling wrote to the NCC and the Ottawa Citizen. Both NCC and the City of Ottawa reacted swiftly and brought signs out to inform about detours in other areas in the [Read more…]