Wednesday June 27, I got a phone call from the office of the Governor General of Canada.: if I would like to join GG Julie Payette on a short bike ride on Canada Day. The Governor General is the official representative of Queen Elizabeth II in countries that recognize the Queen as Head of State. Which Canada does. The role [Read more…]
Recently, Statistics Canada released commuter data for 2016. Over the last 20 years, commuter trips grew considerably. That is not a surprise as the population grew, from 29.6 million in 1996 via 32.5 million in 2006 to 36.3 million in 2016. Yes, that is 7 million people extra in 20 years. This growth is about the equivalent of the entire [Read more…]
Last night I attended the open house for the bidirectional MUP on Brookfield in the Brookfield High school cafeteria. Some of my friends went to this 1962 school in the seventies and eighties and it was interesting for me to see this heritage school from the inside. Here are a few pics for the fun of it including the heritage [Read more…]
This Friday, September 22, I am speaking about cycling advocacy at City Hall. Not to the mayor, not to Transportation Committee but at the Transportation Equity Summit put on by the Healthy Transportation Coalition and Envirocentre. The summit starts at 8 am with beverages and snacks and lasts until around 3:30 pm with a number of speakers from Ottawa and [Read more…]
Between Hartwell’s Locks, the Fletcher Wildlife Garden and Prince of Wales is a small corner of land that is being used for Canadensis, a small botanical exhibit with several art installations themed around nature. Karen and I have been cycling past it dozens of times and recently we finally decided to park our bikes to check it out. (It’s free [Read more…]
Mark Wagenbuur wrote about it already a while ago when the bridge was being constructed, but now the new Dafne Schippers bridge in the Netherlands is officially in use. The bridge crosses the important Amsterdam-Rijn canal, connecting Amsterdam’s harbours with its hinterland in Europe. The canal is a considerable barrier and with a growing number of people living across the [Read more…]
In my previous blog, I wrote about ‘Retrofitting Suburbia’, a 2009 book by Ellen Dunham – Jones and June Williamson. They describe how older suburban malls from around 50 years ago, when the car was still seen as the solution to many perceived problems, rather than the cause of many problems, can be successfully retrofitted into new town centres, [Read more…]
I am the last one who claims my English is great. It is not my mother tongue. Spell checkers help a lot, but I tend to mix in Dutch grammar sometimes. You will often see Dutch people confusing ‘learn’ and ‘teach’ or ‘borrow’ and lend’ as the Dutch use one word for it. Prepositions are always a challenge. Is is [Read more…]
The O-train multi use pathway (MUP) is delayed. And that is no April Fool’s joke. As you remember, the first stage was built and finished last summer and stops just south of the Queensway, at Young Street, where a narrow pedestrian bridge connects the two sides of Young. Ribbons were cut, photos were made, blogs were written. And then it became [Read more…]
Two years ago, I was interviewed by Ottawa Sun reporter Kelly Roche at the opening of the Laurier bike lane. At that time, the Ottawa Sun was fairly hostile towards cyclists, (but not Kelly) complaining about the cost of bike infrastructure for ‘a handful of cyclists‘ (760,000 bike trips have been counted since the opening at the Metcalfe intersection counters alone). [Read more…]
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