walking

A Casual Stroll Through The Hague – Part 1: Daddy Bike

May 9, 2012 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 3 minutesI am in Holland in Den Haag (The Hague) for work this week. Locked up in meetings and presentations for most of the day for 5 days in a row, I was eager to go for a walk to visit a friend.  Tuesday afternoon I had a change to leave a wee early and walked from the Crowne Plaza (which has been renovated from kind of Modernist to a large I phone retro Modernist, with shag carpets, pink under the bar atmospheric lights and lots of white, a work counter/bar and a couple of Apple computers for Internet access). For [Read more…]

Tulips on Two Wheels: Saturday May 5th at Canal Ritz

May 4, 2012 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 4 minutesEveryone in Ottawa knows why we have tulips, but for those who don’t live here (and I have readers as far as Chicago and Charleston, SC), here is the short summary: Dutch Princess Juliana stayed with her daughters in Ottawa during World War Two. As a token of appreciation, the Royal Family donated thousands of tulips and still continue this tradition until today. The Dutch bulb growers chip in too, so every year hundreds of thousands of tulips bloom in the Capital. Add a canal and lots of bikes and the occasional waft of weed, and you’d swear you are [Read more…]

Narrow Streets, Creative Minds

March 29, 2012 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 4 minutesWhen I speak to audiences in Canada I often hear that our cities are not built for bicycles. When Mayor Mayor Mark Gerritsen of Kingston, ON, a city that aims to be the greenest city in Canada eventually, introduced me and mentioned  that “we have to remember that Kingston is an old city with narrow streets“, I had a chuckle. In Halifax I heard similar remarks. Read on. Also our own Maria McRae told me a few years ago that she thought Ottawa “just has no space for bike lanes“. “Do Canada’s cities not have some of the widest roads [Read more…]

No Image

Spring. Ottawa. Bike. – Celebrate Spring on March 24th

March 22, 2012 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 4 minutesEven Sparks Street in Ottawa looks funky if you run a photo through a few filters. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder – Image: Urban Commuter At Citizens for Safe Cycling’s recent Annual General Meeting, Board Member Risa (she from the Ottawa winter bike ride who got her pic in Dandyhorse magazine’s web site, scroll down half way that page) asked everyone to jot down ideas for better cycling in Ottawa. She put all the ideas on a wall, ran it through Wordle and will now forever be known for Risa’s Wall of Wishes. There are so many wishes, that [Read more…]

When Ottawa Wakes up from Hibernation

March 20, 2012 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 3 minutesTalking about extremes. The Ottawa winter has been odd, to say the least. The canal wasn’t open for skating for long; on the other hand, only a week and a half ago we were still skiing in the Gatineau. All of a sudden the weather turned around and Sunday, Ottawa saw 25.1 degrees (as in 77F) . The normals are +4 (40F) max and -7 (20F) minimum for March 18. We hopped on our bikes and cycled along the canal to the Byward Market, and back along the Ottawa River via Parkdale Ave to Nepean. I have never seen so [Read more…]

What if the Swedes Would Own Chaudière Island?

March 5, 2012 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 4

Reading Time: 6 minutesAs you already read in the previous post: Of Post-It Notes and Tapestries, many of the Ottawa residents saw the Chaudière Island as one of the key elements in meeting the ideas and expectations that Canadians have for developing the Nation’s Capital into a world class capital. I have biked around the place and it is really a gorgeous spot, waiting to be developed, now the pulp paper industry is retreating. What about Chaudière Island? For those who don’t live in Ottawa: Chaudière Island has a collection of buildings, some as old as 100 years and built with natural stone, [Read more…]

NCC evening: of Post-It Notes and Tapestries

February 23, 2012 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 4 minutesLast night, the NCC organised its second of two public meetings on the vision of the capital region for 2067 after a similar one was held in Gatineau the night before. The NCC has had its own road show over the last four months and visited a number of Canadian cities to ask Canadians what they’d like their capital to be in 2067. Marie LeMay, who revealed she will turn 105 in 2067, (do the math),  kicked off the evening with her trademark enthusiasm: one of the more interesting remarks was that Canadians appreciate their capital more than Brits like London or Americans like [Read more…]

Rethinking Sparks Street: 7 Necessary Changes to Bring Back the Spark

December 21, 2011 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 6 minutesI used to walk more or less the same loop during my lunch time hour and Sparks Street was mostly included. But since the Laurier bike Lane is in place, I have changed my route and abandoned Sparks. Laurier is livelier, and with the bike lane in place, there is not only more to see in terms of cyclists, there are also some nice restaurants. The Persian Express has become a hang out for meetings for me as they offer nice food for a relatively low price (all you can eat buffet) and they have a three season terrace. Presse Café [Read more…]

Ottawa Moves – part 3/3 – Ken Greenberg

November 24, 2011 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 5 minutesKen Greenberg, Urban Design consultant, who is working on the plans for Bank Street, south of Billings Bridge, spoke in the evening of November 3. Ken started the evening with a video I had never seen before and is worth watching. The animation video from 1958 called Magic Highway USA shows a fantastic conceptual idea by Disney -with somewhat naive optimism- of how the world would look like in the future. I can’t start to describe the many ideas in the video, you have to see it yourself. Note the mention of GPS, large overhead road signs, rear view camera’s and cruise control (setting [Read more…]