[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/72543422[/vimeo]
Motivated to make Ottawa a better city, two local residents have launched an online site that seeks to promote mass cycling.
The Ottawa Bicycle Lanes Project was founded earlier this month by Michael Napiorkowski and Maayke Schurer. Conceived as a non-profit community, the initiative wants to convince City Hall to install a network of segregated bike lanes throughout Ottawa’s major districts.
If the duo’s vision is implemented, segregated bicycle lanes would be implemented in such areas as Sparks, Westboro, the ByWard Market, the Glebe, Hintonburg, Beechwood and Old Ottawa South.
“My partner is Dutch Canadian,” says Napiorkowski, referring to site co-founder and his life partner Maayke Schurer. “She comes from the land of bicycling, so she is exposed to what mass cycling can do to a city.”
Increasing bicycle use in urban areas has numerous benefits: It is great physical exercise, supports the environment, and makes urban centres more amenable to people. “This is what we see in places like the Netherlands, where there is mass cycling and there are people on the streets,” says Napiorkowski.
To promote their laudable goals, the two co-founders have launched a petition, founded a blog, suggested specific solutions for improving bike safety, and created an online information space with research, articles, studies and videos to show what other cities are doing to promote cycling.
Michael Napiorkowski and his partner Maayke Schurer
One of the key aims of the site is to combat the many myths surrounding cycling, such as the mistaken belief that segregated bike lines are bad for retailers.
For example, in New York City, protected bike lines were installed in Manhattan. A study by the New York Department of Transportation found that retail sales on 9th Avenue increased by 49% after the lanes were installed, while other retailers in the same burough only saw a 3% increase in sales during the same period.
Results from the segregated bike lanes on Laurier Street in Ottawa, on the other hand, have been mixed. Since the lanes opened, the number of cyclists on Laurier has increased by three to four times, demonstrating that people are using bicycles to get to work, school and/or their homes, which bodes well for proponents of mass cycling.
Merchants and condo dwellers on Laurier, however, have been opposed to the bike lanes. (That being said, when the city promised to install some additional street-level parking, one condo board decided to support making the lanes permanent, as long as the city kept its parking promises).
Despite the criticisms of some businesses on Laurier, studies have shown that retailers often overestimate the number of customers who travel by car, while underestimating their potential customer base that arrives via bicycles. This is crucial to keep in while thinking of segregated bike lanes like Laurier.
For instance, a study that looked specifically at Toronto, as well as another report that focused on various North American cities, found that biking had positive impacts on business. To have these positive benefits, however, a bicycling network has to be implemented in the urban core.
Photo by jessica courtesy of Flickr (Creative Commons). Biking in Ottawa in the Winter.
“If we want to have mass cycling it needs to take people to the places that they need to be, ” says Napiorkowski. “It makes no sense for the lanes to be only on winding streets or parkways.”
In other words, while having bike lanes by the Rideau Canal or the shores of the Ottawa River is fantastic, you will only promote mass cycling if people can take take their bikes in a protected way to the grocery store, school, retail stores, work or to visit friends.
This focus on improving infrastructure is central to the mission of the Ottawa Bicycle Lanes Project.
“We are not anti-car,” says Napiorkowski, who cycles about 24 kilometres per day. “The conflict is not between cars and bikes. The conflict is between cars and infrastructure, and bikes and infrastructure.”
If you can create two different transportation networks for motorized vehicles and bicycles, as exists in cities like Amsterdam, then you can create mass cycling, while at the same time allowing drivers to use their cars.
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