What happens when you make a serious effort on cycling infrastructure? Paris tried for the Olympics, and it went really well.
Imagine what could happen if Ottawa were similarly serious about investing in active and public transportation. It wouldn’t need to be a cookie-cutter approach, but certainly the core and areas inside the Greenbelt would benefit from bike shares and dedicated lanes that connect to public transit and where people want to go – not just leisure pathways.
Outside the Greenbelt, suburbs with good active and public transit within and between communities, and connecting to downtown, would benefit areas that offer increasing levels of local services. And they would help keep the cars out of downtown, where residents live with speeding and pollution, even though many don’t drive themselves.
It’s almost enough to make some members of Bike Ottawa hop on one of those direct flights to Paris, just to see what Ottawa could be like with some vision and political will. Almost.