Members of our Advocacy Working Group are seeking volunteers from communities throughout Ottawa to help identify safe and inviting cycling routes to Ottawa’s transit stations, including Light Rail Transit (LRT) and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) stations. Interested in helping out?
Why focus on community cycling connections to transit?
Cycling to transit allows you to get convenient exercise as part of your commute to work, adding enjoyment to your day, health to your lifestyle and lots less pollution to our city. Identifying these safe and inviting cycling routes will mean more people can get to work and other destinations using a combination of cycling and transit instead of their cars. This could also increase bus and rail ridership, which would mean more revenue to support transit.
Tell me a bit more about the kinds of routes I’d be looking for…
We are working to identify routes to and from destinations within five kilometres of transit stations, given that this distance is comfortable enough to ride in work clothes, ready for the office.
The key is that the proposed routes would also be safe and quiet, and therefore inviting to people with different cycling comfort levels. Therefore, volunteers will identify potential routes to transit stations using a combination of:
- existing quiet streets,
- segregated lanes on roads, and/or
- pathways through green space.
How will Bike Ottawa use the routes identified to improve cycling to transit in Ottawa?
Bike Ottawa will then share the routes volunteers propose in each community with City staff and Councillors. This will take advantage of each community’s local knowledge and make the City’s work that much easier. It will also provide a strong indication to the city that there is support for connecting the community to transit.
How do I join the team?
Contact Bruce.Rosove@rogers.com, one of our Advocacy Working Group volunteers, to get involved. You can join as an individual, or band together with some other community members and work as a team. We hope to hear from you soon!