A new campaign by the bike union in partnership with Culturelink is working on getting newcomers on bikes again.

Toronto's cycling community would like to see more immigrants like Li get out of their cars and return to their old modus operandi as part of a city-wide "From Back Home to Our New Home" campaign, to be launched tomorrow.

The campaign will promote cycling among newcomer communities as an affordable, healthy and convenient means of transportation instead of just a recreational activity on weekends.

"This is an untapped market with cycling," said Leehe Lev, coordinator of the outreach campaign, a partnership between the Toronto Cyclists Union and CultureLink, an immigrant settlement agency. "For many new immigrants, part of living in North America is to own a car and a suburban home. But it takes away their good green habit from back home."

With regular commuters dominated by white males in Toronto, while the majority of Torontonians are either female or people of colour or newcomers, there's a lot of work to be done here. We know from Europe that providing a strong sense of safety gets a lot more women and young/old folk on bikes. I wonder what it will take to get people who are newcomers?