I just got back from a short trip to Ottawa. My first impressions:
- Not very pedestrian friendly. People don't jaywalk because the motor traffic is quite fast downtown. (I see jaywalking as a sign of how pedestrian-friendly a city is.) There are lots of signs to prevent pedestrians from crossing on one side of intersections, which just wastes time. Very annoying for a downtown Torontonian.
- Lots of bike paths with not so many pedestrians which makes for fast, long-distance cycling.
- On-road bike network is not well-connected.
- Car traffic is fast and the highways dump the cars right into downtown.
- Lots and lots of car parking downtown, including their so-called 'funky' By Ward Market
Despite all the hurraying by Ottawa people of their great bikeway network, my overall impression of sustainable transportation in Ottawa is ho-hum. Their main advantage is that they are still a relatively small city and they had lots of space to throw in some bike paths and busways. If Ottawa was as big as Toronto it would be a horrible place to live.
To get to the point of my title: politicians and planners need to experience what it is like to be a cyclist or a pedestrian. And be active commuters at that, otherwise they don't get it.
Olivia Chow is just one of those politicians that gets it: as I walked along Wellington there was a familiar sight from when Olivia biked daily to her office at City Hall. Olivia's bike was locked to a sign right next to the Eastern wing of the Parliament Buildings. Amongst all the pomp and security there was a lowly bike making a quiet statement. It made me feel warm inside.
Comments
Anonymous (not verified)
Bike paths that actually go somewhere
Thu, 05/03/2007 - 22:26A nice things about Ottawa is the bike paths that actually go somewhere. You can take the paths next to the canal out to Carleton, or on the other side it is a scenic way to get to Dow's Lake and Preston st.
I haven't biked there for years though.
darren
Parkways
Fri, 05/04/2007 - 10:00I used to bike commute in Ottawa, and I found it pretty nice. The great thing for someone not comfortable on the roads is that you can use the Parkway paths to cover huge distances. You can get from downtown Ottawa to the edge of Nepean on one path. This let me ease into commuting on the roads.
Obviously, the path won't take you everywhere, and I agree that most of the city is very much a suburban design with high speed traffic. In front of Parliament is an unfortunate merger of about 6 lanes. But Ottawa has nice little pockets where people walk around, even if they did drive to get there, and it seems to have a fairly active population on weekends.
Nice shot of Olivia Chow's bike! Is it an Urbanite? I like that she actually has the red and white reflective stripes on the front and rear of her bike.