New urban philosophy

Ottawa Citizen Editorial
September 1, 2010

There was a time when Ottawa was considered a haven for cyclists. The city, with the help of the National Capital Commission and vast tracts of green space, has an impressive -- if incomplete -- series of recreational pathways that offer a rambling tour of the region's prettiest sites.

Those pathways have been used and enjoyed by Ottawa residents and visitors for years, but they will never turn this into a city where cycling is central to transportation. In order for that to happen, the city and the NCC must invest in direct and safe commuter routes -- with lanes that are separated from traffic by barriers -- particularly through the downtown, and must include cycling in all infrastructure planning, from the ground up.

The role of cycling in the urban landscape is increasingly preoccupying planners across North America, and Ottawa has a long way to go to keep pace. This city's cycling infrastructure is largely built for aimless Saturday afternoon jaunts, not the kind of daily use that allows people to safely rely on bicycles, rather than cars, to get from A to B.

Happily, there are signs that things are beginning to change. The National Capital Commission's Marie Lemay has said a lot of promising things lately about turning Ottawa into the kind of bicycle-friendly city that would serve as a model for other Canadian cities. The NCC can't do this alone, obviously. The commission has to work with the city to make sure bicycle-first planning makes sense.

Can this really happen in a notoriously car-dependent, sprawling city like Ottawa? Well, for starters, the city has agreed to talk with the NCC about helping to close gaps in the bike-path network. The city wants to put five such projects into next year's budget that would link existing paths and provide better access to institutions, transit stations and communities.

This infrastructure work, which will be welcomed by cyclists, is a good place for both the city and the NCC to start building a better cycling community. Gaps in the existing bike-path network have long been the subject of cyclists' complaints, who rightly hate how some of the paths end suddenly, leaving the cyclist stranded in traffic. The project would also get the city and the NCC working together, a collaboration that should lead to more improvements to the cycling system.

Just recently, the NCC and the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau agreed to work together on a cycling vision, a big step toward rethinking the capital as a more accessible community. Maria McRae, who heads the city of Ottawa's transportation committee, says the capital should develop a cycling detour plan to be used during construction and maintenance of roads and pathways so that detours would take the most "safe, feasible and direct route" for cyclists.

These may seem to be small, common-sense tweaks to infrastructure policy, but they reflect an evolving philosophy about how we live in big cities. What urbanists call "livability" is often a function of how easy it is to get around without cars.

It used to be that making life easier for motorists was the number one priority of city planners, but even motorists today are now saying that, on occasion, they'd like also to have the option of being cyclists, pedestrians or public transit users.