Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Old Spokes cycling club gets Calgary seniors back on their bikes

One of the great things about cycling is that it's a low impact sport, which means you can do it at any age. That may be why 255 Calgary seniors have signed up for weekly rides around the city and beyond. Read more.

Halifax hopes to double the number of cyclists in 10 years

The next decade of bicycle infrastructure renewal will need a new way of conceptualizing how city streets are used, said Halifax municipal staff at a recent meeting. The public meeting recapped future bicycle infrastructure projects in Halifax, along with strategies to achieve active transportation goals. One of the goals is to double the rates of cycling and walking in the city by 2026. Read more.

Youth coordinator hopes donated Calgary bikes will keep Nunavut kids active

Ali Harper and her husband Tim have always been passionate cyclists, riding their bicycles on the job, in races, and just for fun. Harper — a former Calgary EMT now working as a youth co-ordinator — eventually became known around town as “the girl with the big-tire bike” and soon had children in the small community of 1,400 asking if they could join her. Read more.

The quick, the safe and the cyclist

Speed kills. Toronto's medical officer of health, Dave McKeown, has been warning us about that since 2012. As his report, Road To Health: Improving Walking And Cycling in Toronto, shows, there's an 85 per cent chance that a pedestrian struck by a car travelling at 50 km/h will be killed. The fatality rate decreases to less than 5 per cent when a car's doing 30 km/h. That's why on June 22, Toronto and East York Community Council voted to reduce the speed limit to 30 km/h on all local residential roads within its jurisdiction, with phase-in beginning in September. Read more.

Winnipeg - 'Dictatorship of the tweeting class,' says Wyatt

Wyatt said he believes people on social media are partly behind efforts to get the strategy approved sooner rather than later. "It's like the dictatorship of the tweeting class, is what we're seeing here," he said. "You have this bike lobby which ... relatively speaking, demographically is younger, and at the same time you have this technological burst of this thing called Twitter. And I think what you have is a mayor that is very literate in these things … yet seven per cent of the people are on Twitter and 93 per cent are not." Read more.

Kelowna - 'Active by Nature'

Kelowna's mayor was unable to temper his enthusiasm for a rebranding of the city. 'Active by Nature' was unveiled Monday. It is described as a program that will promote and connect residents to many of the city's assets. It's designed to support existing programs such as the pedestrian and bicycle master plan, healthy city strategy and strong neighbourhoods program. Read more.

Winnipeg - Wyatt, Browaty, Schreyer want to cut active transportation budget to the bone

Couns. Russ Wyatt, Jeff Browaty and Jason Schreyer want to see the budget of the strategy scaled back from its proposed $334 million to $55 million; cut the number of downtown protected bike routes in half; eliminate all references to sidewalk snowclearing, and formally describe the document as a "guideline" rather than city council policy. Read more.