Daniel_Williams

*Ottawa? Montreal? Adding Ottawa to My Nomination for Best Cycling City in North America*

So, as a professor I had submitted all my course marks and was looking for the first nice weather opportunity to get away. Living in Montreal, last Wednesday, no rain was finally predicted and I was off on my mission to check out nearby Ottawa's cycling opportunities, something I'd never been able to do for a variety of reasons when I'd visited the city on 3 prior occasions. One of my dearest friend's brother had raved about the bike paths there but I'd never had the opportunity to see them for myself.

Nowhere I've seen in North America beats the Netherlands in terms of cycling infrastructure in populated areas. From Haarlem to den Haag to Delft, each community I saw seemed to have been designed giving the bicycle equal accommodation. I loved it. But in North America, up until last week, I truly thought my home town of Montreal was about the best I'd seen, with separated lanes or paths criss-crossing the city in many ways, making the bike a realistic and reasonably safe option to get from many points A to many points B. We're nowhere near in the same league as the Netherlands, but I can get to so many interesting places in the city all by bike path. I can't think of a friend I can't get to primarily by bike paths and work is similarly accessible.

While the mere idea of cycling in to get from A to B in some beloved cities gives me the goosebumps (Boston! New York! Toronto! Philadelphia! Baltimore! Monterrey! Mexico City! London! (aside from certain designated paths)), I've had some amazing cycling experiences elsewhere in urban North America. From Gas Works Park to Lake Washington with snow-capped peaks in the distance along the famous Burke-Gilman Trail in Seattle, to adjacent the beautiful turquoise blue waters of Lake Michigan in Chicago and the Florida Strait in Key West, from "biking the bridge" with the spectacular views crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and down to Sausalito as the fog rolled in along the San Francisco Bay to pedaling along the circuit beside the inky blue English Bay and Stanley Park with the looming mountainous backdrop in downtown Vancouver around to Kitsilano--all these views seen from over the handlebars have been treasured life moments. With views that took my breath away in ways that the local bike paths here in Montreal do not. However, I felt that the overall urban design in these cities did not treat the bicycle quite as much as an equal of the car in terms of a being a valid mode of transport between A and B as Montreal does. Even Portland, sometimes referred to as the best cycling city in the USA, left me puzzled as to how one might safely cycle in a direct manner from say downtown to the International Rose Test Garden or some of the brewpubs in Alphabet City--mind you, it rained every day I was there, so I was unable to cycle and may not have researched this as well as I could have.

Ottawa impressed me with its cycling infrastructure and in my opinion, definitely seems to be giving Montreal a run for its money as "best North American cycling city". Staying at a cute auberge near the central and energetic Byward Market which I enjoyed for its pubs and the similar-but-different-from-Montreal French-English dual language dynamic, I used Ottawa's bike share system Velogo, for which one needs an app downloaded on one's smart phone. Velogo has an advantage over Montreal's bike share system Bixi (similar to Chicago's Divvy) in that you can lock your bike at even a regular rack, which allows one to make a spontaneous stop at a restaurant or ice cream parlour not near a Velogo station if so inclined--in contrast, Bixi requires one to park at another Bixi docking station if one wishes to similarly stop to eat (luckily Bixi stations are quite prevalent in Montreal and Bixi has the advantage that one does not need a smart phone to use it).

The Velogo station I used, right next to the National Gallery of Art, was right next to a bike-only lane separate from the road as in the Netherlands. This lane was equipped with bicycle traffic lights, guiding cyclists as to when it was their turn to go; from this path, one could easily access the Rideau Canal path. The Rideau Canal path was delightfully verdant, with kayakers, pedalboaters and others enjoying a variety of recreational sports all along. Unlike the Lachine Canal bike path in Montreal which is very industrial and adjacent a roaring highway in parts, there are handsome homes or bushy arboretum-like greenery along the Rideau Canal and it's especially beautiful when it widens into Dow Lake. (Mind you, the Lachine Canal path coming from Old Montreal has a simply gorgeous endpoint, the spit of land in Rene Levesque Park surrounded by the wide Saint Lawrence River to north, south and west--across from the beautiful old greystone buildings in Vieux Lachine and adjacent a marina.)

Ottawa really impressed me with the number of bicycle traffic lights; even in Montreal, these are only relatively recent and only at a limited number of particularly hairy intersections (thank goodness, at least that, but there need to be more for cycling safety). I look forward to exploring more of Ottawa's cycling network especially parts of the temporarily closed supposedly gorgeous Ottawa River path when the waters recede after some flooding.

There's been a push for health and environmental reasons toward better cycling infrastructure in a number of North American cities. Perhaps some of my impressions of city X's cycling options are dated/incomplete and you think a town/city I dismissed deserves to be considered among North America's best. Or maybe some city or town X I've never been to in your mind is really number one? Let me know because what I'm most interested in is great, safer North American cycling options for when I don't have time to make it to Europe. (I've never been but have heard Minneapolis mentioned lately as a great cycling city.)

Happy travels, Daniel

xcountry

Nice thread Daniel. I have been cycling in Ottawa for 53 years after learning to ride as a young kid in Montreal. We live about 16k west of Parliament Hill. From our door we have a choice of two bicycle paths that take us to Parliament Hill - the Ottawa River path mentioned above and another through the Experimental Farm. Not one meter on a street. From Parliament Hill we can head up to the Gatineau Park where I was this morning. Or we can head south or west.

There has been a bit of controversy lately with bike lanes being added to busy downtown streets. As a cyclist I love them but as a driver I can see how bikes now appear suddenly where they didn't used to. It will take awhile for people to get used to them.

Daniel next time you are in Ottawa look for a path that runs east from Rockliffe all the way to the east end of town. It is right beside the river and best suited to a hybrid or mountain bike. You can find reference to it in this article.

http://gobiking.ca/local-rides/east-end-ottawa/

laverendrye

For those who can't access the Lounge this was my reply there to Daniel's post

Thanks for the report Daniel. As a longtime Ottawa resident and cyclist I sometimes have taken the extensive bike network for granted. In my working years here I regularly cycled to work in spring summer and fall using the National Capital Commission bike paths along the Ottawa river and through quiet neighbourhoods. It took about 40 minutes each way and was a great way to start the day and to decompress at the end.

I continue to bike for pleasure and enjoy the several hundred km of routes along the rivers, the canal and through the many parks. In recent years the city has been aggressively building segregated paths on major traffic routes through downtown to aid cycle commuters year round. Although I'd never be tempted, it's amazing to see many cyclists on some of the worst winter days here in the world's second coldest capital (after Ulan Bator). I expect you see the same in Montréal, although Ottawa is much better at clearing snow from its streets.

Daniel_Williams

xcountry-- Thanks for the suggestion for my next visit to Ottawa! I'm thankful for all the variety of routes I can take from Montreal. It's good for my sanity to mix things up. Glad you have similar in Ottawa!

elbegewa

Never been to Ottawa yet, so will have to check it out.

I've never bicycled back east so can't compare. But I have cycled a lot in both Seattle and Portland, and neither compare with how good the cycling is in Vancouver (especially now, as compared to how Vancouver was 20 years ago).
http://www.letsgobiking.net/beginner...e-four-routes/
and
http://vancouver.ca/files/cov/map-cycling-vancouver.pdf

Daniel_Williams

elbegewa,

Thanks for commenting! When I was back in Vancouver in 2013, I quite enjoyed cycling around Stanley Park and down to Kitsilano. Vancouver and its near-neighbour Victoria definitely seemed to me to be two of the better North American cities for cycling that I've seen although my friend who has lived in all three felt that Montreal wins hands down. I'm pleased to see that in Montreal there seems to be a culture to continually improve the network, even if at times certain intersections can be Amsterdam-crowded with bikes. It was also my impression that the overall cycling infrastructure is better in Van than Portland or Seattle.

However, for me, even though I'm glad than my home town Montreal has made such strides, I'm pleased simply reading about efforts being made anywhere to encourage this healthy way of getting around. I was just in PEI and love their cross-province Confederation Trail, which seems to be expanding!

Best wishes, Daniel