I did something today that would have been very hard to do without the cargo ebike I got this spring (I’ll describe this bike more in a future post). This afternoon I did a couple of errands on the bike, which is better in almost every imaginable way than doing equivalent tasks would have been in a car. After dropping off a fairly large package (big enough I never could have attempted this with my standard hybrid bike) at Canada Post in the Shoppers at Jeanne d’Arc and Orleans Blvds, I took Orleans Blvd south up the hill, then made my way over to Canadian Tire for some pool chemicals.
On the way there, I took Jeanne d’Arc to see the newly paved and painted intersection at Frank Bender on a bike. On the way, I tried to look at the sidewalks along Jeanne d’Arc leading up to that area. They look like they are pretty old, giving me some hope that if they do get prioritized for replacement in 2-5 years (or something) it may be possible to make better use of the Jeanne d’Arc right-of-way for active transport. I grew up on a bicycle so I feel quite comfortable on almost any road, but even talking to my parents in Calgary (in their 60s/70s) about how I’ve been biking more and advocating for an active transportation network in Ottawa last week, my parents mentioned that they don’t bike as much as they would when they were younger because of missing infrastructure links.
Anyhow, on the way back from Canadian Tire, I went straight through Frank Bender on to Belcourt Blvd using the newly paved connection I mentioned earlier, and I must say Belcourt is a dream cycling route, with almost no traffic since cars can’t get through. A few stop signs (including one that is totally redundant for bikes) are really the only things stopping bikes from cruising uninterrupted straight through the neighbourhood. The planners and folks who implemented this efficient community connection deserve a congrats! However, that route did just dump me out on to St. Joseph at the end, which is obviously less ideal for less experienced people. It would be cool if this kind of infrastructure had somewhat logical beginnings and destinations when they’re planned out, their disjointed nature makes them hard to use for less and more experienced people.
All that said, I will celebrate progress. When I take routes like Jeanne d’Arc, Orleans Blvd, and St. Joseph Blvd, I can’t help but picture and imagine what they might look like if we took the climate, housing, and affordability crises deadly seriously and really committed like cities like Paris or Montreal to densification, a complete and less car-dependent transportation network, and allowing mixed-use zoning to make it easier to create complete neighbourhoods in a relatively compact space. I fully recognize it is MUCH easier to say those words in a vacuum than to implement any of those things while keeping a functional city running with a strapped budget, but I will keep dreaming about it.
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