Locals head to Moscow for winter cycling meeting
Calgary has become a more welcoming city in recent years for commute rs looking to trade four wheels for two, thanks to new bike lanes and the downtown cycle track.
But a group headed to Moscow next week say more can be done for winter cycling in Calgary.
From Thursday through Sunday, Moscow will host the Winter Cycling Congress, a meeting of minds for urban planners, transportation engineers and cycling enthusiasts from cold-climate cities.
“It’s all about sharing information and highlighting facts around winter-cycling,” said Blanka Bracic, a senior transportation engineer with the city who will be headed to the conference next week.
“In Calgary we’re building more and more safe routes. ... We’re hoping to learn (from other cities) and share what we have learned.”
Topics will include discussions about traffic code amendments, cycling economy, business engagement and maintaining cycling infrastructure in the winter.
To help tie in with the conference, two upcoming events will promote winter cycling and help the city track winter cycling trips.
On Wednesday, the fifth-annual winter biking photo booth will be set up on the south side of the Bow River Pathway between the Peace Bridge and the 10th Street LRT bridge, and Feb. 14 is Winter Bike to Work Day.
Automated counters keep track of the number of bicycle trips in and out of downtown and the city’s data shows more Calgarians are putting the pedals to the pavement year over year.
Katherine Glowacz, an active transportation planner at the city who is also headed to Moscow, says around 30 per cent of cyclists continue to ride in winter months.
Glowacz says the city has recorded four times as many daily winter bike trips thanks to the downtown cycle track and improvements to the city’s pathway system.
During the city’s annual May cordon count there were 17,468 recorded trips last year compared to 17,193 during the same period in 2016 and only 12,304 in May 2015.
Bicycle traffic accounted for 3.1 per cent of all trips into the downtown business district during peak morning hours.
Another Calgarian headed to Moscow is Tom Babin, a Calgarybased author and cycling blogger. Babin has been to a few Winter Cycling Congresses over the years and says Calgary’s icy attitude toward winter biking is starting to thaw.
“I started riding my bike in the winter 15 years ago and I felt pretty lonely back then,” Babin said. “But there’s all kinds of people I see out there now.”