Meet Ontario’s first-ever ‘bicycle mayor’
from
https://www.tvo.org/article/meet-ontarios-first-ever-bicycle-mayor
as of Sat Jan 18 2020 19:35:32 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
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Despite her name, Shelley Carr is passionate about cycling. TVO.org speaks
with the newly appointed bicycle mayor of London about promoting
bike-friendly infrastructure in a car-dominated city
By Mary Baxter - Published on Sep 11, 2019
LONDON — Three years ago, Shelley Carr started biking to school every
morning. She’d also ride to the grocery store, to appointments: basically,
wherever she could. A car accident had shattered a number of bones in her
foot, and she found that the regular exercise helped in her recovery. “I’ve
been riding ever since,” says the 49-year-old Fanshawe College business
student.
Carr became an advocate for active transportation, running a Twitter
account dedicated to the cause and joining local groups such as London Cycle
Link, a not-for-profit focused on cycling issues. Earlier this year, she
tweeted a link to a program run by BYCS, an Amsterdam-based organization that
appoints voluntary “bicycle mayors” across the world, hoping to promote
cycling-friendly policy changes. But then a friend nominated her for the
London position, and, after filming an application video, obtaining 10
endorsements from the local cycling community, and completing an interview
with BYCS representatives, this month Carr was officially named to a two-year
term. There are more than 40 such mayors around the world, but she’s the
first in Ontario and only the second in Canada (the other is in Victoria).
Her mandate is ambitious. She hopes to engage local youth in the movement
using BYCS’s junior mayor program. She’ll consult with organizations and
businesses on how to best promote cycling. Most substantively, she’ll lobby
local governments to pass cycling-friendly policy. “One of the mantras of the
BYCS program is that we are aiming for 50 per cent of all city trips to be by
bike by 2030,” she says.
TVO.org caught up with Carr at the Big Bike Giveaway (an annual event at
which donated bikes are distributed to Londoners free of charge) to talk
about her goals, which Ontario city has the best cycling infrastructure, and
what she tells people who want to ditch their cars.
How did it feel to be named London’s bicycle mayor?
I was hoping that someone else would be nominated. When I found out that my
friend had nominated me, I was really annoyed. I debated whether I wanted to
do the work and if I was the right person.
It was really hard for me. I’m not good at blowing my own horn. I’m more
“just get the work done.” But I was like, okay, do you really think this is
going to help our city? And my nominator and other local cycling advocates
said, ‘Yes, and we think you’re the perfect person for it.’ And I said,
‘Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll do it.’
What does a bicycle mayor do?
A bicycle mayor is meant to drive change in a city to increase cycling. A
big component of that is pushing for proper infrastructure to make sure that
people can do it safely. The second part of that is to make sure that when
people get their bikes, that their bikes are safe from theft — so that there
is a system in place to ensure that bikes are not stolen as often as they are
now.
The only way that you can coordinate all the cycling organizations in your
city is if you have a coordinated force to bring cohesion to them all.
Otherwise you’re all working in opposite directions.
How will the role affect your existing advocacy work?
I have to actually be independent of all organizations. It’s a requirement
of the BYCS program — I cannot be a part of any funded organizations
[including government]. Everything I do is volunteer. Everything I spend
money on is either money that I’ve written grants for or I’ve spent myself. I
have to be free from those encumbrances so that I can do the work that I can
do. And it means that I can actually reach into places that other people
can’t because I don’t have those rules about how that money needs to be
spent.
What are your first steps in London?
We’re starting to work on putting pressure on the city to create safe
cycling lockups in the city. We’re asking for bike lockers to be installed at
15 parking lots in the downtown area.
We also are going to London Police Services Board on September 26 to ask
them to adopt Project 529, which is a central registry service.
The idea is that the cyclists will register their bike; the police will
check the registry. It’s a North American system [that four Ontario cities,
including St. Thomas, Guelph, Peterborough, and Ottawa participate in].
Victoria adopted it, and their theft rate dropped by 32 per cent.
We have 785 bikes stolen a year in London, approximately. I figure probably
another third of that is never, ever, reported.
What is the number-one challenge Ontario communities face in terms of cycling
infrastructure?
The biggest challenge is the perception that creating bike lanes for
cyclists is taking away from drivers. It’s really hard to get it through
people’s heads that not all trips need to be taken by car.
When we can get people out of cars and riding bikes more often, they’re
more connected to their communities, they’re healthier, their loneliness
factor drops because they get to know their community. That’s a big issue in
cities right now, loneliness and isolation.
I think that if people actually thought about the fact that if there’s more
people riding in their community, and they know that cyclists are in a
protected bike lane, then it’s easier for them to drive, right? It’s as
simple as that. That’s why we have sidewalks — so we don’t have pedestrians
walking on the road, and when you know that the pedestrians are over there,
you don’t need to worry about them. The same works for bike lanes.
Is there an Ontario community that you feel is doing the best when it comes
to infrastructure?
Probably
Ottawa. Ottawa has their routes along the river. They have routes
along the canal. They have done active-transportation design changes on their
streets, so it’s safer for cars and safer for pedestrians and safer for
cyclists. They still have deaths because not all of the city is done. It’s
very piecemeal — just like every other city.
But if you say Canada-wide, well, I was in Montreal for a week this summer,
and I took my bike; I was out until two in the morning with my bicycle
looking for crêpes and beer. It was the safest city I’d ever been in my life.
I would never go in Toronto on my bicycle at 2 a.m.
They have protected bike lanes and shut down entire streets — they’re
totally closed to cars. So there’s a whole different sense of community on
those streets that you don’t see in London.
What do you tell someone who wants to switch to commuting by bike?
Reach out to the cycling community and ask them what the safe routes are
for them to travel.
Sometimes it involves using the bus as well. A lot of facilities don’t have
showers or change rooms, so that’s an issue. I had one lady that contacted me
to ask how to work biking into her commuting routine, and I said, “How do you
get there now?”
“I take the bus,” she replies.
“How about you put your bike on the bus, take the bus to your work, then
you’re not sweaty,” I told her. “Then afterwards, you can bike home.”
That is a start because that means that she actually has that opportunity
to ride and to enjoy the outdoors.
This is one in a series of stories about issues affecting southwestern
Ontario. It's brought to you with the assistance of faculty and students from
Western University’s Faculty of Information and Media Studies.
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Opinions expressed are personal unless specifically attributed to an organisation
Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race
- H.G. Wells
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