It’s easy to come up with excuses NOT to bike to work. Until you’ve tried it, that is.
That’s part of what Bike to Work & School Week, which runs annually the last week of May, is about — encouraging newbies to try commuting from a saddle while celebrating the benefits that can only be understood with experience. This year (2019), Bike to Work & School Week is May 27 – June 2.
A while ago, we met up with Lise Richard, who is the Greater Victoria Bike to Work Society’s Bike Skills Coordinator. She is very convincing when it comes to encouraging pedal power. She also has a handy trick for remembering some of the keys to cycling safety.
Go ahead and watch the video. If you haven’t considered biking to work already, we’re pretty confident you’ll think about switching gears.
Bike to work already? What do you like about it? Let us know! Help us fill the comments section below with positive pedalling vibes. And learn about what the ministry is doing, through the BikeBC program, to improve cycling in your community.
How about doing what the Dutch do and use yield signs everywhere we would use a stop sign (except in cases of very limited visibility), 30 km/h traffic calmed minor roads, cycle tracks complete with protected intersections or simultaneous green on the main roads, abundant bike parking everywhere, and abundant does not mean 5 racks at a grocery store where there are more than 1000 car parking spaces, and diverting motor traffic onto few arterial roads, medium number of one lane/direction distributor roads with roundabouts at intersections between them and high volume access roads, and not the collectors or local roads, with lots of shortcuts for cyclists. This makes people feel safe to ride, and makes it efficient by removing stop signs, by allowing right turns on red, by creating roundabouts with dedicated and protected cycling space, and you can have priority on your annular cycle track, removing another reason to stop, having bypasses at bus stops, allowing you to cycle regardless of buses that may be stopping, and having fully actuated traffic lights, maximizing efficiency, even though Dutch traffic lights almost always use separate signal stages for turning traffic and cyclists. It makes their streets the safest in the world to cycle on and makes millions of people cycle each day, 5 million per day in a country of 16 million. In cities this is even higher, with 28-60% of people using bicycles.