Province to Build Separated Banff-Canmore Bike Lane
Register on Karelo for the fifth annual Ride the Road tour
Feel safe on a bike on a Calgary road. On June 2, Elbow Drive, Centre St N and Canyon Meadows drivers make way for hundreds of bikes as as a Calgary Police escort closes intersections to whisk you through our sprawling city.
Cycle Direct A to B
You will feel like a visiting head of state in an official motor cavalcade. The Ride the Road tour is not a race (you will forget to complain about the slow speed) but, with the short blocks in North Calgary and the police rolling closure, the traveling time from Tuxedo to Stanley Park is shorter on your bike than in a car. Our photographers have one chance and 120 sec to take pictures.
Join the Downtown Campaign for Common Sense Bike Lanes
The Tour is looking for volunteers to assist on the Campaign for East-West bike lanes on 5th and 6th Ave.
- Download the RtRt Poster
- Download and Post en francais
- Become a Volunteer.
- Blueseros are back live on the 'Ride the Road' tour by popular demand.
- A rolling closure of major arterial roads makes the annual 'Ride the Road' tour a unique public event.
Recent news
- Bell on how the City views cycling: toy, time machine, or religious icon? View the video.
-
BC cyclists host Europe's elite commuter cycling conference in June.
Few Fans for Separated Bike Lanes On 7th St
In the last two years we have been actively campaigning with the business community to support separated bike lanes on routes consistently identified by cyclists as a priority. Bike lanes on 5th and 6th Ave south will maximize safety and introduce a new cohort to urban commuter cycling. These routes have neither been chosen by nor for the convenience of the City of Calgary's Transportation Department. TransDep staff have spent five years fighting against this logical step in an effective bike promotion program.
Our attention shifted exclusively from the powerless cycling community to the business community. Growing anxiety in this community recently led to the formation by the City (September, 2012) of a stakeholder committee that included key business groups. (TransDep ignored our 2010 request to include businesses in the public consultation for the cycling strategy.) Again, after only two meetings of a cycling super stakeholder committee meeting, bureaucrats did not like the advice that they were hearing from the stakeholders. The committee was suspended! They were being told that protected bike lanes need to be oriented East-West on 5th and 6th Ave. As history would have it that is the orientation of Calgary's downtown.
Location, Location, Location
Things went from bad to worse when the tour de nuit Society informed the City that we had commissioned an engineering report, which concluded that the separated bike lanes can be installed with no loss of (automobile) traffic lanes on 5th and 6th Ave. SW - more inconvenient, independent research. Another disagreement arose when the Transportation was offered the report (if they paid for it so in turn the tour de nuit Society could pay the engineering firm). Transportation has stubbornly refused the report. We think its contents and conclusions are important; they do not.
The Tour de Nuit Society
The tour de nuit Society (CtdnS) was formed as a member-based Active and Sustainable Transportation Organization (ASTO) with the mandate of encouraging 'more people cycling more often'. CtdnS maintains an effective non-partisan government relations program − professionally representing the interests of commuter cyclists at two levels of government, as well as with institutions, stakeholders, communities and the media.
At the core of CtdnS' outreach program is a public speaker series and the 'Ride the Road' tour - an on-street, closed-road bicycle tour from distant 'burbs to and through Calgary's central business district. Despite the fun and family focus of the tour, it is Calgary's most influential cycling event. Members of the commuter cycling community have a relaxed atmosphere to pass on their passion and love of cycling to decision-makers and the public.
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