Bike Activism Explained

People who use a bike for transportation can sometimes be annoying…based on comments from my wife. I have been reflecting on my journey and my interactions with other people like me to try and help people understand why many people who bike for transportation care about bike-ability a lot.

Some Transportation Data

Transportation is an important part of our lives. It allows us to get from where we are to where we need or want to be. According to Statistics Canada, in 2021, the average commuting time for all modes of transportation is 23.7 minutes. Double that at 47.4 minutes and that is 3.29% of the day for the 75.7% of people who don’t usually work from home. That excludes all other trips running errands including grocery shopping, children’s activities, visiting friends and family, etc. We spend a lot of time getting ourselves from place to place. The average Canadian household also spent an average of $10,099 on transportation in 2021. Transportation is a big part of our lives, so people feel strongly about it.

Transportation has a big impact on public spending. The city of Ottawa maintains more than $10 billion in road infrastructure including 6,000 kilometres of roads. In 2025, according to Ontario Construction, the city will spend $200 million for road rehabilitation, $89.6 million on road resurfacing and upgrades and $25.7 million for pedestrian and road safety initiatives (including $12.7 million for signalized intersections). That is a total of over $315 million on top of OC Transpo’s $856 million operating budget and transit infrastructure. In a city of 1 million, that’s well over $1100 per person spent on transportation before factoring in the cost of personal vehicles. We spend a lot of money getting from point A to point B.

Transportation also contributes to various other social issues, such as the housing crisis and climate change. If you listen to the Planning and Housing Committee, you will find a pattern in the objections to much-needed housing projects, parking, and congestion. Regarding climate change, cars and trucks are responsible for 17% of global CO2 emissions.

Why Does It Matter?

For people who care about how they spend their time, their household finances, public finances and major social issues, transportation is a big issue. If there is a way that we could get around without as big an impact on our wallets and our society, it would be a game changer. For people who bike for transportation, cycling is an obvious solution in many cases. Including cycling in your transportation diet has a significant impact on how that transportation time is spent and reduces the money spent on transportation.

A lot of the focus in the transportation discussion is the commute but if you look at the Transportation Trends Report published in 2024, 72% of trips originating in Orléans also end in Orléans. Orléans is not that big and driving everywhere messes up with your perception of distance. For example, if I want to drive to the grocery store, Google Maps tells me it is a five-minute drive. If you don’t research it, it is easy to assume that driving at 40-60 km/h would be 2-3 times faster than cycling at 20 km/h but that would be wrong. Google Maps puts the time by bike at 6 minutes assuming a very slow cycling speed of 16 km/h. The route you take by bike is also very pretty. You can ride by the river and cut through the back of the store and miss all the stops and lights. You don’t even need to share the road with cars if you want (may add 1-2 minutes to the trip). This is an example but when you ride around town, you realize that cycling is not more time consuming that is assuming that time cycling is equal to time driving but it is not.

In urbanist circles, there is a lot of talk about the “gym of life” coined by Not Just Bikes. It is hard to find time to exercise especially with a family. Doing small local trips by bike adds up pretty quickly and it is very easy to get the amount of exercise recommended for a healthy lifestyle. Add to that the benefits of spending time in nature, and you quickly notice the physical and mental health benefits. My first summer, I lost 20 pounds just from those small trips. You quickly get used to those benefits and want more.

Active Transportation in Orléans

Unfortunately, in our city, it is hard to make those small trips. We are lucky in Convent Glen Orléans Wood to have an easy path to the grocery store and that our grocery store has some acceptable bike parking. Other trips are a lot harder. For example, getting anywhere on St-Joseph is unpleasant and dangerous. Crossing the 174 is unpleasant and dangerous. It becomes frustrating to feel the need to drive to get places because of the state of the infrastructure. You also notice a lot of people, especially kids with no other choice, doing ridiculous things in those areas to make cycling work. This is what is radicalizing for a lot of people cycling.

There may not be a lot of us who made the jump to cycling for transportation. We start by seeing the personal benefits and how easy it could be. We see the people who have no other choice struggling and doing ridiculous things that may get them killed. The stories of those who get killed and injured hit harder. A lot of people stop there and it’s already enough to be radicalized because cars are a source of danger that creates a very unpleasant environment full of concrete and fumes. 

Others dig a bit deeper and see how little effort is being made to enable walking and cycling. Of the $25.7 million the city is spending on active transportation, $12.7 million, almost half, is spent on signalized intersections so cars don’t kill pedestrians and cyclists. Half of the active transportation is spent on enabling cars. The same cars are preventing housing from being built and are causing big problems like climate change. Not cycling involves either losing the freedom to move around the city or significantly impacting your health and finances by buying a car while also contributing to those big problems so a lot of us make it work.

Making it work requires a lot of effort. You need to figure out routes, figure out gear, figure out how to deal with various conditions, etc. Some of us get into advocacy because the benefits outweigh the costs. We are all just trying to have an easy time getting around cheaply and effectively with minimal impact on society. We also want to enable cycling for others who, like children, don’t have a choice so they can get the joy that cycling provides.

Hopefully, this article will help my wife tolerate the annoyance.