March 31, 2021 - Ottawa is one of Canada’s leading cycling cities, and it was the first in the country to receive a Gold Bicycle Friendly Community (BFC) award.

For five decades now, the signature cycling attraction for both residents and visitors has been a network of off-road multi-use pathways. Known as the Capital Pathway, the network is more than 600km long and connects parks, waterways and communities in Ottawa and Gatineau (QC). The pathways are open to people walking and wheeling, including pedal-assist electric bikes.

On Sunday mornings throughout the summer, pathway users are invited to spill out onto adjacent parkways, which are closed to motor vehicles as part of “Sunday Bikedays”. This event has been running since the 1970s with thousands of users each week. In 2020, the program was expanded to various times during the week as part of the COVID-19 pandemic response, and parkways saw more than 700,000 visits as a result.

More recently, Ottawa has been growing its network of on-street bike lanes. 

In 2011, Ottawa built Ontario’s first downtown separated bike lane on Laurier Ave. The bike lanes saw a 500% increase in cycling within the first two years, which helped set the stage for a growing network of separated cycling facilities. As a winter city, Ottawa has committed to clearing the snow along 40km of its cycling network, and data counts show that winter cycling trips have doubled in the five years since the winter network was established.

But it wasn’t just roadways where people needed cycling infrastructure. They also needed to cross the waterways that intersected the city, like the Rideau Canal and Rideau River. Although the projects sometimes took decades to approve, the demand for new bridges — such as the Corktown Footbridge, Flora Footbridge and Adawe Crossing — was immediately validated with thousands of crossings made each day.

Ottawa is also home to a number of nonprofits and volunteers working to build a supportive cycling culture and help people navigate local cycling infrastructure. The advocacy group Bike Ottawa has been running events and campaigns for over 30 years, and the organization recently launched an interactive map that helps people find the most comfortable cycling routes. 

Thousands of people have also been introduced to cycling through events and workshops hosted by EnviroCentre, as part of the City’s annual Bike to Work Month.