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Cycling ambassadors program
would be a great fit for Peterborough: Sauve Susan is Peterborough’s transportation demand management planner. She’s responding to the idea of adapting an innovative program from Toronto called The Cycling Ambassadors. The Cycling Ambassadors are a team of cycling experts in Ontario’s capital that reach out to communities across the city with programs and campaigns. The campaigns deliver safety messages and encourage cycling. The Toronto Bike Plan recommends the City continue to maintain the Cycling Ambassadors Program "as a cost-effective vehicle to deliver educational and promotional campaigns." According to their website, the Ambassadors deliver a wide range of cycling related initiatives, like the Bicycle Friendly Business Awards, Bike Week, the Bicycle User Group Network, and CAN-BIKE. They deliver information on cycling safety at community events and through giving safety seminars. "I think this would be fabulous," Susan tells peacefulcommunities.ca "I think we really need something like that here." She says from her observations, many young teens who ride bikes are often not wearing helmets and are not following safety rules. "There’s definitely no Highway Safety Act knowledge for some of these kids, that’s for sure," she says. Susan says the way it works now is three police officers in Peterborough are assigned to take safety messages to the schools, and biking is a part of that. "But we don’t have any biking group in the city, except a racing group and they’re not about advocacy or training," says Susan. Ambassadors also collect information as part of the evaluation process for the Toronto Bike Plan, including surveys and bicycle counts The goals the Toronto Cycling Ambassadors have set are to double the number of bicycle trips made in the City of Toronto, as a percentage of total trips, by 2011. And, the group wants to reduce the number of bicycle collisions and injuries. The Ambassadors also want to foster co-operation between all road and trail users, increase compliance with the Highway Traffic Act, protect and preserve the environment and promote safe and responsible trail use in parks and environmentally sensitive areas. Currently, the City of Peterborough has been undergoing an overall operations review this year, which has included a review of its transportation department. Susan says her department has been focused on getting people walking this year, but next year the emphasis will shift to cycling. |
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