New Cycling Strategy for Calgary

The City of Calgary is working on our city's first ever comprehensive cycling strategy and part of that strategy was to do some research on Calgarians attitudes towards cycling in our city in the form of a telephone survey and an online survey.  The results are in and Calgarians have spoken - the majority want more bike lanes and safer cycling facilities.

In this case, the old saying "build it and they will come" couldn't be more true!  Here are a few interesting tidbits from the online survey;

- 64% said they do not feel safe cycling in traffic
- 26% said they are currently bike commuting to work/school
- 74% would like to cycle for transportation more often
- 79% want more bike lanes and 79% want physically separated lanes
- 69% want more motorist education about cyclists

The telephone survey is in many ways a better gauge of general attitudes towards cycling than the online survey as most of the online survey respondants identified as a cyclist.  Here are some interesting tidbits from the telephone survey;

- 59% said they would like to cycle more often
- 72% are interested in cycling for transportation
- 6% ride everyday (60,000 people everyday!)
- 80% feel unsafe riding in traffic (ouch!)
- 50% want to cycle more for transportation

Overall, the results seem pretty obvious - Calgarians would ride more if they felt safer, Calgarians want to cycle for transportation more often, and there are a lot of cyclists who are currently riding everyday.

So, giddy-up Calgary City Council - the ball is in your court!