There is no better place to have a meeting and no better way to see the impact of cycling on your community than from the seat of a bicycle.

Whether you are a sitting MP or a candidate looking to connect meaningfully with constituents or a voter looking to see how potential candidates feel about the federal role in active transportation, Vélo Canada Bikes invites you to organize a Ride Your Riding event in advance of the upcoming election.  Since our previous 2 asks have been fulfilled, this year we would like to focus on E-bikes and Micro-mobility as well as an e-bike incentive plan as outlined in our budget submission. Now that we have an established fund for active transportation, we need to ensure that all Canadians are able to utilize the infrastructure that is going to be built across the nation.

What? A community-oriented, family-friendly, educational bike ride between now and election day September 20, 2021.

Who? Local federal provincial and municipal elected officials are invited to join, and so is the whole community.

Why? Ride Your Riding is great for MPs and politicians because it:

• Acts as an opportunity to show off the great active transportation projects and programs happening in your community.
• Encourages broader community interest and enable you to point out investment in cycling infrastructure
• Allows you to meet with the people that currently make active transportation decisions locally and understand the bigger picture
• Provides an opportunity to highlight your favourite bike experiences, as well as provide insight into what could be improved
• Lets you meet active and connected constituents face to face
• Its the best way to see, feel, hear and understand the area you represent

The rides are encouraged to be all-inclusive and should be routed with consideration of all ages and abilities for cycling.

Our role:  Vélo Canada Bikes will be contacting local candidates to encourage them to host a  ride as a campaign event and will track all the ridings that have had one. We can also help get you started with some materials.  Just email [email protected] for details.

The impact:  Selfies with the hashtag #RideYourRiding are highly encouraged and unavoidable. Have fun. We’ll certainly be sharing widely and local bike groups have a wide reach. Other tangible ideas, projects, intiatives, plans?? You never know what can come out of a meeting by bike. Vélo Canada Bikes will be tracking all the rides happening over the country and paying close attention. We’ll make a map and try to get as many of the ridings in Canada covered (with your help, of course).

Just some examples of past Ride Your Riding events: 
– Dr.Doug Eyolfson hosted a ride in Winnipeg
– Gord Johns, MP held multiple rides to ensure he rode the entire riding
– Geoff Regan, Speaker of the House of Commons and MP for Halifax West held his Ride The Riding on July 8th, 2017
– Jagmeet Singh, Leader of the NDP hosted numerous rides across Canada

Other helpful info:

Why is bike infrastructure such a big deal?

• Research shows that bicycle-
  friendly projects are great for everyone even if they never ride a bike
• Safer streets are safer for everyone
• When bikes have dedicated safe space sidewalks are safer for pedestrians
• Well-designed infrastructure can improve the experience for everyone. and leads to smoother trips improving the behaviour of all modes
• Leads to less congestion as people will be to make the healthy choice, the easy choice
• Complete streets lead to livable communities, the air is better and the amount of noise decreases
• Research is emerging that bike infrastructure routinely encourages economic vitality
• Costs for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure are a fraction of large roads projects enabling nimble design, shovel-ready projects that put people to work right away
• Every taxpayer in Canada should be excited about the health benefits as diabetes, dementia, depression, colon cancer and cardiovascular disease are reduced by 40% from 30 minutes of riding
• Currently, transportation accounts for 30% of all greenhouse gases. Swapping a single 5km car trip with a bike trip would keep 2,000 lbs of carbon out of the environment per year.

Email [email protected] for details