Tomorrow morning (Tuesday, October 18), hundreds of cyclists and allies (non-cyclists are welcome to walk with the group) will be meeting at Bronson and Queen for a tribute ride for Danielle Naçu, the cyclist who was killed last week on Queen Street. Christ Church Cathedral, at Bronson and Queen, will be serving coffee and muffins from 8:00 AM, and supplying shelter in case of rain. Anyone participating is encouraged to wear yellow if possible, as a symbol of the ‘ray of sunshine’ that Danielle was to ...

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600" caption=""If you build it they will come" - bike trips tripled on Laurier since launch of lanes"][/caption] This summer, the city of Los Angeles passed a law making it illegal to harass or threaten cyclists. I was amazed and pleased when it happened, even if a law like that is practically unenforceable – I mean, how would you prove it, or even track down the perpetrator, once he or she had sped off? And in subtle cases, such as when it feels to the cyclist like the drivers are deliberately passing them too closely, it’s even harder to prove. But it seems to me as though that’s not the point – or the benefit – of the law. Perhaps there’s a very faint chance that anyone would be charged, but there’s value in just knowing that the officials of the city have encoded protection for cyclists in the laws. Sometimes a law is written and passed, not because you can enforce it, but because its very existence says, “we as a people have declared that you can’t behave like that.” I thought of the LA cyclist harassment law when a friend asked me, a week or two ago, whether I thought segregated bike lanes ‘work.’ The Laurier segregated bike lanes are a bit over two months old, officially, and they were opened amid a huge furor – heated arguments for and against on both sides. But with a half season under their belts, can we say they ‘work?’

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="596" caption="By contrast: Denver's airport not shy about posting the good news"][/caption] In the last few weeks, I’ve had reason to head out to Ottawa’s MacDonald-Cartier Airport, not once, not twice, but three times. And back. Being a cheap SOB, I wondered if I could get there by bike, and thus save the O-Train/Route 97 fare. And since there were two of us, we might save two fares. And since we couldn’t return on the transfer, we might save four fares. Biking was becoming more and more attractive! It seemed to me to be a long way away from my Preston Street abode. I could only picture in my mind the Bronson-Airport Parkway route, and that sure didn’t appeal to me as a fun cycle. So, I referred to my now-essential copy of the Cycling Map of Ottawa-Gatineau, which is sold at exactly the right price (it’s free) and shows all the bike routes, paths, lanes, and “suggested routes”, regardless of which government owns the facility. The only other recommended route towards the airport was on the west side of the Rideau River, using Prince of Wales/Prescott Highway. Now that is a road I do know, and it also didn’t appeal to me. Then I figured I could parallel it by going south on Preston to the Arboretum Pathway, to Hartwell Lock (surely the most unfun bit of the route, and it’s deservedly in Alex deVries’ Top Ten of worst bike problems), to Hogs Back, and then out the Prince of Wales Highway. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Hartwell Lock offers good exercise in lifting and carrying your bike."][/caption]

Editor's note: 'Clickshift' is a new cycling feature on Spacing Ottawa authored by Kathryn Hunt. Kathryn is a writer and editor who started cycling as her main mode of transportation in early 2007. Now a year-round, all-weather cyclist, she has a hard time remembering life without two wheels. She maintains a cycling blog at theincidentalcyclist.blogspot.com. ___________ Spring is finally here: the roads are clear of snow and ice, the temperatures have crept up above zero while we weren’t looking, and a lot of people are getting their bikes out of storage, tuning them up, and getting them back on the road. Most cyclists, actually: while something like 2-3% of Ottawa’s population commutes by bicycle in the summer months, winter riders are far fewer. I find that as a winter rider, when spring comes back, I readjust my relationship to the rules of the road. Conditions are different. I’m moving faster. I’m more relaxed. There’s more space. I can bike off-road again, hop more easily onto bike paths, cut through parking lots. But I also find that I roll my eyes when I go by someone riding on the sidewalk (unless that someone is a child.) In other words, in spring it becomes much more clear to me that we cyclists cherry-pick the traffic laws we follow: some of us knowingly and, maybe, some of us unknowingly. The rules of the road are a shifty grey area for cyclists, many of whom seem to feel that a) the rules are car-centric, b) cyclists are by nature anarchic, and c) they have the right to choose how they relate to cars. I see this in myself, as I execute a rolling stop at a four-way but grumble at the cyclist I see heading the wrong way up the sidewalk, or pedaling down Bank Street after dark with no lights.