A bike with kid carrying capabilities in Kanata is, in my opinion, not a one less minivan. I see a lot of trailers and third wheels, even tandem third wheels are not unusual, on Kanata roads and paths. If you walk down any residential street on a weekend, you will see open garages with fleets of bicycles inside. Around elementary and high school bike racks are always filled during school hours. It is a common sight for elementary school kids to bike (usually on sidewalks) unaccompanied by adults.

On the other hand, I have never seen a cargo bike in Kanata. I have only seen one cargo bike in Ottawa that was obviously intended for child transport. I saw it on Bank street next to Lansdowne. As a Kanata family that tries to bike as much as possible, I choose to run most of my errands by car. While it is not impossible for a Kanata family (parents with children) to cut down to one car and a fleet of bicycles, including utilitarian bicycles such as cargo bikes, I have this preconception that it would take significant sacrifices in terms of convenience and comfort. I wonder if anyone has done it and what their experience was. Frankly, I could not stand living in Kanata without my own dedicated car even before we had children, though many of my dinky friends seem to do well with sharing a single car between a couple.

Note, in this post I refer to cargo bikes as bikes with a box to carry children and groceries in. I have actually seen about half a dozen of the other kind of child cargo bike (the bike with extended back rack) this weekend on the night ride. Most of the ones I have noticed seemed to be sold at Tall Tree Cycles (though Kunstadt employee assured me that they sell Xtracycle parts). These include Kona Ute and Surly Big Dummy as well as regular bikes with Xtracycle attachment. I’ve spoken to the lady riding the Kona Ute and she was very happy with it. She lives in Ottawa neighbourhood closeish to downtown and carries a 5 and a 7 year old on the back. I did not ask her if having a child carrying bike allows her to get rid of the second family car though her neighbourhood, being somewhat older, is probably a lot less car centric than Kanata.

On re-reading this post I noticed that I have completely dismissed trailers and third wheels as utilitarian child transport, even though they are adequate for the task. In fact, the other kid in Trev’s daycare that gets biked to school arrives by trailer and, more recently, by a tandem third wheel. However, same as Trevor, he is mostly dropped off by car. We own and use a trailer, and it is not unlikely that we will get a third wheel at some point. These are fantastic products but are optimal for long distance and recreational riding. Trailers are really difficult to back up, a hassle to lock to a bike rack and require fair amount of athletic riding to pull. Any time I biked to work with the trailer I needed a shower. In my experience a trailer is not a good solution for utilitarian trips under 10km.

Edit: Yes, I know of a number of Kanata families, including families with up to three children, that only have one car. However, I do not know any family that handles the lack of second car by the whole, or most, of the family cycling.

Over the decade I have been living in Kanata, I have biked to work at least several times each summer. In fact, biking to work is the single most “successful” aspect of my utilitarian Kanata biking, possibly the only consistent utilitarian biking. I have biked on three different bicycles, from three different homes (two in Beaverbrook, one in Morgan’s Grant) to two different work locations (the main building and the factory) over four significantly different paths. I have also biked to Carleton from Beaverbrook for two seasons. Here are some thoughts:

Weather:
I am a fair weather cyclist. I don’t bike if it is too hot or too cold.

Routes:
The fastest routes tend to be the ones with most car traffic and most lacking in helpful bicycle infrastructure. Existence of a bike lane on the road does not make a route appropriate for all cyclists. When I started cycling in Kanata and now that I carry children on the bike, I do not go on the March road for more than one block. I will bike on March road when I am alone, but the disappearing bike lanes at intersections, “bike pockets” and trucks zipping past at 80km/h creep me out. March road is definitely not a family route.

Alternative to the March road is a multi use path (MUP) through the forest. It is longer and slower but much more pleasant. There are a good number of commuters on the path which makes it even more pleasant. However, the path is currently closed as a part of the forest is being cut down to build houses. The city or the builder very kindly did not make alternate arrangements for people to get through. Apparently a good number of commuters still use this path despite fence and no trespassing signs. If I am going to trespass, I’d rather do it on flat and paved so I am currently using a section of private road parallel to March road to get to work.

Showers:
Showers take time and require extra luggage (towel, shampoo, flip-flops, hairbrush) on the bike. When I was booting it to Carleton (20+ km), taking a nice refreshing shower was great. As no one was paying me for my time, it was not an issue, however, taking shower at work, particularly after only 8km biked, was a hassle and a waste of time. Ideally, if I am biking less than 10km, which is the case with my work, I would prefer to be able to bike leisurely without requiring any clothes change whatsoever, not even shoes if I can help it.

The future:
I see myself continuing to bike to work on most summer days, given the weather is not too crazy. This will be more likely once all the kids are in school/daycare in Beaverbrook three years from now. I will also have to do something about the speed of my commuter bike in order to keep my leisurely trip within 10 minutes or less it would take me with the car. I can’t justify more than 20 minutes per day of extra commuting time.

The infrastructure:
March road is fine for aggressive and experienced cyclists. I would feel more comfortable if the bike lane did not disappear when you needed it most, but I am not holding my breath for this to change. I would like to see a MUP parallel to the road, there is plenty of space on the south side of the street. I don’t know when the forest path will be open again and in what shape it will be, given the housing development, but in the absence of a MUP next to the March road, it is not a bad alternative.

I managed to bike to work three times this spring. Considering the torrential downpours, humidex warnings, tendency to get up too late and the week of stomach flu, this is pretty good.

It takes me about 45 min to drop the kids off and get to work. This is about 15 to 20 minutes longer than if I was driving, so I don’t see myself biking every day. I can’t spare 40 minutes daily, though three out of the five days would be a really nice average.

I attended a meeting about sustainable suburbs and making Kanata more wakeable/bikeable. It is a concept very dear to my heart, but there is a lot about the subject that I don’t really understand, even when it comes to my own habits. I think I will examine my transport choices to see what causes me to walk, bike or take the car.