SHE’S 64 YEARS-OLD MARK! TAKE IT EASY!
Lise Legault: life-long biker, the latest victim of Mark Sutcliffe’s war on bikes and my mother. She has never owned a car in her life and in her own words, “my bike is my car.” She even biked from Calgary to Sudbury back in the 80’s.
For my sixth birthday, I remember walking outside and being surprised with a tandem bike that my mother had purchased for the both of us. That tandem bike was my family’s minivan; it brought us anywhere we needed to go.
A decade and a half later, my 64-year-old mom owns two bikes: a large trike with a big storage bin in the back and an e-bike. In late August my mom went on a trip to the Walmart at Bayshore, which is a routine activity for her on a Tuesday.
As she was turning off of Carling Avenue onto Bayshore Drive (a street without a proper bike lane) her front wheel got caught in a sinkhole. She flew off her bike and hit her knee, which fractured her tibia.
The only warning about the sinkhole the city left was a spray-painted blue circle. My mother claimed it was “unhelpful” as she didn’t even see it until after the sinkhole had caused her to crash.
She immediately started yelling in frustration on the side of the road. Frustration with the city; frustration with herself because as a biker in Ottawa, she knows that she should’ve been paying more attention. She knows this because the city certainly doesn’t seem to care for her or any other biker’s safety.
Last year, less than a month before the 2022 Ottawa Municipal Election, now Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, was quoted as saying that he’s “not going to declare a war on cars” in reference to prioritizing better bike lanes in the city.
We have fantastic recreational bike lanes in Ottawa, but for somebody like my mother whose bike IS her car, her bike is much more than recreational. We need to prioritize better bike infrastructure for those who use biking as a primary mode of transportation.
Between 2018-2021, over 60 cyclists were either killed or seriously injured. Mayor Sutcliffe may not have taken a hammer to my mom’s knee and gone to town. His lack of action, though, makes him complicit in her injury and any future injury or fatality of any biker in the city.
Bike-friendly infrastructure is something completely possible for a city like Ottawa.We know that because just two hours away we have Montreal, one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world.
I worry every day as my mother’s son that one day, she’ll be at the wrong place at the wrong time and something terrible will happen. But she’ll never get off that bike — nor should she. She’s been biking all her life. Why should she stop now?
Many people like my mom exist and are residents of this city, they deserve to be represented in council too. People have rights — cars do not.
