{"id":186863,"date":"2023-10-14T00:53:24","date_gmt":"2023-10-14T04:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=186863"},"modified":"2023-10-16T12:44:55","modified_gmt":"2023-10-16T16:44:55","slug":"nanaimo-gobybike-week-starts-on-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/nanaimo-gobybike-week-starts-on-sunday\/","title":{"rendered":"Nanaimo GoByBike Week starts on Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oct. 16-29 is fall GoByBike week in communities across British Columbia where people are encouraged to cycle as much as possible to improve their mental and physical health and help the environment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Nanaimo, the kick off event is planned for Sunday, Oct. 15 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Maffeo Sutton Park. There will also be \u201ccelebration stations\u201d at different locations across the city throughout fall GoByBike, wraps up with the Bicycle Film Festival on November 9th in Vancouver Island University\u2019s Malaspina Theatre.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jamie Rose, manager of transportation at City of Nanaimo, says that GoByBike has expanded from its original scope of biking to work.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGo by Bike Week is a provincewide campaign to encourage people to travel to their daily needs by bike,\u201d he said. \u201cWhether it's to work, to school, to the grocery store, or coffee shops, or if they're going to movies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rose said that he wants to help remind people about how fun biking was as a kid.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBiking can be a fun and healthy way to get around and I think it's what most of us did growing up,\u201d he said. \u201cWe didn't just do it because we had to, we did it because it was fun.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Nanaimo Mayor Lenoard Krog says that while he supports GoByBike week, commuting by bike just isn\u2019t feasible for him personally.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI'm not going to be cute about this. The reality is, I'm 70 years old, I have a three speed bicycle that I ride very, very, very rarely,\u201d he said, noting that he is often going to different locations in the community during his workday. Krog says that he encourages everyone in the city with a consistent workplace who is physically able to bike more.<\/span><\/p>\n

One thing Krog says the city is working on is reducing barriers to cycling in the city.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the barriers that I see and I have raised this and I know that staff are looking at it, is the lack of safe storage at the end of the route,\u201d he said. \u201cIn other words, if you're cycling to work downtown, is there a safe, secure place where you can store your bike without it being stolen?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rose says that one thing the city has done is help set up bike valets for special events in the downtown area.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt can give some peace of mind knowing that you've got a safe and secure place to leave your bike while you attend and attend an event,\u201d he said. \u201cThe night market also had that all summer long and the reports we've gotten back from that are that it was quite well utilized.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rose says the city is also working with the school district to encourage kids to continue to ride their bikes to school and not become dependent on cars.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Krog says city staff are working on implementing the active transportation plan, but people need to be patient, \u201cthese things take time to implement. As they say, Rome wasn't built in a day.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Krog says that part of the challenge in building cycling infrastructure is decades of city sprawl.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople say why can't we be like Amsterdam? Well, we're spread over 91.3 square kilometers,\u201d he said. \u201cAmsterdam I think is 209 square kilometers. They have 975,000 people. It's a lot easier to build and maintain that infrastructure [there], where we are catching up.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Krog says that the city is working to increase participation in GoByBike with cycling welcome stations that will pop up throughout the city during the event as well as contests people can enter by tracking the number of kilometres they cycle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHeck, we're even going to give a prize of a brand new ebike from Pedego electric bike,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For more information on GoByBike week in Nanaimo go to <\/span>https:\/\/www.gobybikebc.ca\/nanaimo<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Listen to CHLY's report below:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oct. 16-29 is fall GoByBike week in communities across British Columbia where people are encouraged to cycle as much as possible to improve their mental and physical health and help the environment.\u00a0\u00a0 In Nanaimo, the kick off event is planned for Sunday, Oct. 15 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Maffeo Sutton Park. There…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":186867,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[222,2602],"tags":[28554,7657,31445,7389,1098],"radio":[240],"origine":[280,265,231],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186863"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186863"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187003,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186863\/revisions\/187003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186863"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=186863"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=186863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}