Brought to you in collaboration with the Ecology Action Centre and Halifax Cycling Coalition, SpokesPeople covers all things cycle-related. From the principles to the potholes, we're here to examine the realities facing the two-wheeled traveler. HALIFAX - The suspiciously placid early onset of spring has sent Haligonians outdoors in droves, as residents ditch the snow shovels of Marches past in favour of bicycles and rollerblades. In the city’s South End, this means an opportunity to test out the first leg of the long-awaited Halifax Urban Greenway (HUG), a multi-modal path for active transportation types of all stripes. The HUG is a work-in-progress, with long-term plans calling for the greenway to extend north to the Armdale Rotary, and south to Point Pleasant Park. The opening of this first trail section — running alongside Beaufort Avenue from Marlborough Woods north to South Street — is nonetheless cause for celebration, as it comes after nearly a decade of campaigning and planning. But just as surely as winter will rear its head again before finally calling it quits for this season, cyclists’ celebrations along the HUG are more likely to be muted, or at least “stop-start” in nature. In another victory for liability over practicality, the recent installation of signage on the HUG shocked cyclists with a sweeping assertion: “Cyclists are required to dismount at all intersections.” If you don’t get the point, the off-putting image of a cyclist inside a red circle with a strike-through should drive it home.

Brought to you in collaboration with the Ecology Action Centre and Halifax Cycling Coalition, SpokesPeople covers all things cycle-related. From the principles to the potholes, we're here to examine the realities facing the two-wheeled traveler. The Halifax Cycling Coalition (HCC) has its sights set on an ambitious goal for 2010: the establishment of the CrossTown Connector (CTC) bike route, connecting the many tentacles of cycle-unfriendly Windsor Exchange in the north to Point Pleasant Park in the south. Wasting no time, the HCC is making tracks through Halifax's snow-covered streets to gather signatures for a petition in support of the CTC, with the hope of converting signatures into bike lanes before Santa begins his next round of chimney-hopping. The CTC proposal is stuffed with laudable elements. Connecting existing bike lane segments on Windsor and South Park by way of Almon, Agricola, North Park and Ahern, the CTC forms an impressive trans-peninsular trunk from which can grow the limbs of a broader, more complete bike route network in the years ahead. And how sweetly flat it is. On a peninsula with an imposing humpback ridge, the CTC neatly skirts the steep grades that many Haligonians cite as an impediment to hopping on a bike in the first place.

Brought to you in collaboration with the Ecology Action Centre and Halifax Cycling Coalition, SpokesPeople covers all things cycle-related. From the principles to the potholes, we're here to examine the realities facing the two-wheeled traveler. HALIFAX - With debate still simmering after last week's North Commons revitalization presentation, Spacing Atlantic is pleased to kick off SpokesPeople with a look at the place of cyclists in the Halifax Common. An undisputed geographical crossroads in peninsular Halifax, the North Common is a figurative crossroads in countless other ways, too. Each day, thousands of pedestrians and cyclists criss-cross the Common’s various axes – and each other. Many are “straight-line” users, commuting to and from school and work via the shortest possible path between two of the Common’s numerous corners. For others, the Common itself is the destination: a place for a relaxed stroll on a sunny afternoon, or a venue for youngsters to test the waters of life without training wheels, free of the worry of motorized vehicles bearing down on them. Add in concertgoers, picnickers and sports enthusiasts, and you’ve got a multi-use space that is brimming with Haligonians and visitors alike. Where else could a commuting high schooler, a left fielder, and a rabid rock fan make the same footprint within hours of each other?