Hazel gets ready to BIKE ride to work!
Mayor Hazel McCallion has promised to ride her bike to Mississauga’s city hall on Sept. 22 in honour of Car Free Day.
The legendary 87-year-old mayor says she is braving the city streets, with a helmet, to get people thinking about the easy, inexpensive ways they can help the environment, and reduce traffic congestion, like getting on a bike or car pooling. She told the Post’s Natalie Alcoba about her plans:
Q: I heard you are planning to bike from your home to city hall on Car Free Day.
A: Yup I plan to do it, weather being acceptable. I’m certainly not going to go on a rain day, but weather permitting I intend to bike.
Q: So how far of a bike ride is that?
A: It is quite a distance. I can’t take transit, because no transit comes anywhere near my house. I’d have to walk quite a distance to get anywhere near a transit stop. The bike ride will take a while. It takes me 10 to 15 minutes by car, so you can judge that.
Q: You said you have been practising. So do you bike around quite a bit?
A: No I don’t, I don’t have time. But I do grab it when I can.
Q: What kind of bike do you ride?
A: I don’t know, a regular bike.
Q: Why did you decide to do this?
A: I just thought I would try to set an example. I certainly can’t ride a bicycle to work everyday because I need my car to drive around to different appointments, so you can’t use a bicycle. It’s impractical. I just thought that for that day, to emphasize the importance of it, I would ride. And I am going to wear a helmet because I wish I saw more people with helmets on when they’re riding bicycles.
Q: That’s a bylaw in Mississauga, right? Cyclists are supposed to wear helmets?
A: Yeah, but we don’t enforce it.
Q: Are you at all nervous or frightened about going out on the road with all of those cars? I bike in Toronto, and it can get pretty hairy out there.
A: Well, in Toronto I guess it is but I don’t think it’s as bad out here. Maybe on some streets, but I’m not on Hurontario Street, or Dundas Street. I’m on Creditview to Rathburn and Rathburn to city hall.
Q: Mississauga’s had Car Free Day before, so what makes this year special?
A: It started out a number of years ago and it didn’t have that much support, but it sure is building. I think the program that has been set up at city hall is going to emphasize car pooling, biking, walking, you name it. It’s building, I think the citizens are becoming quite interested.
Q: Would you say Mississauga is a bike friendly city? Are there a lot of bike lanes?
A: We have a lot of bike lanes. I don’t know how it compares to other cities, and we’re creating more as time goes on. We have an excellent cycling committee that keeps us on our toes, they work very closely with the transportation staff. They don’t expect all the roads to be converted into bicycle lanes overnight, but they’re prepared to work with us.
Photo of Hazel McCallion riding near her Streetsville home this afternoon by Peter J. Thompson, National Post
GO Hazel!
Louroz
