By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON March 3, 2011 – That business of bicycle races in the downtown core on Canada Day seems to have the bureaucrats a little on the antsy side – they’ve decided to hold a public meeting for community input. Attribute this to either some nervousness on what the natives are saying or an example of better and more open communication between tax payer and tax collector.
This event, several days of competitive cycling in Burlington over two weekends has been hitting speed bump after speed bump – not a pleasant experience if you’re sitting on a skinny bicycle seat, if you know what I mean. The group organizing the event Mid Week Cycling Club has run into a number of difficulties and have had some problems convincing city hall staff that they can actually pull this off.
The problems started from the get-go when the proposal came to a Council meeting and got approved by one of those 4-3 votes. The Mayor at the time, Cam Jackson, voted against the idea, not because he didn’t like it, but because there was no solid Bid Book that the city could work from. Peter Thoem, then Ward 2 Council member and Rick Craven of Ward 1 liked the idea and the motion was passed on a recorded vote.
It hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for the sponsors but they keep at it. They held an open night at the Waterfront Hotel for the public to drop by, see the race courses for this multi day event but very few people showed up. There were a couple of those – “we don’t want anything different people” but the turn out was less than a dozen folks. So the people who write cheques made out to the city, tax payers, weren’t up in arms over the event – which does have the potential to put Burlington on the cycling map and could become an annual event.
One of the people on hand that Friday evening at the Waterfront Hotel was Brian Deane, General Manager of the Burlington Downtown Business Association (BDBA) who was delighted with the idea and the opportunity it created for his members, “particularly those whose are in the hospitality business”. Dean felt it was going to be difficult to get a seat at any one of the Brant Street locations that had side walk café type seating. Watching the race as the cyclists roared by in small packs can be very exciting – Burlington hasn’t seen anything like this before.
There is some potential conflict with the Canada Day celebrations at the waterfront and the evening fire works but the Midweek Cycling people explain that they hold races during the Toronto CHIN radio event at the Exhibition grounds where thousands of people swarm onto the streets and everything gets managed very well.
The proposal the city is dealing with is for a two year schedule with up to five different races both in the downtown core and up a number of the roads leading out of the city and into Escarpment land. If you’ve driven those roads you can imagine how grueling a “time test trial” would be up Walkers Line. Great sport.
The proposed race routes are set out below.
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