A lot has been happening around Hamilton and GTA since my last posting as bike month has wrapped up. Focusing on Hamilton, there was Bike to Work day (which experienced a record turn out), Clean Air Commute Week (http://www.cleanaircommute.ca/) including the Transportation and Healthy Living Fair displaying numerous vendors promoting sustainability in the City, the Steel City Bike Festival (http://steelcitybikefest.tumblr.com/) run by New Hope Bike Co-op (http://www.newhopebikecoop.ca/), Bike for Mike (http://www.bikeformike.org/) this 2nd annual event was highly successful and I expect it to grow steadily in each year, and of course the Open Streets Hamilton event (http://openstreetshamilton.ca/)  that was held last Sunday with great success as well. Although it is worth mentioning that Open Streets Hamilton is much more then an event, it is movement that is expressed through an organized event, but the group stands for much more.

All of the above and those not mentioned (not on purpose) are great examples of the energy in Hamilton and the interest and support for sustainable transportation and dedication to creating a bike culture. To help create this bike culture we cannot forget to educate ourselves and our children cycling skills, safety and etiquette check out some of the City of Hamilton initiatives (http://www.hamilton.ca/CityDepartments/PublicWorks/CommunityServicesRelatedPoliciesAndGuidelines/Cycling/cyclingeducation two

In light of all of the great things happening in this City, I thought to myself how can I help? Blogging is nice, Twitter and Facebook are all fine but that only impacts a few. So rather than initiate something new, I’m looking into perhaps creating some iBikeHamilton merchandise, whereby all the profits can be donated back to the community, specifically Bike for Mike and Open Streets.

Regardless of the dollar amount raised, the thought is there. Details on items will be available soon so everyone in the City can one day say I Bike Hamilton.

As their website states, the goal of BikeScore is to provide an easy way to evaluate bikeability at a specific location similar to Walk Score and Transit Score. However, Bike Score uses measures based on four equally weighted components identified below and provides a scale of bikeability from 0-100:

• Bike lanes
• Hills
• Destinations and road connectivity
• Bike commuting mode share

As I don’t dispute the use of these four components, I do feel that an injustice may be had for Hamilton when our community is assessed especially in terms of the “hilliness”.  Although on-road infrastructure is very limited along the Mountain Accesses, we do benefit greatly from having bike-friendly stairs and a trail systems that traverses the City. In fact, I think Hamilton is fairly bikeable considering what many may think is a huge barrier to the bicycle in the City. Time will tell, but for like minded people out there I caution any rash criticisims when referring to these metrics. They do give indicators and like any thing else new to the scene, there are opportunities to improve.

The Bike Score methodology is based on thousands of votes on hundreds of ideas from the Walk Score community. Below is the range of scores relating to bikeability according to BikeScore.

For more information of their methodology check out the link below.

http://www.walkscore.com/bike-score-methodology.shtml

Join other Hamiltonians in the “Bike-In” on Monday, May 28, 2012

This year event in Hamilton includes:

• A central Welcome Reception in Gore Park for riders in the downtown area;
• “Bike-In’s” from across the city to Gore Park, led be experienced local riders;
• A number of great prizes and giveaways for participants, including a regional grand prize!

Registration (which will open shortly) for the event is led by the always progressive work of SmartCommute Hamilton.

http://www.smartcommutehamilton.ca/en/home