Our August newsletter email just went out. You can view it online.
It mostly contains updates on the new Gordie Howe International Bridge pathway.
Tag: Gordie Howe International Bridge
Categories
Windsor e-bike Restrictions
Thanks to Share the Road Essex County, we recently learned that e-bikes are not allowed on pathways in Windsor, Ontario. While they are allowed on the road and in bike lanes (as in Michigan), city bylaws prohibit them from paved paths and park trails.
This could affect e-bike use on the Gordie Howe International Bridge’s multi-use pathway — or at least on the pathways connecting to the bridge plaza.
Interestingly enough, e-scooters are not restricted from paths, whereas e-cargo bikes are not allowed on any road, bike lane, or path.
We reached out to City of Windsor officials and shared our concerns about how this differs from the rules on our side of the border. We passed along resources on our regulations, recommendations (e.g. MTGA e-bike Toolkit) and experiences with these devices on our trails.
They have been having some discussions about potential changes at both the municipal and provincial levels.
The City may take the following short-term actions…
Traffic By-law Updates: To address emerging safety and regulatory challenges posed by micromobility devices, the City could consider targeted by-law updates to ensure it accurately reflects which micromobility devices are permitted and prohibited, including specific provisions for regulating e-bikes on multi-use paths, where they are currently prohibited.
It’s good to see Windsor considering the positive impacts of these powered devices.
Increasing the safe and lawful use of micromobility modes of transportation, such as ebikes and e-scooters can help the city reduce its community greenhouse gas emissions by replacing short car trips with low carbon alternatives.
We will track this and report back on their updates. There are undoubtably a good number of Detroit e-bike users wanting to explore the pathways in Windsor, including the one on the bridge.
Categories
Our Map Goes International
- We’re working to make it easier riding in Ontario.
- The updated online map shows bike and trail infrastructure in Windsor and Essex County.
- Some Metro Detroit trails have been added with more to come pending SEMCOG open data updates.
The multi-use pathway on the Gordie Howe International Bridge changes everything. This new border crossing means bike rides are no longer constrained to one side of the river.
In partnership with Bike Windsor Essex, we’re working to make this easier thanks to Gordie Howe International Bridge’s Community Benefits Plan funding. One of the deliverables is making our existing online bike and trail map international. That work is largely complete.
We didn’t want to manually add Southwest Ontario bike and trail infrastructure like we had in Detroit. Fortunately both the city of Windsor and Essex County have this information available through open data portals. We now pull that information each night to ensure our map is up to date.
We’ve also added some Metro Detroit trails outside of the city, e.g. Hines Drive and Downriver Linked Greenways. While SEMCOG has this data in their open data portal, it’s not designed for this use. The good news is SEMCOG is working to improve this, which should allow us to add more Metro Detroit trails in the future.
Another new feature? We now show ferry routes.
While the map only shows existing infrastructure, we had people ask about major projects that are under construction. So, the current routes for the Joe Louis Greenway, Iron Belle Trail, Windsor Loop, and Waterfront Trail can now be highlighted using their respective menu options.
More to come
There is one more item to add: Bird Canada’s bike and scooter rentals in Windsor. They don’t use docks like MoGo, so we do need to update our software. We are looking to make updates that would allow us to show Detroit’s dockless scooter, too.
Lastely, we are creating bike frame stickers with a QR code to the map. We envision bicyclists sticking this on their bike frame to make bringing the map up on their phone a little easier. We hope to have those stickers soon.
When we started this work over 18 years ago, the pace of improvements for biking, walking and rolling was no where near as impressive as it is today. Where we used to have to scrape for news to share, we now have too much to report — and this is a good thing. So, if we were to put together a 2025 double-record greatest hits album, below are the tracks!
Categories
Detroit Bike City
This video about Detroit — our history and bike infrastructrure — is really one of the best and we’re not saying that just because we’re in it. Nic Laporte created a well-balanced overview of where we’ve been and where we’re heading.
The video also has us talking about the history of stop streets and stop signs, which is something we plan to write more about. We believe this is an important perspective, especially when it comes to bicycling and Idaho stop laws.
