Nine-year-old cyclist sends BC mayor a message about mobility

Nine-year-old cyclist Maggie had enough of dealing with an unplowed cycle track in wintry Kelowna, British Columbia, so she penned a passionate plea to the city’s mayor, Colin Basran, to step up the town’s mobility game and start clearing snow for cyclists.

According to Landon Bradshaw, the girl’s father, and president of the Kelowna Area Cycling Coalition, who also cycles throughout the year, the cycle track in question is part of the Ethel Active Transportation Corridor, which the city started building in 2015.

“It’s a good north-south route that provides access from downtown to the main high school and the local college campus,” he says. “We’re lucky in that the elementary school that my daughter attends is located on the connecting multi-use path. She uses it daily to get to school — biking, rollerblading, and skateboarding.”

Although the city does plow the track in the winter, it’s not a high priority, which means it should be cleared within 48 hours of a snow event.

“I can’t say this has been consistently followed over the years but they’re not too bad with the process,” Bradshaw says. “In this particular case, the City had just announced Monday that the corridor was closed until further notice and they would not be plowing it until resources allowed.”

Bradshaw’s daughter wrote the letter to the mayor after falling multiple times while trying to ride her bicycle through the snow to school, after which she rode with her father to city hall to deliver her letter to the receptionist who promised to get it to the mayor.

“We hope that we can continue to push the city to see that the only way to gain more winter cyclists is by providing a safe and clear corridor, at the moment it feels like they throw us a bone to keep us quiet while they continue prioritizing motorized vehicles,” he explains. “We’ve been building roads in response to congestion for decades and now it seems that people think that’s the reason that we should build cycling infrastructure but we’ll never have more people making the choice to cycle until they feel safe getting on a bike, whether that perception comes from other traffic or the weather conditions.”

Bradshaw has been involved in cycling advocacy for 12 years. He lives in Kelowna with his budding activist daughter Maggie and his wife Amy.

“Maggie has grown up first being towed by me with my bike as many places as possible, then when she started pedaling just before her fourth birthday that was pretty much the last time she was satisfied being towed,” Bradshaw says. “Maggie has been riding her bike to school in all seasons since kindergarten, even being used for the cover of the city’s winter activity program a couple of years ago when they snapped a picture of the two of us riding the same route while it was actively snowing. She gets an interesting mix of transportation modes being pulled between me, the guy who wants to prove that anything is possible by bike, and my wife, who enjoys a good ride and does commute in good weather but sees driving as a practical mode for many things.”

Of course, Bradshaw is a proud father but understands the value of Maggie figuring things out for herself.

“Personally, I’m happy that Maggie took this on,” he adds. “Though I don’t want her to take on my values without being able to understand where they come from and decide that those are something she values herself.”

It sounds like she’s well on her way.

We at Momentum are happy to learn of Maggie’s advocacy and we will keep in touch with the Bradshaws and the city to see if anything comes of it.

Way to go Maggie!