The Peterborough Bicycle Advisory Committee conducted a survey of local people interested in cycling to find out how safe and welcome they feel cycling in Peterborough. The Committee works to make the city and county more bike friendly, so they wanted to see where we are at, what is working well, and where we need to improve the most. The on-line survey was conducted in the fall of 2017 and there were 560 responses.

Key findings are:

• Although almost everyone who completed the survey is a regular or somewhat regular cyclist, 59% of respondents perceive that bicycling is not safe for all people in this city (including children and seniors).

• 44% of respondents worry about their personal safety while cycling (harassment, assault, etc.).

• On busy roads, 89% of respondents prefer to have dedicated space for cyclists, such as bike lanes. 7% prefer to ride on the sidewalk and 4% prefer sharing the space with vehicles.

• 26% of respondents report cycling year round.

• 79% of respondents worry about being hit by a motor vehicle when cycling.

• 94% of respondents are aware of the new Ontario law requiring that 1 metre of space be provided when passing a cyclist.

Of the open-ended responses, the need for on-road protected and connected cycling infrastructure was the most prominent comment. When asked, where would you like to see new infrastructure, the top 4 location based answers were:

1. Downtown

2. Charlotte Street

3. Lansdowne Street

4. East-west routes.

Interestingly, many people said complete streets or protected bike lanes as their answer to the question about where they would most like to see new infrastructure, which seems to indicate a desire for an overall connected bicycle network that feels safe. The two-way protected bike lane on Brealey Drive near Fleming College, shown in the image below, was constructed three years ago and is an example of bicycle friendly infrastructure on a busy street.

This is an example of what protected cycling infrastructure looks like in a downtown.