Jeremy Klaszus

Alderman Brian Pincott rides his bike to city hall year round. ‘It’s just about dressing appropriately,’ he says

The morning of Monday, January 21, was bitterly cold: -28 C with wind chill. Most Calgarians scraped their windshields and drove to work with heaters blasting that morning; Statistics Canada numbers released the following day would reveal 75 per cent of Calgarians travel around the city exclusively by car. However, in Killarney, Brian Pincott threw on an outer layer of MEC gear and hopped onto his white Rocky Mountain Cardiac bicycle to brave the snowy streets on two wheels.

The 46-year-old alderman’s mission for the day was clear as the winter air: to make Calgary’s streets a better and safer place for his fellow cyclists. Later that morning, he introduced a motion at a city council meeting to bump bike lanes up the city’s snow removal priority list. The motion passed unanimously, evoking cheers from cyclists city-wide. Bike lanes will now be cleared within two days of a snowfall, instead of being left until much later. “It’s a great decision,” says Stewart Midwinter, a year-round cyclist and software engineer who runs the website www.bikecalgary.org. “It’s really going to be appreciated by people who do ride.”

The day Pincott’s motion passed, I accompanied him on his commute home. I wanted to see the Ward 11 alderman in action. He warned me beforehand that he’s an “aggressive cyclist.” That’s good — you have to be an aggressive cyclist if you’re going to survive on city streets. “I’m going to do something most people don’t do,” he says after we retrieve his bike from the parkade under city hall. “Are you ready to follow?” The question is slightly unnerving. “Of course,” I reply. As we set out, I imagine Pincott gratuitously cycling across the slick ice on Olympic Plaza merely to test your humble correspondent’s skill on a bike.

Thankfully, he simply heads north directly down the centre of Macleod Trail, right on the dotted line. This is how I like to ride when traffic is gridlocked, but I always feel like I could get in trouble for it. This time, however, I’m trailing an elected official, which makes me feel better about whipping past cars with only inches of clearance. “This is where I feel the safest,” Pincott says. It makes sense — the dirty snow on the side of the road can be treacherous.

After we turn onto the bike path on the south side of the Bow River and head west, we talk about council’s decision. I point out that most cyclists rarely use the bike lanes. In fact, there are only two dedicated bike lanes in the entire city, and of Calgary’s 7,000-some kilometres of roads, only 12 kilometres have bike lanes or marked wide-curb lanes for cyclists. “That’s great they’re going to clear them, but I’d like to see more of them,” says Mike Warren, another year-round cyclist who works as a programmer. “I know a lot of people would ride more if there was better infrastructure.”

Even Pincott doesn’t use the marked bike routes regularly. However, he says clearing the snow is an important start. “These little things make a difference,” he says. “When we start clearing the bike lanes sooner, more people will see them and consider riding.” The city is currently adding four more marked bike routes on streets like 26th Avenue S.W. and Second Street N.W., and will continue to add new ones in coming years. These new routes will also have high priority for snow removal.

As we continue west on the path past 14th Street, Pincott tells me how much he enjoys the commute along the river, especially when it’s snowing. “I love riding here, because it helps me see the city from a different perspective,” he says. “I don’t get to see any of this when I drive.” Clearly, this won’t be the last time Pincott pushes for bike-friendly changes to city streets. “We need to make [cycling] an easy and effective choice for everybody, 12 months of the year,” he says.