A local cycling advocacy group is asking candidates for Ottawa City Council to endorse a list of practical projects to make Ottawa more cycling-friendly.

Citizens for Safe Cycling (CfSC), which has promoted cycling and cycling safety in Ottawa since 1984, began querying candidates for their cycling views on the weekend of September 11-12.

"The candidates all have platforms: we figured that cyclists needed a platform, too," said CfSC secretary Alayne McGregor. "Cycling has been an important part of Ottawa for decades, so it seemed logical to ensure it was part of the election discussion."

The platform covers nine different areas, ranging from new cycling-pedestrian bridges, to more reliable Rack&Roll service, to working with schools to teach children cycling skills, to getting the city to measure its cycling progress against other cities. Almost all could be done in the next term of City Council.

It also includes fixing Ottawa's Top Ten cycling problem locations. CfSC released the list of those locations in early September.

"If you look at cities that have a lot of cyclists, it's not just bike lanes. There are many areas in which city government needs to make a difference. We wanted to let candidates know all the different ways in which they could make this a better cycling city," McGregor said.

One problem that has been recently introduced is the removal of parking meters. Those meters have provided many of the most secure and convenient locations for bike parking in the downtown core, but now they are being replaced by Pay and Display parking. CfSC is concerned that the 14% being retained is not nearly enough, and is calling for at least half of the meters to be converted to bike parking (using metal rings attached to the post as is done in Toronto).

 CfSC President Hans Moor said that CfSC would not be endorsing any candidates in the election. However, it does urge Ottawa cyclists to ask candidates how they would solve cycling problems in their ward as well as whether they support CfSC's platform.

 The full text of the platform is here.

 The candidate responses to CfSC's list are being posted as they are received at http://safecycling.ca/elect2010