Ride with Candidates: Bryan Causarano-Bolton, Regional Council – Cambridge

For the 2026 municipal elections, CycleWR volunteers have been taking municipal electoral candidates on bike rides to show off the best and worst of the cycling infrastructure in their ward/city/region.

Below is a summary written by CycleWR board member Tom Strickland on their ride with municipal candidate for Cambridge Regional Councillor, Bryan Causarano-Bolton.

Disclaimer: CycleWR is a non-partisan organization that does not endorse a party or candidate. Summaries are written by volunteers or candidates and may not reflect the mandate or views of CycleWR. For more information, contact us at hello@cyclewr.ca.

Bryan Causarano-Bolton is running for a seat on Regional Council for Cambridge. He is a small business owner and the co-founder of Grand River Pride, who has lived in the Region since 2015. He and his husband have lived in the Queen’s Square area of Cambridge since they married in 2021.

Bryan is not a cyclist, but believes that better cycling and pedestrian safety is important for the Region and Cambridge especially. When we met, he noted that when he first looked at the map of Cambridge cycling routes he could see the safe cycling routes are much less connected than the ones that exist in Kitchener and Waterloo. His platform calls for mixed income housing communities, and he understands that safe cycling and walking routes are very important to support that initiative.  He is a strong supporter of bringing the LRT to Cambridge.

We met at the Croftland Café at Queen’s Square and walked a circle route up Grand Avenue, across the Park Hill bridge, then south on Water Street to Concession Street, across the Cedar/Concession bridge to Grand Avenue and back to Queen’s Square. It was a short route, but with plenty of cycling issues to talk about. In our walk, we came within sight of 10 of the top 20 priority future cycling route segments in the City of Cambridge, based on CycleWR’s Cycling Route Effectiveness Model (CREM).

The biggest overall issue in the Downtown area is developing a safe cycling route to access the Downtown, but also to go from the south end (Ainslie Street and Water Street intersection) through the Downtown and on to Preston and Hespeler Road, as well as towards the Northview Heights/Cambridge Centre area. Bryan agreed this would be a big improvement in the overall connectivity in Cambridge. It will also reduce traffic congestion. As Cambridge continues to grow, rush hour traffic in this area is only going to get worse. Neither Water nor Ainslie street can be widened to four lanes – but adding a safe cycling route will encourage more people to cycle rather than drive. Unfortunately, adding a cycling facility requires removing on-street parking, and there is major opposition to that, which was demonstrated in the second public meeting to discuss the Region’s proposed Ainslie Street cycling facility in 2024.

The City and Region agreed that the City would lead a review of cycling and other transportation mode needs in the Downtown area. That was a good idea, but the project has been slow to start. It is scheduled to start this fall, and be completed in 2027. 

We walked north on Grand Avenue to Blair Road, where the painted bike lanes end today. The painted bike lanes  do continue north of Blair – but only on George Street, one street west of Grand. Continuing on Grand to Park Hill demonstrates the reason for that odd jog to the west. Westbound cyclists  on Park Hill cannot safely cross four lanes of busy traffic to turn left onto Grand Avenue, as there is no stoplight. The only safe option today is for that cyclist to carry on west to the stoplight at George, south on George, and east on Blair back to Grand Avenue.

The Region has plans for roadwork on Park Hill from Ainslie to George in the 2031-35 budget period. CycleWR has suggested changing the Park Hill route to a bidirectional separated cycling facility on the south side of Park Hill, so westbound cyclists can turn easily onto Grand Avenue, with no need to jog west or wait for stoplight signals. Regional staff have suggested a narrow bidirectional cycle track on the Park Hill Bridge could be part of that plan.

On Water Street we talked a bit about the perceived parking issues in the 4 central blocks from Warnock Street to Colborne Street. CycleWR spent three days looking at the parking situation in the Ainslie Street area when the cycling facility was proposed two years ago. The conclusions for parking on weekdays:

·  The two most central parking lots (Farmer’s Market and Dickson Street lots) were full or almost full most of the time.

·  Most of the other lots always had spots available (some quite a few spots). If there was no parking allowed on Ainslie, you could still reliably find a parking spot within 150 metres of your destination, except for the Main to Dickson block (175 metres)

·  We did a three hour study of the travel mode for customers of one of the biggest retail stores in the central blocks of Ainslie. 77% of their customers walked to the store from more than 100 meters away (possibly much further – 100 metres was our viewing limit). As many other studies of this type have shown, shop owners typically overestimate their customers’ need for close parking spots and underestimate the potential for new customers via safe cycling routes.

We walked down Water Street past Main Street and agreed that the Region’s shorter alternative cycling route on Ainslie Street (just from Water Street in the south to the GRT bus terminal, with a short new MUT connection to the south end of Wellington Street) would be much less controversial. It would lose only a handful of parking spots, and would create a much safer connection from the south to the bus terminal and the Northview Heights area via Ainslie,  Wellington, the Mill Creek Trail, the Beverly Street Multi-Use Path and the Elgin Street Multi-Use Path (under construction in 2026-27).

We carried on to Concession Street, and looked east up the hill past Ainslie Street to a section of Concession Street that the CREM says is the number one priority for a new cycling facility in Cambridge. Today, the four lanes are clearly excessive – the traffic level only justifies two lanes. Removing at least one lane is required in order to add a separated cycling facility – but that is forbidden by the Province’s Bill 60 legislation. Hopefully some day we will again have a provincial government that trusts municipalities to handle their local affairs. In the meantime, CycleWR has proposed two signed wayfinding routes on residential streets to bypass this stretch of Concession Street – one south and one north of Concession.

We then turned to cross the Cedar/Concession Bridge, perhaps the scariest segment of our walk. For many trips, this is the only viable place to cross the river. Craig’s Crossing is a safe crossing, but has no curb cutouts to the street at either end and empties onto Water Street, which is a busy street with no cycling facility.  

Brian commented on how narrow even the existing painted bike lanes on the Cedar/Concession Bridge were, especially for a major truck route. Snow clearance is also a problem, as the only place for sidewalk snow to go is onto the bike lanes. Typically, the road and bike lanes are cleared reasonably well, and then the sidewalk plowing dumps snow on the bike lanes again – which then stays until it melts. Probably the best option for cycling would be to take out the painted bike lanes and expand one of the sidewalks into a wide Multi-Use Path.

Then we turned north on Grand Avenue. The Gaslight District and the Hamilton Theater are two major potential cycling destinations in this area. The City is planning fully separated cycle tracks from St. Andrews Street to Blair Road. As discussed above, we hope they extend that project all the way to Park Hill. From Cedar to St Andrews, Grand Avenue  is  a Regional Road. The Region is planning roadwork here in 2028. Aside from the 60 metres just north of Cedar (where a left turn lane is required), the current painted bike lanes could be expanded to fully separated cycle tracks to match the City’s plans north of St. Andrews.

Grand Avenue brought us back to the Queen’s Square area. It was a lovely urban walk. With supportive councils at the Regional and City level, it could become a very nice area for cycling as well. 

Here is a route map of our walk.