Ride with Candidates: Khaled Berbash – Waterloo Ward 2

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 volunteer Josh Stevenson, on their ride with municipal candidate for Waterloo Ward 2, Khaled Berbash.

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.

I met with Dr. Khaled Berbash, a candidate for Waterloo Ward 2 council, on a beautiful sunny day at the Symposium Cafe at the Erbsville plaza on September 20. 

Khaled is an eminently qualified candidate – per his website, he holds the following degrees:

• BSc. in Architecture & Urban Planning, 
• MSc. in Engineering Management, 
• Master of Public Services with a focus on policy development and analysis (UW), and 
• Ph.D. in Infrastructure & Construction Management (UW) 

After a brief introductory conversation, we decided to bike down Keats Way from the Canadian Tire plaza on Erbsville to University Avenue. We chose this route because Keats Way represents a direct corridor to the University of Waterloo for any students who live in the subdivisions that connect to it. It also connects the major arteries of Erbsville, Fischer-Hallman, and University Avenue, all three of which offer relatively close access to grocery shopping and retail services from their Keats Way intersections. 

We also chose this route because we learned that the city has no plans to improve the infrastructure on this route for the next 10 years, and wanted to see for ourselves how the existing infrastructure felt. Spoiler alert – it did not feel good.

Currently, Keats Way is a decisively car-centric street. Aside from standard sidewalks, its only nod to active transportation is the painted bicycle gutters on either side of the road. 

The pavement in these bicycle gutters was bumpy in some areas, and in others untrimmed tree branches hung low enough that we had to swerve to avoid them. The intersection at Keats Way and Fischer-Hallman is four lanes wide, but has no bicycle signals. Bicycle users must cross four lanes of medium-volume traffic when the light turns green in the hope that no right- or left-turning vehicle user makes the deadly mistake of failing to observe their crossing. 

Although I tried to bike side-by-side with Khaled as much as possible so that we could converse, this often proved to be outright unsafe and required constant vigilance. Even when using the painted bicycle lanes, most cars gave us a wide berth of sometimes more than half a lane – so drivers seemed to agree that the painted lanes did not provide a sufficient buffer between bike and car traffic. It was no surprise then that although we were passed by numerous cars on our Keats Way trip, despite the gorgeous twenty-degree weather we did not see any other bike riders.

After our ride, I sat down with Khaled over glasses of lemonade to compare our experiences, and to find out how he would bring his considerable qualifications to bear on his approach to this corridor (and cycling infrastructure in general) if he were elected to council. 

Khaled observed that on Keats Way west of Erbsville Road, driveways empty directly onto the street, and the painted bicycle lanes result in limited street parking. Residents have complained about fines resulting from parking their cars in the bike lanes. However, the roadway and the boulevards beside the sidewalks were designed too narrowly to create separated lanes. We brainstormed 2 potential solutions that Khaled will take to the City Council if elected. 

The boulevards expand on Keats Way east of Erbsville Road, and Khaled identified that there is sufficient room here for separated bicycle infrastructure. We discussed what form this would take, including installation of paved bike paths immediately beside the regular sidewalks.  

Khaled’s stance on improving active transportation was that he generally supported it, but that it had to be balanced with other municipal priorities. He also emphasized that one of his major goals would be to implement any changes with a view to encouraging stakeholders to keep wealth inside of the Kitchener-Waterloo community. 

If elected, his goal would be to take a data-driven approach and commission studies to provide data-tested solutions to balancing competing priorities in the municipal budget as well as meeting the needs of different road riders. For instance, new bicycle infrastructure on Keats Way would need to be balanced with funding other city services in this area, such as improving public transportation. On his campaign website, although the bus transit is the responsibility of the Region, he states that his goals are to advocate to improve bus schedules and routes of Buses # 13, 29, and 31. He also identified that car-related infrastructure may also require increased funding for ongoing roadway maintenance and earlier snow removal on subdivision streets. He did acknowledge the effect of induced demand, and that if a study were conducted on  Keats Way bike traffic at present, the lack of traffic would be understandably low due to the undesirable state of its infrastructure. 

Overall, my candidate ride with Dr. Khaled Berbash was a positive experience. He was open to experiencing an e-bike for the first time, and was game to go on a lengthy ride with me on undesirable infrastructure. He could easily and understandably have refused to do so, especially as he is not a regular bike user. Our conversation revealed the wealth of knowledge and experience that he brings with his candidacy, and my impression was that he saw active infrastructure as a worthy municipal budget priority.