Ride with Candidates: Richie Nanan – Kitchener Ward 7

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 Joseph Brannan on their walk with municipal candidate for Kitchener Ward 7, Richie Nanan.

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.

Starting at Lynnvalley park, where the Henry Sturm Trail passes through and connects to the Westforest neighbourhood, we began with a discussion about how wards like Ward 7 need secure and easily findable bike parking, on par with the ease of finding good bike lockup locations in Downtown Kitchener, or Belmont Village. We chatted about how disability shouldn’t limit folks’ access to mobility throughout the city, and how a lack of consistent snow clearing impacts everyone, no matter how they’re travelling.

We talked about how infrastructure needs to support folks on all sorts of micromobility devices, with Richie noting that he’d rather see safe routes and sidewalks prioritized to be put in where none exist, before existing ones are upgraded, to ensure that there aren’t stretches of roads where people have to walk on unpaved shoulders, or where bike lanes suddenly end. He noted pedestrian deaths on Regional roads as a prime example of this need.

Richie has lots to say about wanting to see holistic development of infrastructure, with cooperation between the Region and the City of Kitchener, rather than a patchwork of projects. He pointed out the major Regional arterials that border and go through Ward 7, and how the City roads that connect to these are influenced by design decisions made by the Region. However, we also talked about the major city streets in the ward, and the need for traffic calming and redesigns, especially on Queen’s Boulevard, Westheights Drive, and Westforest and Eastforest Trail. Richie mentioned how grant money allocated by the City to each ward can go to traffic calming measures, but that limitations with the lack of a neighbourhood association in the ward has limited direction of that funding over the past few years. 

Thanks for the conversation Richie!