I haven’t had the opportunity yet to get involved in any advocacy role yet to support cycling in Nova Scotia, Atlantic Canada or HRM but by voting for a city councillor that supports cycling infrastructure development and parks and recreation investment we certainly can at least ensure that we are voting for people that will support cycling and parks and recreation initiatives in city council.
Based on my review in my district 7 it seems that Waye Mason is the candidate most committed to supporting cycling infrastructure development in his platform. I don’t live in District 11 but on the trail building days I was involved in at McIntosh Run Patty Cuttell was the only candidate I saw at trail building days, helping out and showing an interest in the trails and their development. I see her platform also mentions biking as part of making communities more livable.
If anyone else has a candidate they would suggest from other districts that has a platform that supports cycling and parks and recreational development, it might be valuable information to share amongst the members here and encourage fellow cyclists and MTBers here in Halifax to vote in this election!
For what it’s worth, I know others running in district 11 have given time to MacRun, Hannah Munday for one. (I was there with someone else who is running in that district but they put photos of my kids on the internet with out asking so that’s pretty much the fastest way to lose any endorsement or shout out from me.)
Tony Mancini in Dartmouth has been integral to getting the city to move on a mountain bike strategy.
Don’t forget to vote for Savage for mayor too, and not Whitman. Savage has generally supported making the city more accessible and bike-friendly and he really seems to get the benefits.
Although Matt is a cyclist himself, he is completely against cycling infrastructure. He’s a racist prick to boot, so there’s that.
One of the others running in District 11 is Pete Rose, though he looks nothing like the baseball player. I’ve worked with him a few times on the trail: he’s keen, and a hard worker. It sounds like there are plenty of McIntosh Run friendly candidates to choose from.
Candidates were also surveyed on their support for the blue mountain birch cove lakes wilderness park. Spoiler alert, Matt Whitless didn’t complete his.
To follow up on this - apparently there was a F up along the way and the city didn’t list everyone running at the time the cycling coalition put their surveys out so they missed a bunch of people. HCC has reached out to everyone they missed now so more answers will be added over the next little bit.
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