Dave Perfitt, former member of North Vancouver Joint Bicycle Advisory Committee & VACC volunteer

I ended up thinking education and encouragement is best. You can argue road design, this kind of path, that kind of path — people still need to watch where they're going. If they're aware of the hazards, they're versatile, they can adapt to changing conditions, such as from arterial road to bike path.

We spend a lot of time in the design corner, but at the end of the day people still need to be aware of how to ride.

Erin O'Melinn, HUB Cycling executive director

Infrastructure has to happen or else people will not feel safe.

But many levels of government ignore that you cannot just build it and expect everyone to shift over. There's huge return on any investment that you put into educating and promoting about what that means. Habits are hard to change. 

Lisa Slakov, HUB Cycling volunteer and member, City of Vancouver Active Transportation Policy Council

We discovered a lot of kids were not even getting a bike, had never biked. People were so fearful of the roads and stranger danger they weren't allowing their kids to walk or bike anymore on their own, or even at all.

You had to work with the schools, you had to work with the parents. The education and promotion side of things often gets ignored in the face of infrastructure.