By Mathieu Bouchard
Car culture is extremely polluting, detrimental to our health and costly. In Canada and beyond, many are aware of the need to transform our transportation systems — but that’s easier said than done. Our public infrastructure, business logistics and daily lives are heavily dependent on cars. For many, a world without cars is difficult to imagine.
But a growing community of cyclists are turning this once-utopian vision of a car-free world into reality through their everyday practices. Right here in Ottawa, cycling activists, local business owners, community organizers and city planners are collaborating in all kinds of ways to build a vibrant alternative entrepreneurial ecosystem centred
around cycling as a mode of transportation and a way of life. Members of the cycling activist community are creating their own organizations and initiatives to raise awareness, fundraise and enlist new adherents and allies to
transform our cities through the everyday use of active and public transportation.
Inspired by his family’s commitment to living without a car and by his own everyday cycling habits, Professor Mathieu Bouchard has received a Telfer SMRG Research Development Grant to study Ottawa’s cycling-based alternative entrepreneurial ecosystem. He wants to understand how alternative entrepreneurs navigate the regulatory and financial challenges they face to develop and sustain their ventures. He believes that this research can inform policymakers to help them design regulatory and financial environments that support thriving alternative entrepreneurial ecosystems, and it can channel the energy of local activists into creating healthier and more sustainable cities.
“By spending time with people who do things differently and listening to what they have to say, we can better understand the innovative potential of their practices and develop effective policies to support their efforts. There’s something wrong with our transportation systems, and I believe the change we need will come from the bottom up,” says Professor Bouchard.
Bouchard and his research team will engage in participant observation at local events and interview key actors in Ottawa’s cycling activist community. His goal: to get an inside view on how their alternative entrepreneurial ecosystem is developing, what their main challenges are and how public policy can effectively support their relentless efforts. This project will also provide a valuable training opportunity for a graduate student, who will be fully involved in the project. This research matters — because to overcome our reliance on cars and build the cities of the future, we need to learn from people who do things differently.
