11/04/2026
Which Way Am I Going???
A few weeks back, my 10-year-old asked if he could ride to school.
Well, we live out of town and his school is 12 km’s away from home, plus you can’t get there completely on bike lanes, or trails.
We thought it over and being the biking family that we are, we never want to discourage our kids from riding . . . anywhere, so we set up a plan that gets him from here to there in the simplest and safest way possible, and for the first ride, I went with him to make sure all went well.
After a little bit of busy roads, we jump onto the seawallk all the way into town, and end with a steep climb and a couple back streets, and he’s at school.
The highway portion has a nice wide shoulder, he has very bright lights, and he understands road riding etiquette, so pretty safe so far.
At the far end, it’s all safe too, short of one major road crossing, but it has a cross walk, so how bad can it be?
The safest part is obviously the Seawalk, and once we hit that, I relaxed and just let him ride.
He assumed we ride on the right side of the centre line and watch for faster riders behind us, and If we come upon a pedestrian, we pass on the left and give lots of room. I should know the rules of the seawalk better, but I rarely ride there. I’m either in the trails, or if I’m riding along the highway on my road bike, I stick to the shoulder and avoid the seawalk all together.
So after a kilometre or so, we saw the markings and realized the bikes are to ride on the road side of the walkway, and pedestrians use the ocean side of the walkway. So, ride on your left if you’re going north, but ride on your right if you’re going south. Got it, sort of.
Now that we knew the rules we moved over to our left, but many of the pedestrians coming the opposite direction, didn’t know the rules any better than I had a few minutes earlier, and naturally were on their right, so we moved to our right, but the next person knew the rules and were on their left, so we moved to our left. It was never unsafe, since we were riding pretty conservatively, but we did lots of weaving side to side that morning.
When a 10-year-old asked you a question that uses pure logic, it’s hard to answer, and it makes you wonder. "Do our adult rules make any sense?"
“Dad, why are we riding on the wrong side?”
I love that we have an ocean front town, a beautiful seawalk for all to enjoy, and a nice safe place to walk, run, and ride, out of the traffic along the highway. We’re a very lucky community.
I’m sure there were many hours of thought that went into the directional rules of the seawalk and despite my natural instinct to travel on the right side of a road, a path, a trail, or a walkway, there is probably a very valid reason for this directional plan . . . I just don’t understand it, nor do half the people I encountered last Monday, apparently.
Maybe I'm just an old dog, and you know what they say about new tricks.
I’ve instructed my son to be safe and polite on the seawalk, and not to run anyone over. That seems like a good rule, no matter what side you’re traveling on.
I’m James Durand and I’m Goin’ Ridin’
