About the Coalition

Welcome! If you’re reading this, you probably already know the feeling: you’re on your bike, or on foot, or pushing a stroller, and the safe path you were following just… ends. A bicycle lane dissapears into traffic. A trail stops at a busy road, not where you want to be. Distant crossings force you to choose between a long detour and a dangerous dash.

That feeling is why this coalition exists. I’ve experienced it every day.

The Burlington for Active Transport Coalition is a grassroots, volunteer-run group of Burlington residents working to improve the holistic active-transport network of our city — walking, cycling, rollerblading, wheeling, and every other human-powered way of getting around.

Why we started

Burlington truly is an excellent city. I’m Joshua — an avid cyclist living in the Palmer neighbourhood — and I’ve lived here my entire life, watching it grow and change, for better or for worse. But active transportation is something the city has often neglected. Even with many proposals coming from the city government in recent years, the overall approach to active transportation has been misguided at best, or, worse, actively useless — failing time and again to address the real shortcomings of our infrastructure while missing easy wins that can actually make active transportation viable for everyday use.

Burlington is a city worth moving through under your own power. But for too many trips, our active-transport network is disconnected, inconsistent, or simply missing. The result is that walking, cycling, and rolling — the healthiest, cheapest, and most climate-friendly ways to get around — are longer, harder, and more dangerous than they should be. That, in turn, forces many day-to-day trips onto personal motor vehicles — cars, trucks, and SUVs — taking up more and more room on our roads, causing delays and pollution, and wasting everyone’s time.

We can do much better.

I started the Burlington for Active Transport Coalition because I believe that organizing neighbours, raising awareness, and advocating with evidence can change that. My hope is that “I” can become “we”: a group of like-minded citizens helping to make Burlington the best it can be, and a leader in active transportation.

What we believe

• Navigable without a car. Burlington has excellent bones — what it needs is the vision and planning to make getting around car-free genuinely viable.
• Connectivity is everything. A path that ends in the middle of nowhere is a platitude, not a network. We push for continuous routes to the places people actually go.
• Active transport is for everyone. Safe, dignified routes for people of every age, ability, and income — not just brave, able-bodied adults.
• Safety is non-negotiable. Nobody should risk their life choosing a bike or their own two feet over a car. Separate people from fast traffic; manage the risk where it can’t be avoided.
• Good data and good plans win. We ground our advocacy in evidence, published plans, and daily lived experience — not hypotheticals dreamed up behind closed doors.

What we do

• Raise awareness of the gaps, hazards, and missed opportunities in Burlington’s current active-transport systems.
• Advocate to city council, staff, and the wider community for concrete improvements and forward-looking plans.
• Publish proposals — detailed, actionable documents that lay out specific improvements we’d like to see.
• Build community among the residents who walk, cycle, and roll across Burlington every day.

Join us

This is just the beginning. In the weeks and months ahead, we’ll be publishing our first formal proposals for concrete improvements, sharing news and commentary on the blog, and showing up where decisions get made.

If any of this resonates with you, we’d love to have you. Head over to Get Involved to learn how to add your voice — or just email us at hello@burlingtonactivetransport.ca. Together we can build a city that’s safe and welcoming to move through under your own power.

Let’s build a Burlington that moves.

— Joshua M. Boniface, on behalf of the coalition