Yu Li traded his bicycle for a second-hand Honda Civic when he settled in suburban Toronto from Beijing in 2000.
Two years ago tired of the commute downtown from the very east end of Scarborough, the computer programmer forfeited his suburban dream for a modest house at Bathurst and Bloor streets.
Although the father of two owns a family car, he now rides his two-wheeler to work and runs errands in the city every day.
Toronto’s cycling community would like to see more immigrants like Li get out of their cars and return to their old modus operandi as part of a city-wide “From Back Home to Our New Home” campaign, to be launched tomorrow.
The campaign will promote cycling among newcomer communities as an affordable, healthy and convenient means of transportation instead of just a recreational activity on weekends.
The campaign, funded by the city’s Live Green community investment program, is hoping to change people’s minds through its multilingual cyclist handbook and interactive outreach workshops.
