P.E.I. widow keeping husband's safe city-wide cycling dream alive

Josh Underhay will never get to ride an interconnected bike trail system across Charlottetown, but others might be able to fulfil the dream he had.

Underhay's brother, Mitch and his widow, Karri Shea are continuing with the vision he had before he died.

Underhay was a candidate in the 2019 provincial election for P.E.I.'s Green Party. Right before the April election he and his young son, Oliver died in a canoeing accident.

He was a teacher at Birchwood Intermediate School in Charlottetown, a community volunteer, musician and was passionate about cycling.

Shea said when she and Underhay moved to Charlottetown he started to take his bike everywhere.

"He would take the boys to school, he went to work everyday, even in the winter, and he would kind of ask me why wasn't I keen to cycle," she said.

The group Shea and Underhay's brother are starting is called Bike Friendly Charlottetown, and they will host their launch meet-and-greet- style event Monday, at 7 p.m. at The Havilland Club.

"This will be kind of our way of introducing ourselves and what we would like to do," Shea said.

Shea said the group has come together because her husband passionately advocated for cycling infrastructure and wants to continue his work.

Interconnected cycling path

Part of continuing that work involves an interconnected cycling path all through Charlottetown, said Underhay's brother, Mitch.

"Right now you have the Confederation Trial, you have Victoria Park, but they are disconnected. How do you get from one to the other? So, those are just two examples," Mitch said.

If there was a group of safe interconnected paths in Charlottetown more people would be able to bike in the city efficiently, Mitch said.

"The purpose of this group is to help identify those areas, work with existing initiatives that the province or the city is already looking at and then advocate for that," he said.

Shea said she once told her husband she felt uncomfortable biking alongside traffic, especially if she had her children with her. Shea said before that Underhay didn't really think about it because he himself was not worried about cycling near vehicles, but when offered that perspective he became concerned.

"There are a lot of people like me who are interested in cycling but that's a barrier. So, he began researching into dedicated bike paths that are separate and safe," she said.

Buying in

Although Shea was scared about biking due to traffic, she recently bought one.

"He [Underhay] believed, and as I've come to believe as well. I really do believe that if those paths connect, if you can actually use them to get where you want to go that more people would just get on the bike for the first time," Shea said.

Mitch thinks his brother would be proud he and Shea are continuing to work on the initiative.

"I think he'd be really proud," he said.

"This isn't something we are doing just to memorialize him. We are doing this because he was right, this is something that Charlottetown needs and I think it will be better for it. And so I think he would be really happy to see A: the work continue, and; B: us being the ones behind this initiative."

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