debra's blog

Why would anyone build a road that abuts a park and links a waterfront trail to a pedestrian / cyclist bridge – and name it after Dan Leckie, to boot – and not put a bike lane on it? Only in Toronto, eh?

Ward 20 Councillor Adam Vaughan amended the PW5.1 Bikeway Network recommendations to redress this judgement lapse, and added several other bike-friendly amendments. But when PW5.1 came to a vote at City Council on July 13, it also included the motion to remove the bike lanes on Jarvis.

So here is Vaughan’s dilemma: if he votes in favour of his own motions to add bike lanes (on Dan Leckie and other roadways), he is simultaneously voting against keeping the lanes on Jarvis. If he votes down the recommendations because of the Jarvis clause, he is voting against the whole cycling infrastructure proposal – and the Fordites can claim there is insufficient support even among downtown representatives to consider additional investment in cycling ever again.

Let’s say you were a member of the Ford team, and you were tasked with suppressing cycling and rolling back existing cycling infrastructure. How best to accomplish this?
Try this:

• First, get some authority. PWIC chair would be a nice whip hand to have.
• Get some credibility – learn to cycle, and become the poster child for the newly converted.
• Join the local advocacy group and wave your new Cycling Union membership card every chance you get.
• Scrap the existing official cycling plan. Work with the Union to come up with a new plan and get their endorsement.
• Request a Status Report from city staff on cycling infrastructure. Use this as a mechanism to introduce your changes.
• Announce that the new administration is going to spend twice as much on cycling infrastructure as the old one. Wave your membership card, get good press, get the Union to claim some success.
• Blow some of the new spend on rolling back existing infrastructure, arguing that it is not supported by the local communities, or was poorly planned by the previous administration, or is not widely used. Ignore anything in the Status Report that does not support the these statements.
• At the same time, announce plans for new infrastructure spending to distract the press and give the Union something to cling to. Offer to trade upgraded infrastructure in one location for eliminated infrastructure in another. Then amend the direction-to-staff motion so that there is no enforceable link between the two.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news – and in fact, I’m not; NOW Magazine scooped me on this by hours – but if you think we won a one-year reprieve on Jarvis demolition and a straight swap for separated bike lanes on Sherbourne, better think again.

Read the amended agenda item PW5.1 carefully and without the rose-coloured glasses. Check motion 10c by Denzil Minnan-Wong, amending Kristin Wong-Tam’s motion to delay the Jarvis “reconversion-to-superhighway” until the separated bike lanes on Sherbourne are completed. Note particularly the following:

• deleting the words "only after" and replacing them with "and co-ordinate", and
• adding to the end the words "and staff be directed to take all steps required to revert Jarvis Street to its pre-existing operation such that implementation can be achieved as soon as possible…