herb's blog

I'd be hard-pressed to put a good spin on this, though mayoral candidate Smitherman is certainly trying his best. Smitherman is jumping on the rhetoric bandwagon and is calling for a 'moratorium' on bike lanes in Toronto. In the meanwhile the 2011 money for bike lanes will go to repaving the bike lanes that are deteriorating such as Sherbourne.

Smitherman is reading the polls and figures that it's better to appease the loud car-centrists who are getting a lot of play in the media, rather than accommodate the needs of 8-years and 80-years old folks on bikes.

One the one hand, Smitherman certainly understand the importance of bike lanes on arterials and isn't promising to remove them, but on the other hand, it becomes increasingly hard to maintain the already very slow progress on bike lanes and infrastructure when a moratorium is put in place. And it certainly begs the question: if this is mainly a communication problem, why not just communicate better (or work better at winning the rhetoric war in the media) while improving the cycling infrastructure?

Someone needs to call Smitherman on this bullshit approach. Mothers, children, elders and all, are you willing to get in the face of Smitherman and Rocco to let them know you exist and want to feel safe cycling on the roads?

I usually prefer to maintain some degree of decorum on this blog, but this pisses me off to no end. So I'll float this slogan as a rallying cry:

This Tuesday, the bike union and CultureLink will be going down to Washington, D.C. to receive the 2010 Innovation of the Year Award for it's partnership. The award is given out yearly by the US-based Alliance for Biking and Walking.

Together, the Toronto Cyclists Union and CultureLink have launched the Partnership for Integration and Sustainable Transportation to promote cycling among newcomers to Toronto with posters, a Cyclists Handbook, and workshops available in 16 of the city’s most commonly spoken languages.

“We’re honoured to be accepting this award on behalf of our partnership,” says Yvonne Bambrick, Executive Director of the Toronto Cyclists Union. “This project is helping us to grow roots in Toronto’s diverse communities, and to exchange knowledge about sustainable habits here and around the world.”

“In Toronto, 52% of people 15 and older are newcomers to Canada, and green initiatives must speak directly to them to be effective,” says Ibrahim Absiye, Executive Director of CultureLink Settlement Services. “At CultureLink, we are committed to bringing sustainable, affordable and healthy options, like cycling, to the newcomers we serve.”

The Ontario government should create a $20 million Ontario Bicycling Investment Fund with the extra money that will be collected through the new HST. This is one of the recommendations found in the Green Paper (pdf) released by the Share the Road Cycling Coalition last Friday.

Currently bicycles and bike safety equipment are PST exempt, but this will change with the new HST when the province starts collecting it in July.

Ontario is falling behind other jurisdictions when it comes to cycling policy. Both BC and Quebec have policies and funding to encourage cycling. Even the US has a federal fund to allow municipalities to invest in cycling infrastructure. We need to incorporate cycling into provincial transportation policy: says Eleanor McMahon, founder and CEO of Share the Road Cycling Coalition.

The bike fund would represent a fraction of the investment by the Quebec government into La Route Verte ($200 million), which brings in $38 million in government revenue through tourist dollars spent.

Mayoral candidate, Rocco Rossi promised to 'review' and 'remove' bike lanes on major arterials: "common sense and safety tell me that bike lanes and arterial roads do not mix."

What if Rocco Rossi became mayor, overrode the advice of Transportation Services and put in his own version of bike lanes? This is what I imagine would result.

Rip out bike lanes on Dundas Street East, despite local objections and replace with "safe" alternative
Dundas East Bike Lane: Rossi's alternative 3x as long, but "safer" for drivers and cyclists

Cyclists aren't safe on Harbord. Take out the bike lane and replace with this plan
Rossi's "Harbord bike lane": You don't mind having to weave up and down, coming to work 30 minutes later, do you?

People would have to be crazy to cross the bridge in a bike lane! Send them through Riverdale Park
Rossi's "Bloor Viaduct bike lane": Who needs the Bloor Viaduct bike lane when you can go up and down the steep hills in Riverdale park? It'll only take you 4x as long.

In a recent email discussion on Bixi and bikesharing in Toronto, Mikael Colville-Andersen
of copenhagenize.eu, made some good points about bikesharing: 1) bikesharing, to be successful, is aimed at citizens, not tourists, 2) bikesharing needs to be ubiquitous within the launch area, 3) the sudden surge of bikes makes it an effective tool for change and triggering better bike infrastructure. Just to clarify, Mikael is responding to some other comments that bikesharing was meant only for tourists, and it's not to imply that City staff were ever focusing on such a narrow demographic, quite the contrary.

Read his comments below:

Interesting following the discussion from the sidelines.

One thing that is worrying is the focus on tourists.

Every successful bike share programme in the world is not aimed at tourists, but rather the locals. There are 26 cities in France alone with successful bike share programmes and the local population is the focus. In fact, there are cities that make it difficult for tourists to rent them. In Seville, in Spain, your application takes a week to process. The main reason is to discourage tourists from using it. Otherwise it'll just end up as a gimmick.

Another thing is that visitors to a city won't use a bike share system if they don't see locals riding around on the bike share bikes or private bikes. Especially without sufficient infrastructure. So it's unlikely that tourists will be the main users in Toronto.

In case you haven't noticed, it's an election year in Toronto, and right-wing candidate Rossi in a bid to win some right-wing votes has made some bold statements about stopping unsafe and environmentally unsound bike lanes.

Rossi doesn't want bike lanes on arterial roads like University, Bloor and Jarvis. But apparently he's a big fan of bike lanes all the same, so long as they are only installed where they aren't needed: on cul-de-sacs and quiet residential streets, apparently.

“I’m not only OK with bike lanes, I’m a big fan,” Rossi said. “I do believe in an expanded bike lane network, but we need to do it on a grid basis and we need to use safer routes to travel.”

He’d prefer to have a fact-based discussion about bike lanes rather than a mud-slinging fight, and base it on getting everyone around the city safely and quickly.

Of course, Rossi isn't engaging in some sort of urban planning, based on studies and reason; he's engaging in vote winning and he's willing to say whatever it takes. Rossi is trying to shape the conversation with a "father knows best" approach: "You poor cyclists, why do you want to risk yourselves on the all those fast cars? Those city planners are so irresponsible by trying to put bike lanes there instead of quiet side roads."

I got an email from the Mayor this morning (as did James at Urban Country). Mayor Miller isn't abandoning public bikes and is directing staff to look for other funding options. He mentions Bikeshare, which was run by the Community Bicycle Network and had a hard time getting enough funding from the city to sustain itself too:

Thank you for your email letter.

We appreciate you taking the time to write.

Until 2006 Toronto was home to the innovative and award-winning Bikeshare community bicycle-lending program. Following its collapse the City began developing a business case for a public bike program.

The City considered launching such a program using the Vienna business model (which is also used in Lyons and Paris) where it is provided free to the City and affordable to users because it is supported by revenue from billboards on the bike stations. After much deliberation it was decided not to increase the number of billboards on the street and launched a competitive process to find a company to provide a non-ad-supported version.

A public tender was issued and City Council gave staff authority to negotiate with BIXI, which is owned by the Montreal municipal parking authority, to develop a detailed business plan for launching and operating a Toronto public bicycle system at no cost to the City. Unfortunately, the outcome of these negotiations did not guarantee that there was no risk of costs being incurred.

Looks like our post yesterday wrangled up some official statements and a hit in mainstream media. Gary Welsh, manager of Transportation Services told the National Post, "At this point in time we can’t seem to operate a public bike system at no cost to the city, which is contrary to what council proposed."

Mr. Welsh assures us that negotiations continue:

“This doesn’t mean the program is being abandoned, we’re still looking at the viability of the program and how we can enable it in the future,” Mr. Welsh said.

“I think it would be beneficial to the city. It’s needed by residents of Toronto and we’re just trying to develop a system that we know will work and something that will not be a significant cost to the city.”

The official line is being awefully vague: just what is going to cost more? Through the grapevine I've heard that, in fact, the staff were able to negotiate a "No Cost" deal with Bixi (but we'll take all the benefits, thank you very much), but that it required a loan guarantee, which the City Manager's office quickly squelched.

Aren't the staff supposed to produce a report for City Council? City Council and the general public should hear in more detail about what happened and this shouldn't just die and disappear within the city bureaucracy.