culture

Thanks to some warm winter weather and possibly to a bit of persuading on my end (by directing some emails to Street Furniture and to Councillor Vaughan's office), City staff have installed post and rings along Portland and Richmond next to the new Loblaws.

As I noted in the other post, Councillor Vaughan and Jennifer Chan of his office were quite helpful in pursuing the case of the missing bike parking to get it solved. Lisa Ing of Street Furniture was also helpful in spelling out the details of this location and the limitations of her office.

It's super that we now have some bike parking for Loblaws. Now what about the rest of the stores along that block on Queen? Short-term bike parking should be no more than 15 metres from the entrance of destinations, according to the Bicycles at Rest design guide. Are post and rings just not "aesthetic" enough to get installed there?

The "season" for installation of bike parking ends in the fall - it gets too difficult to install with lots of snow and the City ends its contract with the company that installs the bike rings. It is remarkable, then, that these post and rings appeared. Who installed them? There were plans in the works to install them but not until the spring. Did public pressure on City staff quicken that process?

Kick off Bike Month with the Dandyhorse magazine May launch party, Monday May 30th at the Gladstone Hotel.

$10 cover, includes magazine. Music by DJ Triple-X. You could win an Opus Cervin Bike

Bixi has changed Montreal, according to the Gazette. Can it change Toronto?

And there is something about the Bixi - something that has captured the imagination, the hearts and the civic pride of Montrealers. And made the Bixi popular enough that it garnered more than one million rides in its first season and, within months of its launch, had been sold to at least four cities on three continents. Clearly, more cities are in the offing: the solar-powered, wireless modular Bixi system, with its stations that can be installed and removed relatively simply, just might be Montreal's best-known export these days.

"The Bixi was an instant success," said Manon Barbe, the city of Montreal executive committee member responsible for transportation. "There was the fact that it was developed here in Quebec, that the design was a Quebec design and that it used materials from here. That it created jobs here. ... It is an extraordinary Quebec success story. And the people who made it a success are the cyclists themselves."