politics

Photo: Herb. Bells on Bloor 2011, popular as ever, even though City Council voted to stop the Environmental Assessment

Cycling and politics were a hot item in 2011, from the vote to remove Jarvis Bike Lanes, the vote to install protected bike lanes, the launch of Bixi, and the politicians who took cheap shots by trying to make cyclists into urban terrors. Here's a recap of 2011's top 11 blog posts, ranked by the number of comments. It's not the only way to rank blog posts, but the easiest to come by.

1. Separated bike lane proposal and battle heating up
   Bixi bikes are on the streets and the fight continues to get separated bike lanes approved for downtown. Some lefty councillors oppose, some support.
2. Few bike lanes: the cause of most sidewalk cycling
   A pedestrian dies after colliding with a cyclist in North York. There is a strong call to crack down on cyclists yet the pedestrian's family say he was an avid cyclist and understood how bad cycling infrastructure is in the burbs. And where are the critics when a pedestrian is killed by a motorist?
3. Public Works committee votes to take out Jarvis bike lanes: total -8 km bike lanes this year
   The vote to take out the Jarvis bike lanes made international news. What big city in this era votes to take out bike lanes?

The new Loblaws, Winners, Joe Fresh at Queen St West and Portland have been open for a few months. In the inscrutable ways of the City, the stores opened with absolutely zero bike parking. The sidewalk was finished, trees were installed out front but no one felt the need to install bike parking anywhere surrounding the building. I like trees but wouldn't it have been even more important to install bike parking? Now we've just got people slowly killing the trees by locking to the trees.

I followed up with planner Lisa Ing of Street Furniture at the City, the area which is now in charge of post and rings (you can email your bike parking request to them). They are still figuring out how they will deal with post and rings. Lisa Ing told me about this location by email:

The post-and-ring locations were approved as part of the Site Plan Control process for this development. Our staff are typically not involved in this process. However Forestry and Urban Design staff do take into consideration bike parking issues.

I do not know the reasons why post-and-rings were not identified on Queen Street West as part of the site plan process. I am presuming there may be other street elements proposed or it could have been for aesthetic reasons.

Anyways, we can list this location in our database for future review.

True words by Albert Koehl in Rabble of how Mayor Ford is doing more harm to drivers than good with his archaic, anti-city approach to moving people:

Don Cherry has a lesson to teach Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Cherry has spent a career promoting the hockey fighter, sometimes known as the enforcer or goon. The problem is that the science of brain injuries has caught up with (and passed) his assertion that the violence of these bare-knuckle encounters doesn't really hurt anyone, and helps the game. Indeed, the very fighters whose role Cherry has championed are increasingly turning out to be the game's victims.

The cause that Ford championed most loudly during the election was that of motorists. On taking office he declared that the war on the car was over. He eliminated a small vehicle registration tax, then moved forward on his congestion relief plan by getting transit out of the way of motorists. Two of three streetcar lines approved by the previous administration were shelved and a third line would go underground at significantly higher cost. He even promised to build a new subway line. Cyclists, too, were targeted. The council he leads voted to eliminate three bike lanes at a projected cost of $400,000.

Science, and experience, makes it clear that Ford's solutions won't work -- and the main victim will be the motorist.

Post and ring bike parking is lacking in many heavily cycled parts of Toronto. The City of Toronto was once in the forefront of supplying short-term parking for cyclists and this may help explain why so many people bike despite the poor cycling infrastructure otherwise.

We've got to hold onto the parking we've got and push for more. Currently the City is slow to re-install the parking removed when sidewalks are reconstructed (or for other construction). And they seem slow to put in enough parking otherwise.

Here's a neat website, SeeClickFix, that allows people to post issues with their city and to get crowd-support. If people mark down where they think bike parking is critical, use the keywords "bike parking" or "post and ring", or vote on an existing issue then we can gather all this information to send to councillors and staff.

It's clear that there's more demand for parking than is being met. If the city doesn't want cyclists to lock to gas meters, trees or fences then we want them to take bike parking seriously.

Try it out! And while you're at it also submit your suggestion directly to the City through their online suggestion form. It would be good if they also get flooded with requests.

As is common with BIAs in Toronto the Bloor-Yorkville BIA was given a lot of control to decide the public realm priorities in the redesign of the stretch of Bloor between Church and Avenue. This included in letting the BIA decide if and how they would accommodate cyclists on their territory: how they would lock up their bikes and how they would bike along the roadway. The BIA chose to remove cyclists from the equation in the name of a minimalist and modern-looking design. Their choice, predictably, backfired.

The Bloor-Yorkville BIA's initial position during the redesign was to provide zero bike parking along this stretch of Bloor, presumably because bicycles are considered ugly and would take away from their preferred minimalism, much like the provision of bike lanes would have taken away from the wide marble sidewalks. The BIA was eventually forced by the City to at least provide some kind of temporary bike parking along the sidewalk, but they were given some control over the type of bike parking. Predictably they chose a design more for its aesthetics than usefulness; a design that cyclist to lock their bikes in awkward ways.

A decision will be made at Public Works and Infrastructure Committee this week about whether to approve Transportation staff's recommendation regarding Richmond/Adelaide separated bike lanes. The bike lanes have been in the official Bike Plan for the last ten years, but there are some obstacles. Instead of doing a pilot project sooner, staff is recommending we go straight to the required EA and install them in 2013:

City Council authorize the General Manager of Transportation Services to initiate a Municipal Class Environmental Assessment study for separated bicycle lanes within the Richmond-Adelaide corridor, between Bathurst Street and Sherbourne Street, which could include consideration of a pilot project to install and evaluate separated bicycle lanes on the preferred alignment during the course of the study.

For those who wish to make a deputation regarding the project, please contact Ms. Candy Davidovits of the Citys Clerks Division at pwic@toronto.ca or at (416) 392-8032 by 4:30 p.m. on November 2, 2011. For more details on submitting comments or requesting to speak, see the City web page: Have Your Say! (www.toronto.ca/legdocs/tmmis/have-your-say.htm)

Given all the construction on Richmond and Adelaide it seems likely that PWIC will approve this report to delay and do an EA. One noted improvement they could make to the EA is to extend the study area to connect to the Eastern Avenue bike lanes. Why have separated bike lanes on only part of Richmond/Adelaide?

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong lives in nice, quiet inner suburb of Toronto (not unlike the one pictured above). Note the lack of sidewalks. Note the lack of pedestrians. If you lived there you would likely drive to every place you needed to go. If you drove downtown you'd probably also see a stark difference between your quiet neighbourhood and the hustle and bustle of downtown. On downtown Toronto streets such as Jarvis and Dundas it's not as easy to drive what with all the pedestrians and cyclists. Compare that quiet suburb with the busyness of the pedestrian scramble at Yonge and Dundas:

If you lived in a quiet suburban house where everything was only reachable by car, perhaps you too would assume that all streets are built for cars and then reach the conclusion that downtown streets must also be changed to ensure that pedestrians and cyclists stay out of the way of your private automobile as much as possible. So perhaps it's not entirely surprising that Minnan-Wong sees pedestrian scrambles as a "problem" to be solved, or that cyclists need to be funneled onto certain streets so that other streets can be kept clear for drivers:

As an idea, you can't argue with it: cyclists shouldn't kill pedestrians. Moreover, cycling culture should take the obligation not to kill pedestrians very seriously indeed, and jurisdictions, from the city to the province, with responsibility for traffic safety should frame a comprehensive strategy to ensure the cyclists who do not understand our shared responsibilities get the message.

So how did the recent Globe and Mail editorial, which tried to make these simple points, do such a bad job? The answer partly lies in the atrocious phrasing the editorial claims cyclists should "know our place". And if we don't, do y'all have a rope, a tree and a bunch of good ole boys to teach us? Some phrases just bring up too many bad memories, and editorial writers should leave such phrases out of their tool boxes. Whoever wrote this particular editorial then added pomposity to their list of rhetorical blunders by writing this: "We do not occupy a planet where cyclist safety trumps all else." I get it: cyclists don't have a right to risk other people's lives to stay safe ourselves.