advocacy

The essay below is from Veronica, a cyclist active in Bike 25, a group working towards implementing the bike plan in Ward 25.

On Wednesday March 10, 2010 the City of Toronto will be holding a Public Open House to discuss planned bike lanes for Lawrence Avenue East, from Yonge Street to Bayview Avenue.

At first glance, it would appear that this is another 'bike lane to nowhere'. But viewed in the larger context of the Bikeway Network, this is the first piece of a planned bike lane on Lawrence Avenue stretching from Avenue Road to past Port Union Road. While it's unfortunate that this bike lane is being assembled in pieces, I think that its important that cyclists keep their eye on the prize.

Even in its truncated version, this piece of bike lane links Lawrence subway station with the Toronto French School, York University's Glendon Campus and intersects Bayview Avenue quite close to Sunnybrook Hospital, the destination for a large commuter cycling contingency. If one continues further east along Post Road, it links to the existing Don Valley trails.

As for the argument that money should not be wasted on bike lanes in the suburbs because nobody cycles there, consider the following:

• residents do cycle in the inner suburbs, often under much more hostile conditions. Getting buzzed by a vehicle is not pleasant. Getting buzzed by a vehicle traveling at 70 kph, is even more unpleasant. Cycling infrastructure is even critical in these neighbourhoods;

There was a lot of trash talk about the supposed 'War on the Car' this year. There will be more next year I am sure. Last time I checked it was you and me and dare I say even those who drive
who suffer the effects of car culture, or shall we say, high-carbon consumer capitalism. So get ready for the next stage when car drivers fight back against bike lanes. You know it's coming.

The first ghost bike in Mississauga, as far as I know, was installed by ARC this morning at the corner of Riverspray Crescent. and Bloor Street. On November 25, a cyclist was killed on his way home from the beer store. I went along for the ride this morning to pay my respects to the fallen cyclist and document the work of installing a ghost bike. His name has not been released.

News story:

"A male cyclist, 45, has died after being hit by a car in Mississauga on Tuesday evening. The crash happened after 6:30 p.m. at Bloor Street and Runningbrook Drive, between Dixie and Tomken Roads. The cyclist was pronounced dead at the scene. The intersection was shut down for the investigation. The driver remained at the scene."

Another media report: http://www.mississauga.com/news/article/217373--cyclist-st...

No charges are expected in this incident. This was the 9th cyclist in Ontario to die on a ride.

Wayne Scott, ex-courier and ex-cycling ambassador, fought and won an eighteen year battle with Revenue Canada over counting courier food as tax deductible fuel. Now he is taking on the City of Toronto to have the Ontario Labour Relations Board to declare Toronto's city streets as safety hazards. Since the same employer that employed him as a Cycling Ambassador in 2005 is also responsible for the state of our streets, Scott figured he had a good case. I worked alongside Scott in 2005 and can attest to the hot, muggy, polluted summer with traffic jams - just like most Toronto summers. I hope Scott can make a difference in improving safety or at embarrass us all at the poor quality of our streets, though its more immediate result may be the City becoming much more careful about the skill level and safety equipment that employees are required to have. The alternative may just be too politically difficult at this time.

On Monday, city officials said they didn't know how many employees use bikes on the job, but police, EMS workers and bylaw officers are among those who cycle on duty.

They run the same risk as any cyclist or bike courier of having a car door opened suddenly in their path or being hit at an intersection. That's because the rules of the road are poorly enforced and the city is years behind on completing its own bike plan, contends Scott, who retired from the courier business about four years ago.

Lawyer, and former Toronto Police Services Board chair, Alan Heisey, is being supported by bike union members in calling for a crackdown on bike lane blockers. Currently the city is putting in bike lanes but enforcement is lax, effectively negating their usefulness.

A former Toronto Police board chairman wants cops to crack down on bike lane blockers.

In a letter to his former board, lawyer Alan Heisey details his run-ins with vehicles illegally parked in Toronto's bike lanes and demands the police services board order its boys in blue and the blue hornets to unleash a ticketing blitz.

"There has been an awful lot of good intentions by the city implementing a system of bicycle lanes, but as we all know the road to hell is paved with good intentions," Heisey told the Sun yesterday. "The bicycle lanes as a practical matter don't exist because they are not usable."

Along with the crackdown, Heisey -- an avid city cyclist for the past 35 years -- wants the board to consider putting cameras on the Bay St. bike-transit lanes to catch violators and increase fines to those who use bike lanes as short-term parking spots.

He also wants the board to ask police and parking enforcement vehicles to avoid stopping in bike lanes unless it's an emergency.

Catherine Porter of the Star has a bunch of the "Thank You" cards for drivers, a campaign by the Toronto Cyclists Union, but she's having a hard time giving them out. It seems like she's more determined that I. I will, however, wave when a driver allows me to turn or cross, or I say thank-you when a driver decides to wait before opening their car door to step in (usually after a flurry of bell ringing, and, yes, I do give myself enough space but streets are a bit tighter than others).

A stack of these has been poking out of my backpack for a week now.

I haven't given out a single one.

I almost did, to a guy in a powder blue sports car who had stopped on Yonge St. while I passed. Then the light turned red and he drove through it.

Turns out he had been working his BlackBerry.

The cards are the Toronto Cyclists Union's make-up notes to drivers – its way of reaching across the bed to rub a cold shoulder. The blow-up being the tragic encounter between Michael Bryant and Darcy Allan Sheppard and its aftermath.

Thank you for not killing me. Thank you for not maiming me. That's what I think the cards should say.

"It's the butter-side-down toast thing," says Ryan Thomas, the graphic designer who whipped up the cards and is handing them out to drivers like Halloween candy. "We don't remember the million positive things that happen when we ride. We fixate on the terrible ones."

In the lefty news site Straight Goods, our favourite cycling lawyer, Albert Koehl, weighs in on the lethal cost of automobiles. You may also know Koehl from helping to push the cycling agenda with the province, perhaps one reason why the provincial Environmental Commissioner mentioned Toronto's slow pace of bike lanes.

Darcy Allan Sheppard accomplished this year what almost 3,000 other Canadians will fail to do: get more than fleeting public attention for his death on our roads. If Sheppard's death had not occurred in downtown Toronto, in gruesome circumstances, and under the wheels of a car driven by Ontario's former top law-maker, the public would already have forgotten his name.

While the tragedy on Toronto's Bloor St. may have highlighted the frailty of the human body in conflicts with the car, the fact is occupants of cars are hardly safe from the danger on our roads.

Although cyclists are over-represented in road fatalities, the most common victims of road accidents are drivers and their passengers, comprising three quarters of all deaths. Motor vehicle occupants also count heavily among the 20,000 Canadians wounded so seriously by motor vehicles each year that they require hospital care, often for long terms.

So routine are serious traffic accidents that we more often hear about them as obstacles in the morning traffic report than in news headlines.

Cars aren't deadly just because of collisions.

I found the above illustration on the GOOD website.

According to the City of Toronto (Census) riding to work was up 32,6% between 2001 and 2006 from 1,3 to 1,7. Not bad but too slow for my likes. Wonder what the current stats might be. I think it's up despite everything we face. I am just thankful for everyone on two wheels.

Below is a graph for modal share stats for Ontario. [Editor: Toronto is at 1.7% while the second highest is Orangeville at 1.2%. Metro Toronto would be much, much higher since the burbs pull the numbers way down.]

Update: The Toronto Star has a published a map today with the percentage of commuters who ride bicycles to work, from the 2006 census