Community Bicycle Network

I was just about to call the City to find out what happened, when I found out that bikesharing is coming to Toronto, again. Toronto is looking for a partner to offer a bikesharing system by next year. The Request for Expressions Of Interest (REOI) was put out late last week to find companies interested in creating a system of 3000 public bikes.

I'm quite impressed with the thought that's gone into the requirements. They seem to have carefully studied other systems such as Paris' Velib and Montreal's Bixi. There will be "secure, automated self-serve parking stations" that can be easily moved. Members will use smart cards to get bikes, which they can take out for free for the first half hour. After that members pay. The bikes will be sturdy, with racks, at least three gears, and locked up at the stations located every 200 to 300m in the urban area bounded by Parkside, Broadview, Dupont and Lake Ontario. There will not be any advertising in the "public right of way". After the first year the system may be expanded to other parts of the city.

It appears that Astral Media has rejected the first offer to provide a public bike system supported through advertising. Astral Media was supposedly offered a first right of refusal because the understanding was that the public bikes were street furniture which required advertising.

Brian of Frontline Films has let me know that there's a teaser up of his sci-fi film The Cycles that was shot in Toronto - partly at CBN.

A description:

A lowly bike courier named Karen is given a package from the future, confronting her with the dilemma of what drives the universe: free will, predestination, or random chance.

The Cycles is the new short film from Toronto-based Frontline Films, directed by Brian Clement, produced by Jeff McCormack, starring Tam Best, Kelly-Marie Murtha, Robert Nolan, with Derek Chadbourne and Allan Turner.

CBN Volunteer Mark hauls a huge load of bicycles over to MEC for Bikes Without Borders.

Bixi the Montreal bikesharing system which will be launching Spring 2009, will be coming to Toronto to convince us all that Montreal knows what they are doing. Can Toronto imitate Montreal which is imitating Paris? I'm sure we can swallow our pride and do it. We did it with Nuit Blanche after all!

They are coming just after their own demonstrations around Montreal. Citizens there get a chance to try out the bikes and see how they will operate as you can see in the photo above with their bike squad (not sure if they're coming too).

They will be in Toronto on Friday, October 24, 10h00 (that's 10:00 am in French) on the south east corner of Bloor Street and Spadina Avenue (note the location change!).

The Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation (TCAT), The Clean Air Partnership & The Community Bicycle Network are proud to present:

Bikes as a public good:
What is the future of public bikes in Toronto?

There's a funny story behind this. Back in February, I was approached by the ad company JCDecaux with an offer of money if we (CBN) hosted a bikesharing forum. I accepted with eyes open - I knew that JCDecaux was just looking for angles to convince the City of Toronto to buy into their bikesharing system (a la Velib fame). But I figured that couldn't be such a bad thing and even better at least it would offer some kind of public forum where people could debate what kind of bikesharing we want in this city. The funny part is that JCDecaux gave up and took back their offer, but we (CBN and TCAT) are still going ahead with the forum, but with a Transport Canada grant.

Once in a while I take my obsession too far. Last month I decided to move all my worldly goods by bike. It started off as a fun idea, after all others have talked about doing it and still others have actually done it (even with pumpkins on their heads).

I knew it was going to be a lot of work - it was - and that it would take me a lot longer than moving by van - it did, but the decision in the end was made when the rental company insisted they wanted to charge me for two days even though I only needed it for one and they don't have a key drop-off on Sundays (are there companies like that?). So in the end it was about money, and I had a lot of time on my hands.

Things have been hopping at CBN these days. I'm sure it's busy at every bike shop, including the other community recycling/workshop places like the Bike Pirates, Bikechain and West End Bike Club. This has been CBN's first year of running a recycled bike shop with an expanded range of mechanic courses (Wednesday nights and Wenches with Wrenches). We've been mentioned in the Toronto Star and CityTV with the hullabaloo around the strike, saying that we've got lots of yellow Bikeshare bikes for rent ($10 per day if you're interested). We're also distributing the Momentum Magazine, so if you're interested in being a drop-off location, talk to us.

We've got two staff who are busy coordinating volunteers; others are leading workshops; sourcing donated bikes; selling recycled bikes; giving advice to do-it-yourselfers on fixing their own bikes; and just fixing up bikes.

From yesterday's Globe and Mail:

"About 30 well-bundled cyclists and a handful of police joined Councillor Adrian Heaps, chairman of city council's cycling committee, yesterday to brave frigid air and warnings of heavy wind gusts of a campaign to promote winter cycling. The ride from City Hall to Metro Hall - billed the 'Coldest Day of the Year Ride' - attracted hardy souls such as Smokey Dymny and his Dutch-designed 'long john' cargo bike. While Mr. Heaps has spearheaded plans to speed up the painting of bike lanes, Toronto has lower rates of year-round cycling than some other cities with similar or worse climates."

Smokey, staffperson of the Community Bicycle Network, bundled up on CBN's "long john" bike and decorated it with a pair of long johns for a flag (in case you can't figure out what's flying in front of him).

In an interesting segue, the Crime Stoppers cops visited CBN to help encourage cyclists to register their bikes with their online registration service. They put a video up featuring Smokey and CBN talking about registering their bikes and also about what CBN does. Smokey mentions that he's going to wear a pair of long johns and ride the long john.