Bike lane fight on Annette

Is there a recall process for city councilors? Is there a way to remove a councillor from office once voted in in order to elect a new councillor?

In a very real way TorontoCranks has, unfortunately, hit this nail square over the head. No matter who "wins" the losing side has a built-in scapegoat -- the other councillor. And the battle lines were drawn in the worng place to begin with, while the same people who are supposed to be helping on on both sides were instead fueling this fire for political gain.

Thnaks for nothing, Saundercook & Heaps.

I like to play chess, but I don't like that that cyclists lives are, or that my life is, merely expendible pawns in someone else's chess game.

Do you?

Saundercook & Heaps, I hope you feel good about this, and can sleep at night. I can't -- I worry which business owner can afford the $110 fee for my murder to stop me from advocating for bike lanes.

The City Council agenda where the Annette Street bike lanes wil have the final decision is now online with over 115 names of people who made submissions.

This is AWSOME! -- and I hope that it will be enough.

The meeting is not until the 29th, so there's still a bit more time to make a submission. As there's some protocol for doing this, you'll need to follow the directions and the mail link found at http://world19.com/annette_htm.htm

Re: http://www.thestar.com/article/523510 (Ideas, pages ID4, ID5)

On Saturday the Toronto Star was doing it's best to make cyclists look like a bunch of nutters, not the least of which was putting the Annette bike lane article on the same page with this one:

http://www.thestar.com/Article/523511 (Ideas, pages ID4, ID5)

The only benign cycling entry in Saturday's Star was the BIXI picture in the front section (page A6).

I'm not surprised; the Star is bankrolled by the Auto Industry and that's why the Allderblob calls the paper the Toronto Star And Car Advertiser.

News papers sell conflict, and will gladly add fuel to any controversy to obtain a fire. This is why the Star chose to use the title “The latest skirmish in the bike lane wars." And why they even chose to publish the article at all. It seems that when the bike lanes don't, or aren't likely to go in there's no news, regardless of the amount of wound liking that the cyclists are (too often, literally) doing. But when cyclists seem to be gaining ground, it warrants a page and a half spread.

I am also amused by the comments chosen, including the one that states that cyclists are "well organized" with websites (like this one) that urge like minded people to write their councillors. Perhaps we are getting better organized, and if so, then it's bloody well about time.

And the comments about how "Annette, for some reason, has become the poster boy for bike lane battlegrounds." are odd. Perhaps some of the cyclists in the city feel that way, but most of us just want a coherent network to ride on. Annette is not where we have to "win this battleground at all costs," but there are many cyclists who have admitted to me that they see this battle as one that could get cyclists and their needs finally noticed at city hall. But I'm not sure if the majority feel that way.

Far more precious ink is dedicated to the side of stopping the bike lanes in the article, including this passage:

"The city isn't homogeneous," Harasymowycz says. "The neighbourhoods are unique. That plan – because it's drawn in terms of looking at the city from an overall, global view – does not address local issues and local concerns."

As this issue has come before the community and Public Works twice, once for all of Annette and once for this segment, and seeing as how the majority of local residents who have been involved have sided with bike lanes, the community itself seems to want the bike lanes, and not have one the poorer options that were tabled. But cyclists are also not a homogenous group, and the discussions that occur here prove that. Some cyclists don't believe in bike lanes, and others would have preferred a detour of the busier Annette on to a quieter road. But that the paper should support the accusation that the community does not want the bike lanes is unfair to the many people in the community who have already invested their time to come out to the public meetings and take time off of work to attend the Public Works committee and prove that the community does want these lanes.

The Star's unfairness and accusations towards cyclists does not end there! The article further provides that quote that "Cyclists want too much" as well as the usual complaints about cyclists running red lights, don't signal etc. In fact the only complaint not raised was about riding on sidewalks as that's a good reason to put bike lanes in! Also brought up was that cyclists don't ride in the winter (we don't?) and that Saudercook’s proposal is a great compromise.

Let's be clear, the guilt of disobeying the laws of the road is not only on the shoulders of cyclists. All road users share this burden; red-light cameras are not installed to catch cyclists or pedestrians running red lights, but motorists. I have not been the first to wonder out loud if Honda (or other car makers) charges a large price for "optional" signal lights. And pedestrians have no burden to signal their intentions, which is why I walk into so many when walking on sidewalks. This is a red herring argument meant to vilify "the other."

And as for cyclists wanting too much, that might be true, but only because we have so little. We have far too little space on the roads, too little right to use these public roads in the minds of far too many motorists, we have too little to show for the current bike plan, as well as for bike plans past.

The innuendoes that this is not what the community wants continues with the explanation of why approvals were taken away from community councils and placed in the committee of Public Works, and the explanation that the bike plan and bike policies are part of a city wide initiative. With words like "distinctive neighbourhoods" and "microcosm" you'd think that the city was trying to impose the bike lanes on the unwilling, which is far from the case.

With another quote the article further goes on to say that the city is "..only starting to take cycling seriously," but it seems that this may be true only for the same for reason that this very article was written, because bike lanes challenge the supremacy of parking, and therefore the supremacy of the car.

Which is to say that the unstated purpose article is in to defend of the car. While Christopher Hume and the fixer might lament about the abuses the car has wreaked on our urban form, the rest of the Star knows which side it's bread is buttered on. The motoring industry is directly, and indirectly, the main advertisers of the paper. This is not the first article to complain about the city's war on the car, and it won't be the last. And while it is nice to see articles about cycling in the paper, articles like this are not at all helpful for cyclists.

Of course any cyclist will be able to tell you that a bike lane does not dethrone the supremacy of the car on the road just because of a few feet for a cyclist with the protection a white line of paint provides. But it does slow some drivers down, and it does make parking a car a little bit less convenient.

Notice that mention of the safety and comfort of cyclists is not the focus of the article, nor is accommodating the increasing numbers of cyclists the subject of the article, nor is the subject about the environmental and health costs that cars on our roads have, and that should be judged. Notice that the only families mentioned are the ones without parking in front of their home. But what of families, like mine, that do use their bikes? What of the deaths, serious injuries, asthma, and other diseases that we tolerate because of the car. But the story here is the bikes and the bikes lanes that are to be vilified, accused of being that "other" who comes in and imposes these inconveniences on our unsuspecting communities.

This article now proudly lines the bottom of my birdcage. And it is just one example of why my subscription went from daily to just Saturdays. And at this rate I may not have reason to renew it.

And I just noticed this article:
http://torontoist.com/2008/10/annette_street_bike_lanes_again.php

Great points, Anthony.
Once in a while the Star will tie in cycling with the environment or improving our health but 95% of the time it's a big love affair with the car.

I like the last line of the article and the comment made by Cyndy Lou Abel, the owner of Lou's Coffee Bar on Annette.
"I don't have a problem with bike lanes," she says softly after closing up shop. "I think people just have to realize, even though Toronto was built for cars, things have to change."

I'll stop in and buy a coffee there.

Annette will be decided at Council today or tomorrow. You can "watch" the status of this by using the city's meeting monitor
Which is where I found this particularly interesting line about Annette St:
Communications PW19.8.16 to PW19.8.196 have been submitted on this Item
Which I interpret to mean that 180 pieces of communications were received by the clerk's office.

Two mentions on Annette in today's news:

Councillor fears '500-kilometre discussion' over 700 metres of bicycle lanes (John Barber, Globe and Mail)

More than bike lanes at stake (Chris Holcroft, Toronto Star)

Communications PW19.8.16 to PW19.8.211 have been submitted on this Item, or 195 written submissions have been received on this item.

We should be finding out today how this turns out...

8:00p -- Annette has still not come up

Council has voted to extend tonight's session to complete the agenda.
http://app.toronto.ca/tmmismonitor/index.do

Councillor Heaps put forward an amended motion to install the full bike lanes on Annette between Jane and Runnymede.

Miller spoke, and he indicated that he was going to be voting for the full bike lanes right away, but wanted to make sure that the OTHER motion, the one put forward by Saundercook via Grimes, would default to bike lanes in two years. That is to say that our good Mayor was trying to assure cyclists that Saundercook's actions would be better than his word.

Councillors Palacio (ward 17), Perks, (Ward 14) and Giambrone (Ward 18) spoke out to support Heap's amendment. Giambrone's speach was, however, weak. Perks' speech was the best of all that I heard speak.

Predictably Saundercook spoke against Heaps' amendment and defended his own motion, and he was followed with the vocal support of Councillor Parker (Ward 26), that is to say he merely fulminates incoherently.

I tuned in a bit too late, and I missed what Heaps said on the Issue. But I'm sure it was good. ;-)

So at 8:30pm we now know that we are getting the bike lanes on Annette, just as soon as it possible to do so.

Next we have get ready to fight for the next 400km. We can only hope that our fights will not be for every 700 metres along the way!!

Thanks for the update Anthony. I didn't think they would get to the item at all so your post made my day. I'll be having sweet dreams tonight.