politics

Councillor Vaughan recently sent this note out via Facebook. I've been hammering on Vaughan recently for his opposition to the separated bike lane plan (he's still not clear if he opposes the whole thing or if he just wants to protect his John pedestrianization project). I've known that Vaughan has been relatively supportive of cycling in his ward (though really how can a politician come out as anti-bike downtown?) but I still think he's making a mistake by coming out so strongly against this plan instead of working with the cycling community to come to a compromise.

Today at the Public Works and Infrastructure meeting is a request by the chair, Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong to have staff report on the proposed downtown cycle track network for the June meeting. This is basically a repeat of the request from last August, but suggests that DMW is still serious about the network.

Dave Meslin makes a pitch on why Mayor Rob Ford may not be so anti-bike. Ford made headlines with his quotes about cyclists "swimming with the sharks" and in this video which was distributed before last fall's election, Ford is quoted as saying "Cyclists are a pain in the ass".

Thanks to Tim, via Wordspy:

Sign the separated bike lanes petition if you are interested in seeing a leap forward in appropriate infrastructure for cyclists downtown. Councillor Minnan-Wong, head of the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee, had presented the idea to the media last month. It's not a done deal by any means since local Councillor Vaughan and residents need to be on side, and some public consultation is already going on to change some streets such as Richmond/Adelaide. The petition calls for pilot projects to being in 2011.

Photoshopping of Richmond bike lanes by Mez.