George Smitherman and Rocco Rossi, the Cycling Antagonists"

That wasn't so bad

A small bag of garbage easily fits on my bike trailer. The process of dropping off the garbage at Christie Pitts took about 20 seconds. I could go on like this indefinitely. Who's a baby now, Windsor?

Outdoor workers strike announced

Surely everyone knows that the outdoor workers strike has been announced. Here's a map I've put together of the garbage drop-off locations:


View Garbage Drop Offs in a larger map

We should probably all hook up our bike trailers and help those who will have problems disposing of their detritus.

West End Bikeways plan moving forward

The map above was put together by Joe at Biking Toronto. He has a great post with the full list of proposed bike lanes, with an excellent google map, that the above is cropped from, which shows the proposals for the whole city.

So it looks like the city is going to go ahead with some bike lanes in the west end.

This comes after the consultations that they held regarding the issue. As usual, the plans aren't breath taking (What about the College/Harbord routes abruptly ending?), but it looks pretty good.

For me the most useful thing will be the contraflow bike lanes heading west from Trinity Belwoods.

The Solution to the Parking Problem

While looking up images for my last post, I found this. This is clearly the solution to the destructible post and ring problem.

Photo by Auntie P.

Post and ring process

A few weeks back, I faxed in a post and ring request form. I live on a block with a bike shop, a coffee shop, some other stores, and 3 post and rings. I generally have at least one side of one of these in use. It's a good spot for more post and rings.

I hadn't heard back from the city, so I Pedestrian and Cycling Infrastructure Unit at city hall a ring. The line is set up so that you can only leave a message, so I did so. I heard back from someone there within a couple of business days. He said that there is a backlog on post and ring installation because they found out how easy they are to break. He said that there had been several requests from my block, and that it was possible that they'd be installed this year.

A week later I got a letter in the mail that said about the same thing as what I was told on the phone.

The process seems to be pretty smooth, but slow.

Post and Ring image by Richard Drdul.

West End Bikeways Meeting # 2

The second meeting of the West End Bikeways planning was tonight. This was a follow up to the Original meeting in November, which sought public consultation for bike routes that would be easy to get approved politically.

This meant that the usefulness of any new infrastructure would be limited. People weren't happy with this, but cyclists are used to compromising with local merchants and City Hall. The most desired bike infrastructure in Toronto is a new major east - west route on the west end. Take The Tooker and Bells on Bloor have shown that a Bloor street bike lane would be very popular with cyclists, and there was a lot of noise at the first meeting about a Queen West bike lane. These two bike lanes would also be the hardest to get put in politically.

Since neither of these things will happen in 2009, the idea of sharrows on College St. west of Euclid is quite tantalizing. Nobody really likes sharrows, but as more of them are woven into the urban fabric they should become more accepted and useful. Currently College goes from being a half decent bike lane to being some of the worst Toronto cycling has to offer: being forced to ride in the door zone next to a street car track and busy traffic. If anything can be done to improve that, it would be great.

Letter to Adrian Heaps re Snow in Bike Lanes

It has been quite an ordeal biking to work this year. The extreme cold is a serious deterrent. Being outside in -20 windchill is painful for any exposed skin.

Another serious problem is that the bike lanes haven't been cleared of snow again this year. I have noticed this on College, St. George and Harbord. For a cyclist, there are two options for dealing with the snowy lanes:

1. One could ride through the 1" - 2" of ice, snow and slush that is in most of the bike lanes. This is a laborious way to get around. The snow has the consistency of smooth peanut butter; it coats your wheels and greatly increases rolling resistance. The dirty snow on the tire generally flies off in all directions, doing it's best to create a mess of the bike and the rider's clothes.
2. One could ride farther into traffic. This is great when there are no cars around, but an alarmingly high portion of the motorist population is hostile to having a bike come out into "their lane." Hostile drivers will often pass cyclists and leave very little margin for error (often less than a foot). This is dangerous behaviour, especially so in the winter when it's possible for a cyclist to hit a block of ice and travel that distance sideways with little notice.

The obvious solution to the problem is to keep the bike lanes cleared of snow. One of the committees at city hall said last year that a better job would be done keeping the bike lanes cleared. Of course, it's not happening. Because of this, I decided to send an email to the head of cycling affairs at city hall, Adrian Heaps:

Hello, Councillor Heaps,

Biking to work recently has not been very easy due to the large amount of snow in the bike lanes on Harbord, College, and St. George. I understood that more effort was going to be put into keeping these lanes cleared this year.

Would you please see what can be done about having the bike lanes around town cleared?

Thanks,

We'll have to see if the letter makes any difference. I haven't had any luck with these in the past.

The image of a snowy bike lane is from BikePortland.org.

Thoughts After Bike Union Volunteer Orientation

The newly formed Toronto Cyclists Union had a volunteer orientation meeting last night. It was an informative experience. They are looking for volunteers in two roles:

1. Outreach
2. Bike Valet

I signed up to do some valet duties at the upcoming criterium race, as my outreach capabilities would be more of a detriment than a feather in the union's cap. The meeting mostly focused on techniques dealing with (mostly antagonistic or lonely) members of the public. It should be fun, and I hope they are able to influence council enough that their Paint the Plan campaign is a success.

I was a bit concerned that the first campaign of the union was determined non-democratically, before any significant number of members have joined. I agree that it is important to start with a focus, and that the Paint the Plan campaign is a good goal, but it seems strange that a supposedly member driven organization did not let the members decide the first campaign. We'll have to wait and see how the focus of the union changes with time.

Hopefully the cyclists union will be a success and we will see cycling treated as a valid form of transportation by the municipal government.

Bring the Nanny State Noise

I think that left turns for cars should be abolished.

The fuel savings would be astronomical. It is strange to think that going around the block uses less fuel. That probably means going around is faster a lot of the time too.

There should be wide ranging restrictions on the rights that cars are given. I see no reason for the city to offer parking, or allow idling, or allow cars on certain streets. The more that cars are restricted, the less attractive of a transit option that they will be.

I have no problem with the government restricting what cars are allowed to do. I figure if you want freedom, then you should ride a bike or walk. To be the most free, take the TTC.