Dandyhorse Release Force

The third convening of the Dandyhorse Super Corps took place tonight at the Gladstone of Solitude.

Ms. Laser did a great job as MC.


More people with laser vision showed up too.


And rounding out the roster of superheroes, for variety I suppose, some folks with plasma vision showed up. All in all, it was quite a glowey eyed evening.

Fun was had by all.

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.

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.

A Movie Theatre is not a Dance Hall

Last night I went to see a movie in Theatre 1 of the Scotiabank Theatre at 10:15. Throughout the entire movie there was a bass dance music beat. This was especially noticeable and disruptive during the more quiet scenes.

It's really annoying paying $12.50 to see a movie, only to find that the theatre isn't very well sound proofed. The management of the cinema should either invest in a proper sound proofing, or not show movies in that particular theatre so late at night.

Image from Raptortheangel.

Car Free Day 2008

Video from today's incredible car free day parade on Queen West. The critical mass ride was smaller than usual, but still a lot of fun. There were lots of newbies.

Antidote for Igorosis

I'm in agreement with TorontoCranks that something fishy was going on with Igor. Theories are abounding. For my money, the most convincing arguments are

1. He was involved with organized crime, and
   
2. He was selling bikes at a loss to attract junkies to buy his drugs

In any case, renting a series of garages to store stolen bikes in perpetuity is a money losing proposition unless there is something else going on.

There is definitely more going on than has been reported so far, and it is a bit unsettling.
photo lifted from eyeteeth

I read a nice story on the opposite side of the coin, where some law enforcement officials (presuming that security guards count) replaced a kids bike that was stolen on their watch. Maybe the Toronto Police should be doing this! Read on:

But then on Saturday, we got a call from the library: "We've got Seven's bike." A quick drive, all high-fives and woo-hoos, and we were at the Central Library to fetch the prodigal bike.

Only it wasn't the one that had been taken: it was a new Schwinn BMX bike, just his height   and paid for out-of-pocket by several of the guards.

Car Ad in a Gallery

The Edward Day gallery on Queen West seems to have turned itself into a showroom for automobiles. This is poor form for a gallery. They have not only sold away their credibility by displaying the cars, but went so far as having screens playing ads and having marketing materials available.







These are some of the negative comments from the graffiti wall that took the place of a comments booklet. Strangely, most of the comments were either positive, ambiguous, or unrelated.