Thursday, November 30, 2006

Who cares about the future...


Especially if you are way too old to be part of it and too pig headed to listen to the people.
''When the roads were established in Mississauga, they were not established on the basis of bicycle lanes. The roads were built for cars and trucks,'' she said.... Ms. McCallion said the petition to add bicycle lanes will be given its due consideration, but no traffic lanes will be lost to include cycling commuters."Matthew Coutts, National Post

Published: Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Get your move on?

Mayor Miller asks Torontonians "How Do You Get Your Move On?"
TORONTO, Nov. 30 /CNW/ - The "How Do You Get Your Move On?"
media
campaign is being launched this week with print advertising and a series of Public Service Announcements (PSAs) to air on Rogers OMNI Television in four languages, Farsi, Mandarin, Spanish and Tamil, in addition to English. The PSA features a cycling Mayor David Miller, Honorary Chair of Toronto's Get Your Move On (GYMO) initiative, encouraging everyone to join him in being physically active. "I'm pleased to be able to join leaders from health, recreation, and corporate sectors as well as others to take action on an important issue for the health and vitality of our city," the Mayor said. The media campaign promotes the GYMO website and phone line where people can get information about thousands of physical activity opportunities in Toronto, as well as multilingual physical activity resources. Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd., owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors and a lead member of Get Your Move On, is showing the PSA on Air Canada Centre's Jumbotron and airing it on Leafs TV and Raptors NBA TV. The PSA will also be streamed on the YMCA of Greater Toronto website, another key GYMO partner. "Get Your Move On is connecting Toronto to opportunities for healthy, active living," said Scott Haldane, President and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Toronto and co-chair of the initiative. "Children, youth, and adults of all ages and backgrounds need to move more." In 2004, leaders in the public, voluntary and private sectors started Get Your Move On to address epidemic levels of physical inactivity by making it easy for people to be active, any time, any place. "Get Your Move On is about reducing barriers so everyone can become healthier," said Dr. David McKeown, Toronto's Medical Officer of Health. "Reaching people in many languages is fundamental to the campaign." "We applaud GYMO for creating an inclusive campaign that recognizes the importance of extending its message to local ethnocultural communities in their language of comfort," said Madeline Ziniak, vice president and station manager of Rogers OMNI Television. Funding for the GYMO PSAs was provided by OMNI Television's Public Service Announcement Production Fund, which supports local community groups and helps ensure the accessibility of important public information to third language communities. Alison Duke of Goldelox Productions and Susan Nation of Tween Entertainment were responsible for creation and production of the PSAs, working in association with the GYMO Public Awareness Action Group. For more information and to view the PSAs, visit the Get Your Move On website.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Bicycles say goodnight to Vancouver's new buses

CP24 is reporting that Vancouver's new fleet of buses have a serious design flaw. When a bicycle is mounted in the bike rack they cover the buses headlights. Cyclists can no longer use the bike racks at night. Have not found any photos of the offending buses but this link contains photos of every bus used in Vancouver. There seem to be a couple of possible culprits. http://trans-vancouver.fotopic.net

What is great to note here is that every bus pictured has a rack.

Cmass November 2006


More Photos

Friday, November 24, 2006

Online Canadian Cycling Petition Explodes

Chris from Tucorides is on to something. Seems to me that after being shafted by our elected leaders year after year and I dare say punished for choosing a bicycle to get around, people have had enough.

You can have your say here by signing the petition for giving cyclists and cycling a fair deal in Canada. Thank you.

Stencil Art by Janet Attard

Bike Friday On A Beautiful Morning

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Cycle Messenger World Championships 2008

Back in 1995, bike couriers of Toronto hosted about 500 messengers from some 18 countries over three days in the Liberty Village neighbourhood at the 3rd Cycle Messenger World Championships. Since then, the CMWC has been held in places like Barcelona, Budapest, Sydney, San Francisco, NY and DC. In 2008, the XVIth edition of the CMWC returns to Toronto, probably on June 14 and 15, and quite likely on the Toronto Islands. The organizing committee is already looking for submissions for the event logo. If you want more info, email cmwcto@hotmail.com.

(Photo: World Champ 2005 - Simone from Toronto)

Safe streets?

"But today we are partisans for the same cause: reclaiming safe streets and safe communities for all Canadians." - PM Harper in the Toronto Star
When will "safe streets" also mean the ability to use a crosswalk and not get run down by a hit-and-run driver as in the story that appears next to this one on-line? What about being protected from the number of whack jobs that use their cars as weapons every day in this city?

Speed Bandits - Dealing with Speeders Danish Style


With apologies to all women.

Critical Mass This Friday

Double Trouble on College

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Glue?

I have heard a rumour that someone near Queen and Dufferin has glued a car to the road. Apparently a neighbour was upset that the driver kept parking on the sidewalk so they glued the wheels to the road/sidewalk. I do not know if this is for real or a PR stunt and would really like to see some pics. Anyone?

The Two Wheeled Time Machine

Monday, November 20, 2006

The Other Car Free Day



Yonge Street. Before the Santa Claus Parade. Stencil via Maya's World Of Stencils

The Welcoming Mat


In front of the Bike Clinic on Harbord. Vinnie told me he just asked the guys to paint him one while they were working on the Harbord bike lane extension.

Nice!
I am jealous.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Friday, November 17, 2006

Critical Mass - Toronto Bike Messenger Doc


PART ONE


PART TWO Excellent Film!

Night Ride 2 - Too much rain


These photos are dedicated to fellow Cycling Photographers
Gwadzilla, Nicomachus, Vic Gedris and Darren Stehr.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Stand up!


Polite 'foreign' woman kicks cars out of bike lanes in Beijing.

One of the best examples of corking I have ever seen. Make sure you check out the rest of the images. (link below)

Thanks to Steeker for the news tip.


Via EastSouthWestNorth.
Update: The driver who threw her bike down later apologized publicly!

Honk if you want Bike Lanes



Fine article in NOW today.

More great thinking in Spacing

All I have to say to the folks at City Hall is this:

"No guts, no glory."

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Imagine

Cycling Blog News Sources



Blognetlife

Cycling Cog

Vic Gedris News Aggregator



Stencil by Janet Attard.

Four More Years


Art by Erwin Wurm


Holding my breath,

Martino

For the record: Mayor Miller


"I’ve always been a strong believer that bicycling is an essential part of Toronto’s transportation strategy. That’s why we have developed the Toronto Bike Plan which is a comprehensive cycling promotion strategy encompassing: bicycle friendly streets, a bikeway network, safety and education, bike parking, and promotion of combining cycling and transit.

One of the keys to promoting cycling is to give people a safe place to ride. Currently, Toronto has 90 KM of bike lanes, and the Bike Plan calls for 1000 KM to be built by 2011.

Under my leadership, the City of Toronto has aggressively promoted cycling as not just a method of transportation, but a way of life. Every year, I launch Bike Week which is a week-long series of events that promotes biking around Toronto. The City also issues a cycling newsletter, encourages residents to form local cycling committees, and has launched the “door prize” campaign to educated motorists and taxi drivers about the need to check for cyclists.

We’ve started a number of pilot projects -like putting bike racks on the front of buses, and increasing the amount of transit parking in front of subway stations - to encourage people to combine cycling with transit. In fact, next year the bicycle infrastructure budget will double to $ 6.2 million. For as long as I am Mayor of Toronto we will continue to pursue an aggressive bicycle promotion strategy.

When we talk about funding issues it is important to note the context in which they occur. Toronto has more people than Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut put together – and yet we lack the powers and funding sources of even the smallest of these jurisdictions.

Toronto lacks support in critical areas. For example, in 2006 alone, the cost of delivering programs that the province once provided -- such as social services, the Ontario Drug Plan, affordable housing and transit -- cost the city an astonishing $731 million.

A recent Conference Board of Canada study determined that Toronto is underfunded by $1.1 billion a year. This is counter-productive – for our citizens, for our city and for our nation.

To unleash Toronto’s true economic potential and compete with the world’s greatest cities, I argue that just a small portion of the vast wealth Toronto generates for Canada should be invested back into the city."

Via the survey conducted by TCAT

Monday, November 13, 2006

Bye Bye Ootes! Wait, Welcome back?



Via Spacing
Great article about Case Ootes by Tammy Thorne!

Stunner: Ootes wins by 20 votes.

I could not help myself but take a final look at the polls. Ootes wins by 20 votes. It was such a close race. Well on the positive side the Mayor has someone to blame for all of his shortcomings. 1127pm - maybe a recount?

At 1050pm Ootes was still losing by 183 votes with two polls unaccounted for. So it is hard to know the outcome at this point. I do not want to jinx anything now so will have to wait till morning for the outcome. Overall, what a lame election.

At 835pm Ootes is losing by 18 votes, or .17% of the vote. Could this be the end? CityTV for some reason has him as winning by a mile. 4 Pollling stations left.

858pm Ootes now losing by 180 votes.

936pm Ootes losing by 183 votes.

Giambrone returns as councillor.

Adam Vaughan elected in Olivia Chow's ward. While Ms.Chow was a great councillor she was a poor friend to cyclists. Good news that her hand picked candidate goes down in defeat.

Two Bikes, Two Votes, One Hope



Reality Check


Just Talk