Bike Lane Diary

More information.
Fantastic stencil art!
Time: 12-6 PM. Friday, June 1st. - 401 Richmond St. West Studio S26 (basement) - Richmond and Spadina
Local Artist Janet Attard invites the public to visit her studio in the beautiful and vibrant arts community of 401 Richmond. Janet's primary medium is stencilling, she works thematically exploring cycling imagery and culture.
for more info. please contact janetbikegirl@yahoo.ca

Stretches all the way from Spadina to Bathurst (North Side). Nice and wide too.
Read the cool article on BlogTO today.

Brought to you by the Urban Repair Squad.

BLD's top scientist wanted a first hand look at road conditions. He managed to fall asleep within the first 90 seconds of the half-hour trip. Nothing could wake him up. Accordingly he had few observations to make.

Memorial by Jordan Lyndel with help from other artists. Located at Wallace and Campbell in front of Yasi's Place. A white ribbon for every Toronto Cyclist killed in traffic since 1996 was added to the installation in their memory. Jordan would like to encourage all to add a ribbon for other fallen cyclists.

In heaven, everyone rides a bicycle.

We had multiple sightings of Tino on Friday during Critical Mass. One was spotted riding CM while another was spotted drinking at a patio. Yet another still was reported in the Jane 401 area on a personal matter. We have analyzed the last few postings signed by Tino and our typing experts have determined it is an impostor. Here is a pic of one of the impostors. Notice he has tried to conceal his evil eyes.

Photo by Darren Stehr! Many more great pics here on his cool site TorontoCranks. Looked like well over 200 riders...

BLD investigators were dispatched last night in the ongoing search for Tino. The public wants to know, "Where is Tino?","Has he been abducted?", "What are they doing with him?", "Will he be the same when they are done?"

For the record, taken Thursday Jane just south of Lawrence.

Taken at the Bike Joint, Toronto's best repair.

Here is some "rear cam" video (sounds pornographic almost, trust me not that exciting) of Pharmacy and Eglinton Ave. I wanted to get an idea of how close cars pass a cyclist, something generally I do not want to think about. The test kinda of failed. It is hard to get a perspective of close they really get. The first two cars (when the zoom was set wrong), less than 5 minutes into the ride, passed with less than ten centimetres of space. Few of the other cars got that close but it was hard to tell in the video. I rode about a metre away from the curb at all times. The road was really rough in spots, that is where the camera loses focus, requiring me to go further out. The rig that passes me at the end looks like it gave me lots of room, check out how the road changes as he is passing. Having a cyclist in view helps with perspective.

The video of the 3 lane road is Eglinton. It should be noted that the Diamond Lane was in effect (rush hour), very few of the cars adhered to the sign.

Will continue to experiment with different perspectives and traffic volumes.

04/22 Urge caution in use. Tried this on a driver for opinion only, they were not parked in the bike lane. Nearly went balistic.

A PDF of this should be available soon.

Tips For Cyclists - video powered by Metacafe
by Brent Curry (Bicycle Forest)

Two-year-old Ethan was given a map of Toronto and a marker. He was then asked to design a bike route. Within seconds he drew a line from one end of the map to the other, closely corresponding to the proposed Bloor Danforth bike lane. BLD experts declared the route genius, it is direct and does not look like it was drawn by overpaid city staff who cannot draw straight lines.

Thanks Wendy, Brad, Jun and Scott for the ride.

Every Friday, meet entrance of High Park and Bloor 8 a.m.

The City of Toronto has agreed to undertake yet another study. The Toronto Cycling Committee will have been in hiatus for almost 9 months when it starts up again in July 2007. The City will be asking cyclists if they have noticed any difference in the quality of life on the road between this period and the same period last year when the TCC was active. Most bets have it that cyclist will overwhelmingly respond "no".

Detroit Bikes! to Work this Friday, May 18th
Celebrate National Bike to Work Day in Detroit with our 2nd Annual Woodward Avenue event. A perfect end to National Transit Week in Detroit, participate in a viable means of transit, a healthy and productive activity, and a event that builds community pride wh! ile on your way to work. Experienced Cyclists and Casual Friday co-workers welcome. Free T-shirts to be distributed at the beginning and end of the ride. Special giveaway items to be handed out at the Cultural Center Station.

Click here for details. (Thanks Matt!)

Scarborough councillor heading up revitalized cycling committee
Via Inside Toronto May. 17, 2007

The city's bike plan is still "behind the eight ball" according to the new chair of Toronto's cycling committee who hopes to play a key role in getting that plan back in gear.
"I look at cycling as being an integral part of the transportation network. We're not going to build any new roads, but we can certainly do a lot to our existing roads," said Ward 35 (Scarborough Southwest) Councillor Adrian Heaps, who will head up the revitalized committee.

"We have 27 kilometres (of bikeways) that we'll be putting in for 2007. That'll be happening. It still puts us behind the eight ball, but in 2008 and beyond ... it's going to be far more aggressive," he said.

City councillors were criticized throughout the budget process this year for failing to make significant progress in delivering the cycling infrastructure called for in the 10-year plan.

The proposed network, which is slated for completion in 2012, calls for approximately 1,000 kilometres of bikeways including 495 kilometres of bike lanes; 249 kilometres of off-road bike paths and 260 kilometres of signed routes.

Heaps reported that four new staff members will join transportation services this summer to work on designing and implementing bike lanes and paths across the city.

"It really takes us into a planning stage this year," said Heaps who has a few ideas of his own about ways to encouraging cycling in the city.

"I think one of the biggest deterrents is not wanting to cycle without having facilities. Who wants to cycle without having the ability to change somewhere? So that's the biggest thing," he said. "So we're trying to work on things. We're talking to hotels and fitness clubs about a sort of shower pass ... just trying to get the resisters out of there."

Heaps is also hoping to revive the city's Bike Share program.

"I think there were about 150 bicycles they were using. Basically you could pick up a bike at point A and drop it off at point B ... just like car share and that program died, I don't know why. I'm going to revive it," he said, adding, "I'm trying to set it up with the hotels downtown and use it for tourists. Instead of the concierge sending you to some Spadina bicycle shop, you take a bike from there and you can drop it off at another hotel."

As for the future of the bikeway network, Heaps said he'll do what he can to ensure it keeps moving.

"There is some resistance from certain councillors about bike lanes in their ward and there's two ways we can approach it; one is to spend years and years trying to work with those councillors or we go with the path of least resistance, which is what I'm trying to do now," he said.

Although bike lanes aren't necessary on every route, Heaps noted the idea is to "delineate clearly for people driving on high traffic routes that this is also a route for bicycles as well so you've got to respect it.

"Cyclists don't own the road, but we certainly have a right to be on it. There's probably a bit of unintentional tension that goes on between cyclists and cars; they're as much a part of the transportation network as anyone else," he said.

Heaps, who regularly cycles to city hall, will launch Bike Week 2007 on May 28.

Big thank you to all who rode in their memory despite the rainy weather.

A concrete slab fell from First Canadian Place on Tuesday night causing concern that more might fall in the expected bad weather over the next few days. While some roads in the immediate vicinity are closed to all traffic, Bay St northbound is only closed to cars. There is a fear that a slab may fall on a car and injure it. Bay St northbound remains open to pedestrians.

by Renato Machado (Brasil)

Illustration by
Frederico Oliva e Hugo Oliveira

via Apocalipse Motorizado

(snip) "Death and injury on the roads is the world’s most neglected public health issue. Almost as many people die in road accidents – 1.2 million a year – as are killed by malaria or tuberculosis. Around 50 million are injured. Some 85% of these accidents take place in developing countries. The poor get hurt much more often than the rich, as they walk or cycle or travel in overloaded buses. The highest death rate is among children walking on the roads.
The annual economic cost to developing countries, in lost productivity alone, is $65-100bn: roughly the same as the amount they receive in foreign aid. I caught a glimpse of the human cost when I was hospitalised in northern Kenya. Some of the men on the ward had bullet or axe wounds inflicted in tribal wars; others were dying of AIDS; but over half the patients had been smashed up in road accidents. They could not afford good painkillers, and sobbed and screamed through the night. It looked like a scene from the First World War ..."
Full Article

Meanwhile, hey, it's Canada Road Safety Week

The master of spin, David Miller, has come up with an innovative new term for a study. This breaking new ground in a City where studies are notorious for meaning they intend to do nothing. Citizens will now have a website to see how much they are polluting. This should provide Mayor Miller the ability to do nothing about pollution, while claiming he is, until the next election.


In other news, the Mayor has ordered that Toronto's official flag be changed to a condom. He believes this will prevent the electorate from feeling screwed by City Hall.

Wednesday May 16th
Bloor & Spadina 7:00 p.m. sharp. Rain or shine.

More info here

Please come and ride with us in memory of those we have lost.
Facebook event listing.

Curbside Bicycles on Bloor

Take the Tooker

Ride! Friday May 25th
Start: 5:30 p.m :: Ends: 6:30 p.m.

West-end start at High Park's main entrance.
East-end at the Cambridge Ave. Park by the Viaduct.

Mayor Miller's comments in the Toronto Star has provoked a fierce argument between noted economist Stanley Wakennut and lobotomist Dr. Earl Brickshort. Both put convincing arguments forward as to why Mayor Miller fails to mention cycling as a non polluting alternative. Wakennut claims the Mayor realizes that without cars he would lose revenue tool. Brickshort claims that a recently lobotomy he performed on the Mayor has wiped the word 'bicycle' from his memory.

"It's a really powerful tool because people want to do the right thing, and government's role is to show them how."

Miller said the program will help people form carpools and perhaps even form a solar power co-operative, as some Toronto groups already are doing."

Might go nice with biketrain.ca...

Very nice read, recommended.
Ours could use a face lift, eh?

Via Streetsblog

Full story

More on Spacing /BlogTO/Torontoist

The driver was a cop on leave and has been formally charged.

"Past the drunk woman reeling with her bag of provisions. Down through the tunnel with the stink-fuming bus. On to the bike path where it's something like freedom and the wind in my earring whispers, trust what you must"
-Bruce Cockburn 'The Beat'-

This just in. Reports surfacing that the Mayor created a new Green Plan this morning. During his morning meeting he sneezed into a tissue and turned to advisers and exclaimed, "Look a new Green Plan! Better than the last one".