Cycling
March 10th, 2010
Anyone who doesn’t own a car, and the insurance that goes with it, is going to have fewer resources to deal with injuries if they are hit by a car, as a result of …
March 9th, 2010
The Toronto Cyclists Union is being honoured in Washington, DC today, they have been awarded the 2010 “innovation of the year” award from the US-based Alliance for Cycling and Walking. The award …
March 6th, 2010
Last month, I had the opportunity to visit Bogotá. As late as a year ago, I had never expected to visit Colombia, as it was not on my radar as an interesting - or safe - place to enjoy some time away. But a family wedding brought me here, and many of my preconceptions went out the window. The people are friendly, the countryside beautiful, and the security much improved. (It was especially nice to be so far south at a time when even the US south was suffering from a lingering cold snap.)
Bogotá, the nation’s capital and largest city (with a population of about 8 million), is also one of the world’s highest cities, with an elevation of 2600 metres. The city is spread out on a north-south axis, As Bogotá has grown, so has its transportation headaches. Like most Latin American cities (even including those with heavy-rail metro systems), the principal mode of public transit are private minibuses, which travel along all the major roads with the route posted on the windshield, merely a long list of neighbourhoods and landmarks the unscheduled service stops at.
Huge fleets of minibuses, stopping anywhere they are flagged down, aren’t exactly the most efficient mode of transport, though it can be convenient (and cheap) for passengers. Combine those buses (of varying age, upkeep and tailpipe emissions), with trucks, motorbikes, private cars and other street traffic, in a city surrounded by mountains, and you have a recipe for a smoggy, congested, mess. So the city, under the leadership of bold, clever (and sometimes near-dictatorial) city officials began to address it with a three-pronged attack: buses, bikes, and bans.
During the last decade, Bogotá took the lead of Curitba, Brasil, and began rolling out an advanced bus rapid transit system, called TransMilenio. TransMilenio solidified the Latin American tradition of high-concept BRT systems (which has been replicated in Mexico City to augment its already expansive Metro system) with a complex web of routes operating in exclusive lanes and serving fare-paid platforms in simple, modular, stations.
March 6th, 2010
A commitment through the winter.
Street Scene will appear each week showcasing the illustrations of local artist Jerry Waese.
February 22nd, 2010
Yet another press release from the Rocco Rossi camp appeared in my inbox late Friday afternoon, declaring - or more accurately, re-declaring - his outrage at the Jarvis Street bike lane, which apparently got a regulatory green light last week.
Predicting that a Jarvis bike lane will “exasperate traffic congestion” (sic), Rossi decried the decision to press ahead with a project that has spent years in the approvals process as a “clear affront to democracy and the voters of Toronto.”
A less trigger-happy candidate would surely know better than to commit this kind of nonsense to print. Why? Think ahead to Mayor Rossi’s longer-than-expected do-to list circa spring, 2014, when he’s struggling to push through the remaining items on his five-point mandate.
By the logic of his Friday statement, future opponents will get to slap Rossi around for running roughshod over the voters’ intentions. So the spin begs a question: at what point in a mandate does the ruling party or leader lose the moral authority to act? (Answer: when the mandate ends.)
Rossi is apparently trying to make Jarvis Street into the island airport of the 2010 campaign. He’s magnifying a local planning decision into a symbol of what he alleges is wrong with David Miller’s city hall, just as Miller himself positioned the bridge as a symptom of the cronyism that pervaded Mel Lastman’s regime.
February 16th, 2010
Oh oh.
Street Scene will appear each week showcasing the illustrations of local artist Jerry Waese.
February 11th, 2010
The Toronto Environmental Alliance (TEA) has published a list of key policy priorities it hopes Toronto’s mayoral candidates will endorse. Noting that Rocco Rossi’s denouncement of Transit City and bike lanes on arterials has been the only discussion on environmental issues to date, TEA executive director, Dr Franz Hartmann called on candidates to put a focus on the environment.
The group listed six priorities as essential to continuing the push towards a cleaner and healthier city. Those priorities are:
- Build Transit City and fund it
- Achieve 70% waste diversion by 2012
- Buy and support locally produced green products
- Build transportation infrastructure everyone can use
- Implement the city’s sustainable energy strategy
- Provide tool to prevent pollution
The emphasis of the priorities is to build on past initiatives and to ensure continuity of what the group calls “ten years of environmental success”. Beyond the importance of these priorities to personal and communal well-being, TEA contends that the issues are also essential to continuing Toronto’s leadership role on the environment. The city’s pesticide bylaw, which helped lead to the province wide ban, and its pollution disclosure bylaws regarding the presence of toxic substances, were cited as examples of progressive action now being studied elsewhere. “Because Toronto is the biggest city in Canada, what happens here has a big impact on the rest of the county” said Theresa McClenaghan, Executive Director of the Candian Environmental Law Association. “That’s why so many prominent environmental groups endorsed these priorities. We want to send a clear signal to all Mayoralty candidates that these priorities matter and that the next Mayor must adopt them.”
February 6th, 2010
Why is the night snow tangerine colored?
Street Scene will appear each week showcasing the illustrations of local artist Jerry Waese.
January 21st, 2010
In a lunchtime speech to the Empire Club at the Royal York today, mayoral hopeful Rocco Rossi laid out some of the key planks of his platform — promises that will likely set the tone and the dynamic of the race to come.
He vowed to cancel all future bike lanes on major arterial roads, including Jarvis Street, and complete the balance of the city’s cycling plan on residential or secondary streets. He also promised to review existing bike lanes on arterials.
As for Transit City, Rossi condemned the TTC and the city for allowing the St. Clair right-of-way to go over budget. “We can’t have another St. Clair fiasco.” He told reporters after the speech that if he’s elected, he will put all of the Transit City projects (except the Sheppard line, which is now under construction) on hold, pending a review of their projected capital and operating budget projects. Asked if he was calling for a moratorium, he initially replied, “On anything we can stop right now, yes.” Later, Rossi’s communications director Pat Best told reporters that he wants to put the projects “on hold.”
January 5th, 2010
I see people riding bikes even in snow storms.
Street Scene will appear each week showcasing the illustrations of local …
