Skip to content

Spacing

Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

Headlines

Monday’s headlines

By

Read more articles by

CYCLING IN THE CITY
• Bicycle helmets, licensing pushed [ Toronto Sun ]
• Adult cyclists should carry licences and wear helmets: councillor [ National Post ]
• Why is that cyclist in my lane? Here’s the answer [ Toronto Star ]
• Follow rules to ease tensions [ Metro ]

URBAN DESIGN
•  When urban design is of national importance [ Toronto Star ]
•  Harry’s still wild about building [ National Post ]
•  It takes a condo to make a village [ Globe & Mail ]

OTHER NEWS
• Rice Up revisits downtown Chinatown [ Toronto Star ]
• Taking vacations close to home by train [ Metro ]
• Sustainable energy plan has rivals green with envy [ Toronto Star ]
• Street-racing law Overreach on speeding [ Globe & Mail ]
• ‘On your mark. Get set. Meander’ [ National Post ]

14 comments

  1. John Lorinc had a column in yesterday’s Sun dealing with bike safety (City cycling, safely).

  3. “Why is that cyclist in my lane?” Because the only place I imagine you might see me is smack dab in front of you, schmuck!

  4. Thanks Brent. I’m actually pleasantly surprised that the Sun printed a pro-cyclist column. Sun and Pest seem to be teaming up to fight for measures to discourage cycling.

    Quoting John Lorinc:

    “Coun. Michael Walker this week will be pushing council to license cyclists, but that scheme will only create yet another costly bureaucracy with no real safety dividends”.

    Imagine how the courts will be tied up with homeless and other indigent people on crappy old bikes who can’t afford public transport tickets, much less a bicycle licence!

  5. When they talk about licensing bicycles, I assume they just mean a written test, not a road test.

    I was able to ride a motorcycle on Toronto streets after passing a simple written test about the rules of the road. It cost just $18.

    I can’t imagine licensing a bicycle would be more difficult or more expensive than that.

    For what it’s worth, I am a cyclist, and I support licensing cyclists. Cyclists need to know when to yield to whom, and they need to know that driving a bicycle when intoxicated is just as illegal as driving a car.

    Presumably, people who already have car licenses wouldn’t need to be licensed again.

  6. I don’t think people would be calling for such measures on cycling if they didn’t feel that many cyclists were engaging in infractions simply because they were likely to get away with it. As a cyclist, I’ve been surprised to learn that it is perfectly legal to drink and ride.

    I’m not sure I agree with licencing for all cyclists, but I think at the very least, couriers should be licenced, through the company they work for. They are using their vehicles to carry on a commercial enterprise and they are working to the clock, ie the faster they go, the more money they make. That often leads them into some fairly risky and aggressive behaviour on the street which compromises the safety of others who are in their way.

  7. I’m a little shocked to read that Yvonne Bambrick is against adopting a helmet law because it’s a “barrier to entry”. A$50 piece of equipment that could save your life is a barrier to entry?

    We should mandate helmets for the same reason we mandate seat belts, so we don’t pay the hospital bills of those who get into accidents.

    I saw a whole bunch of people riding their bikes today on College, which is wonderful. More of us should ride…but not a single helmet among them. Which, to be frank, is irresponsible. Just as irresponsible as not wearing a seatbelt.

  8. Hey, Josh,

    why don’t we require driver wear a helmet? I bet that would save a few lives, like when the head bang on wind shield. Or why don’t we require pedestrian wear helmet? The lady who died in the bike accident not that long ago would probably have been saved by it. This north American obsession with absolute safety is doing more damage than good.

    It is a barrier to cycling, mostly not for the money it costs, but for inconvenience it creates. As a bike commuter I do wear helmet most of the time, but there are times when I forget, and there are short hurl trips when I judge it is unnecessary. For me the essence of cycling is its convenience and spontaneity, a helmet requirement will bite a big chunk out of that.

  9. couldn’t agree more with josh hind. and for the record, you can get a safe helmet for less than $50 and replace it every three years.

    naturally a helmet won’t prevent serious bodily injury in case of a major accident. but helmets help a lot in preventing brain injury, particularly with the minor accidents like simply losing balance and falling over.

    on a lighthearted note, the comment from yvonne (generally an awesome lady) is especially surprising since she has been pictured wearing those neon safety vests which image-conscious people generally consider far worse than a helmet!

    anyway, i need my brain to make a living, among other things, and so i wear a helmet religiously and don’t understand why others think it’s a hardship.

  10. $50? More like $20-$30.

    Anyways, regarding cycling licensing, I am going to quote a post regarding a similar situation in the UK.

    “…I am honest enough to KNOW that a bike and a car are different.
    cars polute, bikes do not
    cars wear the road, bikes do not
    cars add to congestion, bikes, not ridden by aholes, do not
    driving a car is sedintary, riding a bike is good for you

    in what farking universe do you want to TAX people for improving the world?
    or is it to just fark with the AHOLE cyclists?…”

    – namatad
    http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=4633169

  12. Again, I’m not sure I agree with licencing all cyclists… but licencing, while definitely oftentimes a tax grab, can also be seen about regulating behaviour — making sure those participating in activity demonstrate a minimum level of competence/knowledge and being able to impose consequences if they don’t abide by set standards. Personally, I think there’s more of a reason to licence cyclists than there is to licence pets that are always housebound (as the City now does).

    That said, I think that rather than licencing for all cyclists, the police should just do a better job of enforcing standards for cyclists AND drivers.

  13. No Pete…I would say that those people live in a different place, one that likely has a healthier car/bike relationship. A city that is not Toronto, where bikes and cars are still trying to figure out how to co-exist and where this developing relationship makes a rider’s life here more perilous than that of a cyclist in the Netherlands.

    We have to make rules for ourselves that reflect our own reality, not that of the cities we so wish to emulate. When Toronto does the right thing and build a protected bike network that mimics those in bike friendly European cities, maybe we won’t need the helmets anymore.

  14. PS…I think licensing is ridiculous.

    PPS…I think risking your life to protect your hairstyle is pretty ridiculous too.