{"id":1937,"date":"2007-05-29T17:14:44","date_gmt":"2007-05-29T21:14:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=1937"},"modified":"2007-05-29T21:31:17","modified_gmt":"2007-05-30T01:31:17","slug":"cranky-about-cycling-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/05\/29\/cranky-about-cycling-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"Cranky about Cycling Committee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/233\/520448210_ddf665c427_o.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Toronto&#8217;s new cycling committee chair Councillor A.A. Heaps recently announced that he is revising the committee&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.toronto.ca\/legdocs\/mmis\/2007\/pg\/bgrd\/backgroundfile-3926.pdf\">Terms of Reference<\/a>. Among other things, he plans to cut citizen membership from 15 members to 8. Much has been written about this already. The most thorough analysis can be found at <a href=\"http:\/\/biketoronto.ca\/\">biketoronto.ca<\/a> by Martin Koob. Hamish Wilson also gives us his succinct thoughts in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nowtoronto.com\/issues\/2007-05-24\/news_cityinbrief.php\">NOW<\/a>. And Darren Stehr has much to say <a href=\"http:\/\/www.torontocranks.com\/?p=84\">on Toronto Cranks<\/a>, including: &#8220;I thought no politician could mess things up more than Giambrone. I was wrong.&#8221; Even the Globe&#8217;s John Barber <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/servlet\/story\/LAC.20070526.BARBER26\/TPStory\/National\/HYOntario\">chimed in<\/a>, ending his column by asking: &#8220;So how many pancakes will it take till the lanes start appearing? After such a promising start, the current paralysis is embarrassing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The first question that comes to mind is: how, exactly, does reducing the number of citizen members on the committee ensure that the committee assumes a more active role in advocating the needs of the cyclists? If Heaps is willing to give up the varied volunteer expertise that already does its best to inform and represent the many communities in our city, he is off to a bad start. I also wonder why Heaps would suggest reducing the roll of committee members to simple consultants.<\/p>\n<p>The revised Terms suggest replacing all of the sub-committees with &#8220;working groups&#8221; that would have &#8220;ad hoc&#8221; meetings, but isn&#8217;t that already happening? Groups such as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bikingtoronto.com\/bikefriday\/\">BikeFriday<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bikepirates.com\/\">Bike Pirates<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.communitybicyclenetwork.org\/\">CBN<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.respect.to\/wiki\/\">ARC<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tbn.ca\/\">TBN<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiketo.ca\/\">I Bike TO<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.takethetooker.ca\/\">Take the Tooker<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.streetsareforpeople.org\/\">Streets are for People<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/torontocat.ca\/TCAT%20Home.html\">TCAT<\/a> meet regularly.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s be clear: it is the job of council to implement the bike plan. Even if cycling committee meetings were notoriously long or disruptive, even if they found it difficult to achieve quorum, I am unsure as to how it would affect <em>council&#8217;s<\/em> ability to fund, promote, and implement cycling infrastructure. At the end of the day, the committee is helping, not hindering, the City&#8217;s efforts. Heaps has also proposed reducing the number of meetings to 4 times per year, a change that will seriously hinder the committee&#8217;s ability to advise the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.toronto.ca\/committees\/planning-growth-management.htm\">Planning and Growth Management Committee,<\/a> which meets 10 times a year. Would you not want your group to meet <em>at least<\/em> the same number of times as the committee it reports to, and in advance of their general meetings?<\/p>\n<p>Writes Martin Koob on Bike Toronto:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>The sad fact is both the Mayor and Council have not done a good enough job in this regard over the past six years and the volunteers on the TCC have tried to fill in the gaps. If the Mayor and Council took their responsibilities relating to implement the Bike Plan seriously, and just did what they have promised to do there would be less for the cycling committee to do and maybe they would not need to meet as often nor need to work so hard trying to rally the public to convince Council to do what they said they would do.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Let council know how you feel about the proposed changes &#8212; submit comments to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.toronto.ca\/committees\/planning-growth-management.htm\">Planning and Growth Management Committtee<\/a> at or before its meeting coming up on <strong>Thursday, May 31<\/strong>. Or better yet, make a deputation in person. To register, contact the committee&#8217;s clerk <strong>Merle MacDonald at 416-392-7340<\/strong> or email  <a href=\"mailto:mmacdona@toronto.ca\">mmacdona@toronto.ca<\/a> You can also contact Councillor Heaps at <a href=\"mailto:councillor_heaps@toronto.ca\">councillor_heaps@toronto.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Toronto&#8217;s new cycling committee chair Councillor A.A. Heaps recently announced that he is revising the committee&#8217;s Terms of Reference. Among other things, he plans to cut citizen membership from 15 members to 8. Much has been written about this already. The most thorough analysis can be found at biketoronto.ca by Martin Koob. Hamish Wilson also<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/05\/29\/cranky-about-cycling-committee\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Cranky about Cycling Committee&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[5845,5842,5839,5840,3120,1096,5836,5835,408,245,738,5844,5267,5837,1694,4290,426,5843,5433,950,5841,5838,19],"class_list":["post-1937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bikes","category-politics","tag-416-392-7340","tag-a-a-heaps","tag-arc","tag-bike-pirates","tag-bikefriday","tag-cbn","tag-chair-councillor","tag-clerk","tag-councillor","tag-cycling-infrastructure","tag-darren-stehr","tag-growth-management-committee","tag-hamish-wilson","tag-i-bike-to","tag-john-barber","tag-martin-koob","tag-mayor","tag-merle-macdonald","tag-planning-and-growth-management-committee","tag-politician","tag-take","tag-tbn","tag-toronto"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cranky about Cycling Committee  - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/05\/29\/cranky-about-cycling-committee\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cranky about Cycling Committee  - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Toronto&#8217;s new cycling committee chair Councillor A.A. Heaps recently announced that he is revising the committee&#8217;s Terms of Reference. Among other things, he plans to cut citizen membership from 15 members to 8. Much has been written about this already. The most thorough analysis can be found at biketoronto.ca by Martin Koob. Hamish Wilson alsoContinue reading &quot;Cranky about Cycling Committee&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/05\/29\/cranky-about-cycling-committee\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-05-29T21:14:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2007-05-30T01:31:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/233\/520448210_ddf665c427_o.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tammy Thorne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tammy Thorne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/05\/29\/cranky-about-cycling-committee\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/05\/29\/cranky-about-cycling-committee\/\",\"name\":\"Cranky about Cycling Committee - Spacing Toronto\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/05\/29\/cranky-about-cycling-committee\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/05\/29\/cranky-about-cycling-committee\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/233\/520448210_ddf665c427_o.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2007-05-29T21:14:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2007-05-30T01:31:17+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/0b9c43e1c5cec910066c03921f25ab5d\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/05\/29\/cranky-about-cycling-committee\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/05\/29\/cranky-about-cycling-committee\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/05\/29\/cranky-about-cycling-committee\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/233\/520448210_ddf665c427_o.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/233\/520448210_ddf665c427_o.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/05\/29\/cranky-about-cycling-committee\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Cranky about Cycling Committee\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/\",\"name\":\"Spacing Toronto\",\"description\":\"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered  |  Toronto Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/0b9c43e1c5cec910066c03921f25ab5d\",\"name\":\"Tammy Thorne\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fb4dd1ed07af695d17ee8b21cc8dc122?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fb4dd1ed07af695d17ee8b21cc8dc122?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Tammy Thorne\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/author\/tammy\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Cranky about Cycling Committee  - Spacing Toronto","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/05\/29\/cranky-about-cycling-committee\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Cranky about Cycling Committee  - Spacing Toronto","og_description":"Toronto&#8217;s new cycling committee chair Councillor A.A. 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