EnigManiac
06-11-06, 07:40 AM
Feature in todays Sunday Toronto Star
The unbearable frightfulness of biking
CYCLing | The mayor says the city's biking culture is changing for the better. Not everyone would agree. By Leslie Scrivener
Toronto mayor David Miller rode his bike to work the other day. He made it to City Hall safely.
That may not seem like news, especially during the city's annual Bike Week (which ends today) but riding along Bloor St. W. during morning rush hour on the day of the wildcat transit strike, the mayor passed Albany Ave. — where, the next day, Susan Oppenheim, a regular cyclist, was knocked off her 20-year-old Raleigh as she left a matinee at the Bloor Cinema.
The 57-year-old community worker was clipped by a driver. As she tried to right herself, she fell under the vehicle, her left elbow pinned under the van's rear wheel. The driver got out, saw her on the street, got back in the van, and drove forward off her. She had tire marks up her arm.
Oppenheim ended up in hospital with a broken shoulder and a fractured neck. She says that a police officer who came to St. Michael's to investigate the collision told her since she didn't have witnesses, the driver would not be charged.
Oppenheim says she overheard the officer saying, "We really ought to get all those bikes off the streets of Toronto."
That doesn't exactly jibe with the city's stated plan to get more cyclists on the road, which will help calm traffic and make the streets safer for cyclists, drivers, and pedestrians alike.
The mayor "had to be exceptionally vigilant" on his recent morning ride, though he was part of a group commute celebrating Bike Week's theme of ride to work. He was a more regular cyclist when he worked downtown as a lawyer and could ride along the Martin Goodman Trail, which hugs the lakeshore and is a traffic-free route to the south part of the city.
He continues to cycle the trail with his family, including his two children, who are in elementary school. "But they do ride on the streets, and as a parent that makes me nervous."
The notion of cyclists and motorists sharing the road was at the core of the Sunday Star's Cycling Manifesto, drafted by Jennifer Wells in the May 28 issue, which demanded, please, hundreds of kilometres of new bike lanes, an east-west corridor, and a new philosophy in which Toronto embraces cycling "right to its very soul."
Though the mayor supports, and agreed to sign, the Manifesto, and says cycling has been a priority of his administration, progress has been slow.
Miller says that is changing. Money set aside for cycling has increased — to $3 million this year from $2.2 million last year — and things are starting to move forward. A bike path opened last month in the parkland west of Ontario Place, and the new waterfront design competition calls for closing the south lanes of Queen's Quay to traffic. That could happen on a trial basis as early as this summer, the mayor says.
What the city really needs, he acknowledges, is a strong east-west connection. "But I don't have the answer where... perhaps on Bloor or Dundas or Eglinton, because that cuts across every single former city that constitutes Toronto."
It's unlikely that the connector will be built any time soon, given that only one kilometre of bike lanes was built last year and only 12 kilometres planned for 2006. Some of the money budgeted for cycling paths last year wasn't even spent because the proposals got bogged down in community consultation.
"The challenge is, in some places when you propose bike lanes, people don't want them," Miller says. "We need to ensure that people are well educated about the benefits of the cycling network.
"We need cyclists in neighbourhoods to come forward [at public meetings] when pieces of the bike network are proposed in public consultation," Miller says. "They need to say, `This is important. I live in this neighbourhood, I use a bike for transportation, and I need this to get around the city safety.'"
With 5,200 kilometres of roads in Toronto, it's important to have cyclists across Toronto, Miller says, not just in the downtown core. He observes — though not all would agree — that biking culture is changing and more people are looking at their bikes as transportation not just leisure activity.
"That helps us. You get a virtuous circle, and it makes it easier to sell the bike lane to communities."
And, he adds, "You significantly change the political dynamic when you're debating the issue in one neighbourhood."
Toronto cyclists also argue there should be more rigorous enforcement and penalties for drivers who park or drive in bike lanes. Last year there were 1,185 cyclist-motor vehicle collisions; two cyclists — one a University of Toronto professor, the other a 16-year-old girl — were killed when they were crushed by trucks in April.
Meanwhile, Oppenheim has been visiting a physiotherapist and doing her best to track down witnesses who saw the collision, and pondering how to make cycling in the city less dangerous.
"Bike lanes," she sighs, "oh, I'd love to see more of them."
The unbearable frightfulness of biking
CYCLing | The mayor says the city's biking culture is changing for the better. Not everyone would agree. By Leslie Scrivener
Toronto mayor David Miller rode his bike to work the other day. He made it to City Hall safely.
That may not seem like news, especially during the city's annual Bike Week (which ends today) but riding along Bloor St. W. during morning rush hour on the day of the wildcat transit strike, the mayor passed Albany Ave. — where, the next day, Susan Oppenheim, a regular cyclist, was knocked off her 20-year-old Raleigh as she left a matinee at the Bloor Cinema.
The 57-year-old community worker was clipped by a driver. As she tried to right herself, she fell under the vehicle, her left elbow pinned under the van's rear wheel. The driver got out, saw her on the street, got back in the van, and drove forward off her. She had tire marks up her arm.
Oppenheim ended up in hospital with a broken shoulder and a fractured neck. She says that a police officer who came to St. Michael's to investigate the collision told her since she didn't have witnesses, the driver would not be charged.
Oppenheim says she overheard the officer saying, "We really ought to get all those bikes off the streets of Toronto."
That doesn't exactly jibe with the city's stated plan to get more cyclists on the road, which will help calm traffic and make the streets safer for cyclists, drivers, and pedestrians alike.
The mayor "had to be exceptionally vigilant" on his recent morning ride, though he was part of a group commute celebrating Bike Week's theme of ride to work. He was a more regular cyclist when he worked downtown as a lawyer and could ride along the Martin Goodman Trail, which hugs the lakeshore and is a traffic-free route to the south part of the city.
He continues to cycle the trail with his family, including his two children, who are in elementary school. "But they do ride on the streets, and as a parent that makes me nervous."
The notion of cyclists and motorists sharing the road was at the core of the Sunday Star's Cycling Manifesto, drafted by Jennifer Wells in the May 28 issue, which demanded, please, hundreds of kilometres of new bike lanes, an east-west corridor, and a new philosophy in which Toronto embraces cycling "right to its very soul."
Though the mayor supports, and agreed to sign, the Manifesto, and says cycling has been a priority of his administration, progress has been slow.
Miller says that is changing. Money set aside for cycling has increased — to $3 million this year from $2.2 million last year — and things are starting to move forward. A bike path opened last month in the parkland west of Ontario Place, and the new waterfront design competition calls for closing the south lanes of Queen's Quay to traffic. That could happen on a trial basis as early as this summer, the mayor says.
What the city really needs, he acknowledges, is a strong east-west connection. "But I don't have the answer where... perhaps on Bloor or Dundas or Eglinton, because that cuts across every single former city that constitutes Toronto."
It's unlikely that the connector will be built any time soon, given that only one kilometre of bike lanes was built last year and only 12 kilometres planned for 2006. Some of the money budgeted for cycling paths last year wasn't even spent because the proposals got bogged down in community consultation.
"The challenge is, in some places when you propose bike lanes, people don't want them," Miller says. "We need to ensure that people are well educated about the benefits of the cycling network.
"We need cyclists in neighbourhoods to come forward [at public meetings] when pieces of the bike network are proposed in public consultation," Miller says. "They need to say, `This is important. I live in this neighbourhood, I use a bike for transportation, and I need this to get around the city safety.'"
With 5,200 kilometres of roads in Toronto, it's important to have cyclists across Toronto, Miller says, not just in the downtown core. He observes — though not all would agree — that biking culture is changing and more people are looking at their bikes as transportation not just leisure activity.
"That helps us. You get a virtuous circle, and it makes it easier to sell the bike lane to communities."
And, he adds, "You significantly change the political dynamic when you're debating the issue in one neighbourhood."
Toronto cyclists also argue there should be more rigorous enforcement and penalties for drivers who park or drive in bike lanes. Last year there were 1,185 cyclist-motor vehicle collisions; two cyclists — one a University of Toronto professor, the other a 16-year-old girl — were killed when they were crushed by trucks in April.
Meanwhile, Oppenheim has been visiting a physiotherapist and doing her best to track down witnesses who saw the collision, and pondering how to make cycling in the city less dangerous.
"Bike lanes," she sighs, "oh, I'd love to see more of them."