I agree with you about the downtown traffic. Some of it is just the speed of the cars. You can pretty much outpace traffic downtown during rush hour. The drivers are defenseless against the speed, compact size, and manouverability of a bike. I was downtown last night, and I had a feild day blasting through traffic-I had almost forgotten some of my moves. When you get into suburbia, it's car country, and your on their turf, their terms-you can't play with them the same way.

The commute to York isn't that bad for me. There aren't many streets to choose from, depending on where you are coming from. I manage to take about 1/2 side streets, but it took me a number of years to figure out that I could make it that way. Bike theft, I would assume, is bad given the surrounding neighbourhood. I park my bike behind the physical plant building where I work, and there are no students in that area, so my bike is safe. When I lock up on campus, I've never had a problem, but my bike is pretty beat up looking-I keep it that way on purpose.