Ontario - Cyclists are here to stay - get with the program

Toronto News: Hume: What goes around in Quebec comes around in Ontario - thestar.com
Excerpts:
This isn’t a matter of right or left, but of right and wrong. Due to
circumstances well beyond the city’s control, this is the direction we
are headed. For any number of reasons — climate change, fuel costs,
congestion and diminished resources — the heyday of the car is over and
alternatives are needed.
...

Toronto and Ontario’s unwillingness to take the bicycle seriously is a
sign of culture grown tired, irritable and brittle. Whether it’s wind
turbines, road tolls or bike lanes, we’re unable to keep up. Provincial
Conservative leader Tim Hudak has made it clear clean energy and the
environment have no place in his party’s platform.

Same thing with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s regime, which
announced recently it plans to lay off 700 staff at the federal
environment ministry, a shocking display of contempt.

“Cycle tourism has been wildly successful in other places,” notes
Toronto MPP Tabuns, who met this week with various cycling groups that
hope to use a $351,800 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation to
promote bicycle tourism.

“I am glad we are doing it here,” says Tabuns, “promoting clean, green, healthy jobs.”

The fact remains, however, that cyclists are generally unwelcome on
the streets of Toronto, let alone Ontario. We’re not talking here about
bike lanes on the 401, but many other provincial thoroughfares where
there’s room.

According to our licence plates, Ontario is “Yours to Discover.” “Yours to Recover” might be more to the point.

Toronto Sun: let's make Toronto worse

How Rob Ford could improve T.O. | Toronto & GTA | News | Toronto Sun
The Toronto Sun suggests outlawing panhandling, scrapping the bag fee and licensing bicycles are ways to improve Toronto. Let's look at these:

Outlawing Panhandling
There is already a law about over-aggressive panhandling. And making a law against poor people begging in the streets would be much more costly in legal and jail fees, than a) allowing panhanding, and/or b) supporting social services to the extent to support people enough so people no longer need to panhandle. It would also be unconstitutional and would result in lawsuits which would be costly for the city/the province.

Scrapping the bag fee
How is this going to help anything? This fee helps people become more environmentally aware so many more carry bags instead of using plastic bags at the store every time - reducing waste (which reduces the city's expense of shipping out garbage to landfill sites). It also helps people become more aware of other environmental and waste issues.

Licensing bicycles
Not practical or cost effective. Been tried before and proven a waste of funds.
This is just more war-on-cyclists by Mammoliti and Ford Nation.
So, they remove the vehicle registration fee and want to make it up by charging cyclists?


Here is a comment from Sun page:
The "I'm not a racist" defence would be stronger coming from someone who didn't assume all refugees are "third-world welfare cheats," and that Toronto is starting to look like Somalia, which could only be true to someone considering the complexion of our newest residents. By the way, thousands of children are dying every day in Somalia right now due to famine and war, making Somalia (and Afghanistan for that matter) the absolute least likely origin of a fake refugee claimant. I hope the moral character of this posting is clear to anyone with a conscience.

Also:
1) Banning panhandling - aggressive panhandling is already illegal. Sitting passively on the street with a sign is constitutionally protected, according to the Supreme Court. The Sun is basically asking the City to invite a costly human rights lawsuit it will certainly lose.

2) Bag fee - "it's the mandatory nature of it," says the CFIB. Until businesses invent a bag that evaporates into water vapor after use, society has every moral right to demand that those creating an environmental cost be the ones who pay that cost. Why do libertarian types always start claiming entitlements and demanding public subsidies when the subject is garbage creation and collection?

3) Licensing bicycles - It's been tried. Repeatedly. Didn't work. Too costly, inefficient and didn't achieve the desired results. Despite the Sun's ironic faith in the City's ability to "streamline" anything, there is no reason to believe new technologies will solve the basic problems. And there are cheaper ways to tell cyclists to go to hell, since this is what this proposal is all about really, isn't it? Also, listening to anything Georgio Mammoliti says is intellectual and moral suicide.

So: here's a lovely trifecta of divisive anti-social state aggression, morally inconsistent, imposing higher costs in the name of reduced costs. It takes a lot of
empty space for a head to tolerate such cognitive dissonance. - JohnfromTO


Solution:
The best way to improve Toronto currently is to shut down Ford Nation. How do we do that? Convince the city councillors in the Mushy Middle to vote against Ford Nation (or they will be voted out of office next election).
See here: How To Stop Ford Nation

More thoughts on the Toronto Sun ideas:
Ford For Toronto blog - It's always sunny in Toronto: three questionable ideas to "improve" our city

Poster > Cyclist response to "Rob Ford's Bike Plan"

Fuck Ford poster protests Rob Ford's bike plan
At the link is a poster created in response to Rob Ford's bike plan (removing bike lanes from convenient streets for cyclists, and then building bike lanes in out-of-the-way places).

Ironic how Ford's bike plan calls for the removal of bike lanes. This reminds me of when Mike Harris brought in a "Tenant Protection Act" that actually removed protection from tenants.

Jarvis Bike Lane dead. Ford's war on cyclists continues

Jarvis Bike Lanes Saved for One Year, Birchmount and Pharmacy Bike Lanes to be Removed - Torontoist
Today, Toronto City Council voted 28-9 in favour of removing the Jarvis, Birchmount and Pharmacy bike lanes.

Excerpt from the link:
As per the language in today's city council agenda, this decision does
not follow any recommendation or guidance provided by staff or outside
planning consultants. It is the result of implementing the mayor's
preferred approach to cycling infrastructure—"a 100 km network of
off-street bike trails and completion of critical on-street bike lane
connections where the community supports them and where they do not
impede traffic flow"—itself not a policy that resulted from any
environmental assessments, traffic studies, or advice from urban
planning experts (at least not any on public record).


As a cyclist who rides every day all over the city, I am usually riding to get from one location to another (as opposed to recreational cycling). So, I need to travel on the quickest, shortest, most direct routes. Due to this need, I'm often travelling on routes that are popular for cars as well. When there is a bike lane, that is a bonus, and it also makes it safer for those who aren't as experienced. To build a network of off-street bike trails is counter-productive. Most current off-street bike trails, and places where they could build more off-street bike trails, are out of the way and don't follow directions I need to take back and forth across the city. And, for many who travel by bicycle now to and from work and school, off-street bike paths will be inconvenient as well. Rob Ford and his war-on-cyclist supporters don't understand this issue. They don't listen to the facts and studies about cycling and cycling routes. And, for all their bluster about a gravy-train and wasteful spending, they certainly are not paying any attention to wasteful spending. It would be far more useful, efficient and cost effective, to put bike lanes on well-used routes for cyclists, than to build a large network of bike lanes in out-of the way places where they will not be used by the majority of cyclists in the city.

It will cost a lot of money to remove bike lanes that currently exist and are not causing any problems on the roads. It will cost much more to build a network of off-street routes that will not be used by most cyclists. Neither of these projects will solve any problems of car gridlock or bicycle safety, and they will not improve traffic conditions for cars or cyclists. The solution would be to build on the existing network of bike lanes, not tear them down.

More views, news and ideas on this topic at:
The Reeves Report: Compromising on Bike Lanes at Toronto City Hall: Pt. II

The Jarvis vote: what the hell happened?
Those who supported the elimination responded by generally just wandering around the council chamber and not listening. The hundreds of taxpayers who came to City Hall to support maintaining the lanes were dismissed by some councillors — notably Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday — as “bike people.”

Toronto Star: Council Votes to Scrap Jarvis Bike Lane

http://www.globaltoronto.com/City+council+votes+remove+Jarvis+bike+lanes/5096020/story.html
Many of the councillors who wanted to save the lanes walked out of City Council before the final vote, resulting in a lopsided, 28-9 vote in favour of killing the lanes. [Note: that would be 8 councillors, who after 7 hours of debate with 27 councillors and 1 mayor who were going to vote to remove the lane for no reason, and could not be reasoned with, walked out in disgust.]
Also of note from the Global video story is that there are a number of Bixi bike stations installed on Jarvis. Jarvis is a busy cycling route and it has become 3x as busy as it was a year ago. And Bixi rentals are booming. So, here is yet another reason to keep the Jarvis bike lane.

http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110713/110713_bike_lanes/20110713/?hub=CP24Home
One of the councillors pushing for the bike lanes to be removed was Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong. He said it would be safer for cyclists and motorists to have separate bike lanes away from major streets.
This is unbelievable. I've read many news accounts of the vote and this is the only reason for removing the lane? If this is the reasoning, why are they not removing all the lanes that still exist on major streets downtown? And why are they going to build a fancier lane on Sherbourne then? The real reason they removed the lane is out of spite for the previous, Miller, administration.

How council voted
Voted to remove the bike lanes (28):
Paul Ainslie, Ana Bailão, Michelle Berardinetti, Josh Colle, Gary Crawford, Vincent Crisanti, Mike Del Grande, Frank Di Giorgio, Doug Ford, Rob Ford, Mark Grimes, Doug Holyday, Norman Kelly, Chin Lee, Gloria Lindsay Luby, Giorgio Mammoliti, Mary-Margaret McMahon, Peter Milczyn, Denzil Minnan-Wong, Ron Moeser, Frances Nunziata (Chair), Cesar Palacio, John Parker, James Pasternak, Jaye Robinson, David Shiner, Karen Stintz, Michael Thompson
People of Toronto: If one of these people is your councillor, please ask them what reason they had to vote to remove the lanes - lanes that provided a more safe cycling route, that had shown increased cyclist traffic, that showed no decrease in car traffic, and would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to remove and zero dollars to let them remain. We deserve a real answer.

It is interesting to note that in all the news stories about this vote in council, and, although the issue was debated for many hours, there are no reasons cited from the side that voted to remove the lanes for removing the lanes. Outrageous.

Some media has spun the story to say that this was a win for cyclists (wtf?!) - since the Jarvis bike lane with stay there for a year while the Sherbourne lane is revamped. But no, this is a loss for cyclists and a loss for reason, and taxpayers, and logic.

Voted against removing the bike lanes (9):
Maria Augimeri, Raymond Cho, Glenn De Baeremaeker, John Filion, Mary Fragedakis, Josh Matlow, Joe Mihevc, Gord Perks, Anthony Perruzza

Walked out in protest (would have voted against removing the bike lanes) (8):
Shelley Carroll, Janet Davis, Sarah Doucette, Paula Fletcher, Mike Layton, Pam McConnell, Adam Vaughan, Kristyn Wong-Tam



CONCLUSION
What it cost to install the Jarvis Bike Lane originally: $59,000
How much it will cost to remove it: $200,000
How much it will cost to remove the Birchmount and Pharmacy bike lanes: $210,000
Total addition to Rob Ford's Gravy Train: $469,000
Reason for removing the lanes: none.