Valet ParkingOn Thursday night the City of Toronto Bicycle Promotions staff and the Public Consultation staff hosted the Toronto Cycling Consulation Session down at the historical St. Lawrence Hall the base for the mayor in pre-confederation days who ruled with the power of policy-maker and judge, so I was told. He ruled the tiny town of York with an iron fist. But we live in the modern world where Toronto's mayor has to put up with cowardly councillors unwilling to impose a measly tax on the citizenry just to keep services like subways running.
DotmocracyThe staff put on an informative session with various presentations throughout the evening highlighting the different aspects of the Bike Plan and the progress we've made recently. A quick run-down includes bikeway signage in the trail system; "sharrows" (bike symbols with chevrons) to indicate cycling routes; some new bike lanes; bike lockers at TTC stations; bike racks on all buses in the city by 2010; proposed bike station at City Hall with indoor bike parking; and much more!
Then in order to make it truly consultative they set up some dotmocracy sheets around the room where people could vote (multiple times) with stickers on how important they felt were the various aspects of the Bike Plan. The public also had the opportunity to suggest their own wild ideas of making a great cycling city.
Herb doing the dotmocracyI admit that I didn't do nearly a thorough job of providing my feedback even though this was probably the prime point of the evening. I was constantly distracted by other cycling people of the city - my need to network!
I wait for the exciting results of the dotmocracy, all the same.
Thanks to Urban Herbivore for their great (mostly) vegetarian catering!
Comments
Large Marge
One vote!
Mon, 07/30/2007 - 14:30Hey Herb, I thought the facilitated feedback was a great idea for a public event. It really helped to avoid those rambling question periods where folks spend two hours recanting their personal, yet irrelevant stories and allowed the staff time to present any new projects and to speak with folks individually.
I wanted to point out that Dotmocracy allows for one vote per person, per section, not for multiple voting, as you've indicated. I hope you haven't thrown off the results too badly!!! ;)
herb
thanks for clarifying
Mon, 07/30/2007 - 15:58Actually that is what I did, Marge. I don't remember being told to do that though so there may have been some people who threw off the results. But even then it might work because perhaps they really, really believe in bike lockers, for instance, and don't care about anything else. Is that okay?
I agree that it was much more effective than the rambling.
Darren_S
Paperclip
Mon, 07/30/2007 - 16:06Bike lockers are good until some slob puts a video on YouTube telling people how to open them with paperclips. :()
...and no no one has done it yet.