Sustainable Trails in Toronto Update

Yes I took the photos and no I have no influence on story. From what the writer told me the story was much more balanced prior to it being edited. She strongly felt that the cyclist need a facility in the area.

I saw both sides to the story. There may be some argument to the condition of trees prior to being cut. What concerned me was the garbage and the matter of disposal. I do not think it should be buried on site but rather carried out. Now I do believe the regulars when they say they carry their garbage off site and it is occasional users that are the problem. The other issue were digs ( forget the proper term) that seemed to make the erosion problems worse. When we were on site there were fresh tracks in the mud. I understand this is a no no. There is also a question of stress to the local wildlife, maybe a lame point seeing that the site is next to an active railway line.

On the other side it is a beautifully constructed track. I was amazed at how well those ramps were built. They used some very complicated and time consuming work. I think that the users rightfully deserve a facility in the area. The City should have facilitated, but not built, an area for the tract. There is a lot of "brown space" south of the site that should be committed to the track. The track should be built by the users, not the City as they have a habit of doing a swell job of screwing things up. It is also good community building for the cyclists. Being out in the open brings about a lot of questions about liability which I am not learned enough to comment on. The City dropped the ball here and it will probably be years before they get it right, if ever.

While the death threats should not be a reflection of the users as a whole, they should have distanced themselves from the threats. (At least one of the sites refused to remove the threats and addy) I believe in a good argument but when you begin to threaten you are wrong even if you are right. Posting her home address was way over the top and it scared a lot of people. The "pretty tight" forum excuse is a wash. When the Dalai Lama visited here a few years ago someone posted a message on a web site, that probably had not more than three visitors, about an impromptu CM in his honour. There was at least a 30 police officer strong response at the listed start point/time. I have met the person at City Hall whose job it is to monitor any site that refers to the City... he is a cyclist. I have spoken to both street cops and higher ranks who are very familiar with cycling sites. In fact, several 52 division officers know me by sight and will ask why I have not posted photos of them or have or have not written about them. My point is that all you need is one whack job to read to carry it out. Do not know how long you have been around but years ago when the Toronto Star's Joey Slinger wrote negatively about cyclists his addy was made public by some cyclists. Someone decided to take it a step further and leave messages outside his house written on the sidewalk. He just further used the incident and his child's response to it to ridicule the cycling community.

Serious about Herb needing a flak jacket, no. Serious about those who supported the intimidation, yes. It is unfortunate that in this case there were a small number of people that made the threat and that the group of users as a whole chose to defend their actions. I really hate the actions of one reflecting on the whole.

Those users deserve a facility in the Don, they will need to stand strong to get it, menacing someone with threats is not the way to go. Yes there is another quandary here. These users probably have little to no experience in dealing with City Hall and would prefer to ride than get caught up in paperwork. There is no one at City Hall to advocate for them or help guide them through the process(es), even the cycling committee is a joke in this respect (The MGT bollard issue is a good example) There are underfunded external groups that could help them, at the time of the article the most relevant one to these users was inactive due to a maternity leave.

Media sucks. I cannot tell you how many times I have been creatively quoted leaving me upset and embarrassed. Have also learned how to use that to my advantage.

I support debate up until the point where it begins to threaten. The threats in this case were not passing threats, they had to be taken seriously. As an aside, it is kind of silly to threaten cyclists, as all of those involved were, because we get them on a daily basis and have thicker skin. Nonetheless I treat every threat from a driver as the real thing not as a joke and respond to their every subsequent action in that respect.

How real are threats on the net. Years ago I was a moderator on a photography related forum. Someone posted "facts" about a certain businessperson on the forum. This businessperson mistook me for the poster and posted threats in response. He also left messages for me on my phone. I spent some time looking for him. After a couple of weeks a source gave me an idea of where he was. I found him in a detention centre in London, ON waiting for bail for carrying out threats he had made to someone else, someone I knew through industry contacts. She was so fearful that she left the province, luckily she suffered only minor injuries. On release he was immediately rearrested for fraud in relation to the posted "facts". I was not too worried about the threats until I got the guys full history after finding him.

All that I am reminded of when I think about Crothers Woods is what happened in the aftermath. Generally I am pretty good at ignoring my biases and seeing both sides. In this case I would have sided with the users in having a facility in the Don.

Along the way more people will challenge their goals, hopefully they will be better prepared at overcoming their objections.