I Bike TO Award

Having a celebratory event trying to encompass and honour a wide range of our cycling community on the same night as the TCAC meeting is kinda dumb and wrong. The TCAC gets enough diss from the politicians without having to endure having a larger group of cyclists partying away on the same night they might be trying to change the City for better biking. And one eg. - as Yvonne is now almost in the habit of going to these meetings - and it's a peculiar and acquired taste - does she duck out for half the meeting to get more public recognition of her hard work? If one believes in the ability of citizens to influence the City on bike issues - and it's debatable I know, though not from the lack of effort of citizens - then these nods should not be on the same night.

Perhaps less noticed in the fine print around the licensing stuff was that the City opted to AVOID having TCAC involved in their internal "consultation" process. And I really wonder who Darren is saying is TCAC's "mouthpiece" - is it Mr. Heaps? He's his own spokesperson who arguably in his jumping the gun about the Bloor/Danforth bikeway in referencing doing the Danforth quickly helped set it back to yet more study.
And my experiences in watching TCAC is that he's sooo hands-on at times it's like Homer's hands-on Bart's throat - and the reduction in TCAC numbers sub-committtees, and meetings means far less ability to push forward some things it seems. Mr. Heaps is your councillor Darren - so keep in touch with him eh? How about expanding TCAC for the next term by 5?
Darren's correct in some ways that suburban cycling issues are neglected, and the conditions are more hellish and dangerous (unless one rides on sidewalks) and we should be supporting the new lanes on Lawrence, not that I've tracked the "progress" as there's a lack of it in the core.
Given overall shortfalls and demands on staff time, I'm wondering how wise/viable the makework and costly c. $25M+ suburban trails are vs. say doing the Danforth for Darren (and others) at $25,000 a km. TCAC has been avoided in this makework "decision" too.
But this new mapping of cycling habits does show most biking remains in the core it seems...
http://www3.thestar.com/static/googlemaps/100105_bikes.html
though they seem to have avoided surveying the very central core, and we also need to ask/figure out where people are going to? What a concept - an origin/destination study for cyclists?
So the bulk of commuter cyclists seem to be mostly in the old Toronto - but to have changes to our streets the majority of councillors have to vote for it - and the majority of councillors are from the older suburbs and often drive cars though Councillor deBaeremaeker is likely a harder-ass cyclists than many of us in the core, and even Councillor Heaps may still be biking.
Some good news though - Ootes is declining to run again...maybe we should try to coax him, Rae and Miller to create a real legacy for bikes with finishing Bloor properly for bike safety by widening the new road by 1M to permit true bike lanes...,

I would second the Nomination for Tammy Thorne

The other individual that comes to mind is Ajith Aluthwatta for the work that he's done in getting CultureLink behind cycling advocacy.

So with the threadening closure - a need to focus, just as Mr. K. Rae told me to last year.
Of course there's Yvonne, who's been dealing with all sorts of situations and volunteers and emails, usually with grace and a nuanced disciplined response - and goes beyond it just being a job, as she's had a few years of helping SFP/Kensington..
Margaret Hastings-James has done a lot of work over the years as well - steadily - sometimes on committees (both Ped and TCAC), sometimes at meetings, sometimes behind the scenes, And she was invaluable in helping the Safe Cycling Coalition and the Bloor/Yorkville effort.
Martin Reis has been Incredibly Present over the many years - doing a huge amount of pic-taking and picture sharing; ARC; some public meetings but maybe most important is a great blog of the Bike Lane Diary. He's been really helpful to me with my fledgling venture into pic-taking - images often being far more effective than longer messives and hwarangues....
I know there are others - sooo many people do things - one thought being Glenn deBaeremaeker, a 2nd one being you Herb with this blog, And speaking of online/tech, Ben Wendt is tremendously on-call/great! and Darren has saved the takethetooker site a couple of times too....
And Nancy, and Nancy
Is a mechanic like Derek or George or Jerry or Martin or Brad in the running because they keep sooo! many people running?
How to choose? How to be somewhat fair and considerate?

David Miller - For his promotion of cycling in Toronto, active in Bike Month, big on Jarvis, etc. I wonder how much would have been achieved had his vote caried more weight. What does the future have in store?

Tammy Thorne - For TCAC, Dandy Horse, her time and her tenacity - which is basically responsible for getting the MGT Trail cleared last winter.

It goes without saying that there are many, many individualls that give so much of themselves for cycling (Nancy, Yvonne, Dan, Herb, Marty, Tino, etc...)

I've seen about 10 really good suggestions, I'd like to add Anthony Humphreys to the list.
He's a great spokesman and solid grassroots worker for better cycling.

Also a nice guy.

Sure, he's been good at offering the sustained bull about biking and climate change, and some good things have been happening, but with biking in particular, there's too much of a shortfall.
What about say, the Works Dept. snow-clearing team - what would we do but whine if there wasn't any! snowplowing at all through the winter....often at night.
This is likely a "next year" sorta idea - there's still persistent lack of plowing in those indented parking bays, and while the plowing of the bike lanes is better....

I understand the lack of bike lanes built under Miller's watch, but he seemed to do all he could to further the cause, e.g.: voting consistently for bike lanes; he was arguably our most Bike Savvy Mayor.

By the time his term is up, we will have Bike Lanes on Jarvis, Winter Riding on the MGT, a revised Bike Plan and a dedicated Manager of Cycling Infrastructure. Add to all of that, he actually owns a Bike and is a huge supporter of Bike Month.

I'll offer Geoff Kettel's name as a person who helped to motivate a small group in Ward 26 which even got John Parker to City Hall to ride to City Hall (albeit on an E-bike) on to Ride-to-Work day. (Alas, they could not get him John vote for the bike lanes on Jarvis later that same day).

The folks at 29 Bikes probably did more for cycling by organising and running their East End advocacy meeting. And of these guys are quite nice, too. And they published their Bloor Viaduct report this past year.

Albert Koehl - Lawyer; has represented cyclists on many occasion, most notably the Safe Cycling Coalition that took on the City over the Bloor Street Reconstruction fiasco; has taken the lead on the annual Bells on Bloor rides; and most recently is supporting Wayne Scott on his court case for safe streets for 2-wheeled workers

Hamish Wilson - Veteran bike activist; who else has been on the City's case for 2 decades for bike safety/facilities? He's a stalwart, persistent, humorous, prolific, with a penchant for detail - so what if he's a curmudgeon? :) There sure is good reason to be.

I agree Albert is deserving, that's why he won last year. I nominate Marty Collier for getting road pricing on the agenda and his long-standing dedication to cycling and urban renewal.

Very committed, active, catalytic, organized and organizing, supportive, year-round rider, gets the global context and how behind we are here.

Tand this may not sit well with some, but the collective giving of time by the TCAC folks is a sustained commitment to cycling, and no, it's all not enough being done, not bold enough etc. but the TCACers have been constrained to some degree by the Chair, and fewer meetings, and fewer velonteers due to the chopping off of 2/3 of them. But if the City is what's providing or not providing the bike facilities, to some degree these 8 are on the frontlines of any proddings.
Also - if awards are given to those taking hits - Geoffrey took a big one, and we haven't really brought forward his issues to officialdumb.
And speaking of hits, and beyond, maybe Al Sheppard? post-humously? His death has really pushed forward the issues of biking on Bloor to a hopefully soon global prominence, and brought biking to front pages and most of our conversations more locally.
Also thinking sometime Patrick Brown could get recognition - sure, he charges for his time but he also has done some good strategic advocacy work on insurance, and helps support Dandyhorse with ads.

I nominate Sam Bootsma for an Ibiketo award.

Sam has been involved the Downsview Park that could potentially offer cyclists car-free recreational riding / commuting from Sheppard Avenue between Allan Road and Keele Street) south to Eglinton Street .

He is a good example of a cycling advocate working at the local level. He has been working for at least two years on it. It is outside the downtown core in an area many people on this page consider not worth advocating for because it is in "suburbia". It has the potential to make a major impact on a whole area of the city.