News: Pirates and slow progress on bike lanes

The Bike Pirates are profiled - "has grown into Toronto's biggest bike repair collective" (and dare I say, the only?). Torontist, Oct. 7, 2009

Bike Pirates began as a loosely organized tool-sharing program, where members could dip into a centralized pool of equipment for bicycle repairs. Today, their storefront resembles a fully functional bike shop, but with an important difference: "We won't service your bike," said Chloé. "We'll help you service your bike."

In other words, bringing your broken-down beater to the Pirates means taking their tools and their expert guidance and using those things to learn to do it all yourself. They're the opposite of a full-service, no-sweat repair place, but to the segment of the bicycling public for whom dirty fingernails aren't a problem, Bike Pirates is cycling Avalon. They don't make repairs; they make repairpeople.

Bike lane installation to slow down in 2010, but City moves ahead with consultant for Bloor/Danforth bike lane. Inside Toronto, Oct. 6, 2009.

One thing the city is moving forward in, in the longer term, is the plan to construct city-spanning dedicated bike lanes along the Bloor-Danforth corridor. Heaps called that the "Transit City" of bicycle infrastructure.

The city is looking to hire a consultant to implement what is likely to be a complex mix of bicycling infrastructure along the route. The works committee approved a plan to get the consultant in place by early 2010, and Heaps said the plan should be implemented by 2011.

Yvonne Bambrick of the Toronto Cyclist's Union said that while she wanted to see the lanes there in place as quickly as possible, she understood the need to consult and achieve consensus from communities living along the route.

"They're doing what they need to do to get the buy-in," she said. "It's been done, it's been identified as the right place to go - we know that already - that's a decision that's been made so we're going forward. If the outcome is a full corridor with a variety of cycling infrastructure along it, because of varying street design and widths and whatnot from one end to the other, then I'm all for taking a bit more time to get buy-in to study it further."