Smitherman's so-called transportation plan: joining Rocco in kicking cyclists off major streets

I would never ever vote for someone who says he will "time out construction of new bike lanes" (without a solid plan to back it up)

Our existing bike lanes are already incomplete. The best way to improve our existing bike infrastructure is to connect it as a grid while also improving the quality. It doesn't make sense to only do one or the other.

Can we please, for the love of god, get a mayoral candidate who has a vision for a bike grid that connects safe cycling routes together instead of candidates who will (at best) stick with the status quo of adding little 0.2km patches of bike lanes, and at worst, halt construction of all new bikes lanes or even rip out existing infrastructure?

We need a leader. So far I'm not seeing anything that resembles a leader on any of the issues the city is facing.

Why the fuck isn't Gil Penalosa running for Mayor??

So far, all these media-backed, mayoral candidates who claim to have solutions to TORONTO's transportation woes, reveal when questioned about even the simplest of details, that they don't understand the basic issues involved.

They all have grandiose infrastructure plans for moving Torontonians, and our welcome guests, about town, but which of them truly understands that the same infrastructure must also accommodate goods delivery.

One asks oneself, why is it that none of them seem capable of seeing the traffic for the trucks?

Simple, they are amateurs when it comes to street-level mobility, and they look at problem solving from the top down. Unfortunately, any real fix of our transportation crisis must come from the bottom up.

As we've seen from recent events, the powerful within our dysfunctional three-tiered political system certainly view cycling and cyclists at the rock-bottom of their priority lists, probably as we don't traditionally represent a large voting block. It's unfortunate, because if all of the city's smaller jobs and journeys that could be efficiently accomplished through active transport practices were, those with larger loads and longer distances would have much more freedom to operate.

As far as Smitherman goes, he betrays the same fundamental ignorance that immediately destroyed Rossi's credibility.

By recommending meandering bikeways along residential streets and riverbeds, they both show that they fail to comprehend that arterial roadways are destinations in and of themselves, and by denying cyclists safe and direct access to them, they also deny the reality that human power remains the viable and - as WE ALL KNOW - necessary foundation of any sustainable, practicable urban mobility system.

I'm still waiting for a candidate worth voting for. Late-comers can still register to run up 'til mid-September, I believe. Let the grasping, ego-driven career politicians tear each other to shreds all summer.

Maybe some young, vital person boasting real-life accomplishment will accept the challenge and step forward at the last minute to save the day.

If so, please let me know what I can do to help, eh? ( :-)

Thanks for writing up this post Herb - we need to track down exactly what the major folks are and are not willing to do for us, not that we own the road.

The majority of the candidates seem on the "carist" side - as we're dominated by car-driving suburbs thanks to the amanglemation of Harris, and there's a strong desire to maintain privilege as most women can attest to.

I attempted to interest Mr. Smitherman in the Bloor St. Transformation Project's driving over two, 2! pieces of provincial legislation, the EA Act and the Places to Grow Act, by copying him with some letters. No reaction/response, and now the project is up to $30M and remains inadequate for bike safety, despite the clear motion of Council a few years back to greatly improve biking through here.

So he's weak on the environmental/bike side already.

What we need to do is perhaps talk less about bike safety, and sell the idea of Bloor bike lanes as a way of expanding the Bloor/Danforth subway for almost nothing eg. the cost of paint. The logic is that at crush hour, the system is grroaning; there are many captive riders especially nearer to the core that if biking were made safer, they would get off the subway and start biking, and perhaps this could include winter biking too. So if we could entice 2 or 3% of current subway riders off of the sbuway onto bikes, that's basically expanding the subway for free.

This logic hasn't yet crept into City Wall despite four years of announcing the study of a Bloor bikeway, so "progressives" and Council candidates also need a bit/lot of help with this idea.
Meanwhile, let's keep riding Bloor - though maybe we should also warn the City of their ongoing liability and copy yourselves in case you get hurt.

Gil Penalosa would be a great mayor, but he also crapped on the University bike lane plan. His issue was that while separated lanes are part of the solution for getting people out of their cars and onto a bike, the plan wouldn't have worked unless the network connected people to where they want to go. The University plan would have connected Queen's Park to the Eaton Centre, but that ain't exactly a network. The City should have talked about connecting the new University lane with separated lanes on Harbord and Simcoe down to the restored MGT, and then we might have been getting somewhere.

Smitherman may not exactly share or understand the views of cyclists in this city, but the idea of prioritizing better and safer existing bike lanes over new bike lanes is not a bad one, and activists should not be too quick to crap on Smitherman's plan. If the mayoral candidates think there is nothing to gain by reaching out to cyclists, then don't be surprised when they don't reach out to cyclists.

It would be much better to say, "OK Smithy, we're listening. Do you mean you're going to create a proper grid, or are you just going to put a little wall around these fragmented little paths that dot the map? Unless my 9-year-old daughter can safely ride with us from our house to the ferry ports, these curbed bike lanes won't do much for anyone."

If Smitherman starts using the words "continuous," "grid," "connected" and "network" when talking about his bike plan, he could get my vote.

We just need a mayor who'll make the police prioritise their traffic policing against the most dangerous behaviours (careless automotive driving, door prizes, and all taxis) rather than the most expedient (speeding on Lakeshore, and bell and helmet tickets). That will halve the trips to hospitals for us all: drivers, passengers, cyclists and pedestrians. You could even sell that to Joe Fatso Driver, for 'the sake of the children'.

However, some recent study suggests 1/3 of Toronto's accidents have streetcar tracks as a contributing factor. One piece of infrastructure I'd like to see are rubber cycle-safe flanges in the tracks, at least at intersections. Just love how the city's publications tell us to take tracks at 90*. Just how am I supposed to do that at College and Spadina, with all eight I need to cross?!

And I think most of them drive in to their work rather than bike, or transit. That ratio is likely the same with a lot of the high-end civil servants too.
I think there was an attempt to link employment with residency, but it was challenged by the police on Charter grounds, and the Charter trumped.
Caronto, Ontcario - it's hard to overcome, especially when providing effective transit for low-density job and residential sprawl cost a goldmine, and direct, dedicated routes are near-impossible.
Carism is alive and well at times. Automobility is sacarosanct.- but bikes are better.
safe rides!

We don't just need better cycling infrastructure. We need a justice justice system for cyclists. The one in place in the City of Toronto has failed cyclists so grandly that its not repairable. Police, lawyers, politicians, and our courts fail to provide any sense of hope for cyclists to have justice or safety. We need another system that shows RESPECT to Cyclists!

I was hit by a TTC Streetcar a couple weeks ago. I was riding between parked cars and traffic and had moved out to pass the cars. The TTC collided with the BACK of my bike, damaging it and snapping the rack off it. The driver got out and yelled at me for hitting her, and asked with sarcasm if she "really has to ring her bell every time she approaches me". She proceeded to get in a yelling argument with another person - I called the police. Despite the fact that I called 911, the police NEVER took a statement from me. I later called the PC who had already concluded that there was NO COLLISION, and that I THREW my bike (WTF). I even followed up with the Sgt. The police NEVER asked me what happened despite the fact that I called 911. They told me "I don't know what to tell you, you were not a victim, you did not get hit, and there will be no report filed"!

Toronto police seem todo this frequently, i have other stories of similar non-incidents.

Toronto has an image to uphold. lol. I can't belive i wrote that in light of Bryant getting away with manslaughter.