Archive For The “politics” Category
Mayor Rob Ford slams bike station, then floats idea of city hall splash pad
By Joe T. | May 10, 2013
Mayor Rob Ford opposes adding showers for cyclists commuting to city hall but he wanted to look at installing a splash pad for kids as part of renovations to Nathan Phillips Square.Ford has slammed as a complete waste of money plans to park 380 bikes in the underground parking garage and provide a $130,000 change [...]
Mayor Rob Ford slams bike station, then floats idea of city hall splash pad
By Joe T. | May 10, 2013
Mayor Rob Ford opposes adding showers for cyclists commuting to city hall but he wanted to look at installing a splash pad for kids as part of renovations to Nathan Phillips Square.Ford has slammed as a complete waste of money plans to park 380 bikes in the underground parking garage and provide a $130,000 change [...]
One Toronto cyclist is trying to get Rob Ford to bike a mile in her shoes. “Mayor Rob Ford has lots of opinions about cycling in Toronto but has he ever ridden our streets?” asks Candice Anderson. The cyclist and blogger has started an online petition encouraging the mayor to give pedal power a try [...]
Down at City Hall, they chase gravy trains and fight a war on (or for) the car—and show respect for certain areas of the city by promising their residents underground transit. At some point, it seems that politics in Toronto passed into the realm of almost pure symbolism. This is especially true in the case of [...]
A couple weeks ago, the Chief Coroner released a report titled “Cycling Death Review: A Review of All Accidental Cycling Deaths in Ontario from January 1st, 2006 to December 31st, 2010″ and made recommendations to make our streets safer. They were, among others: Adoption of a “complete streets” approach in community planning Development of an Ontario Cycling [...]
A couple weeks ago, the Chief Coroner released a report titled “Cycling Death Review: A Review of All Accidental Cycling Deaths in Ontario from January 1st, 2006 to December 31st, 2010″ and made recommendations to make our streets safer. They were, among others: Adoption of a “complete streets” approach in community planning Development of an Ontario Cycling [...]
Website rates Canadian cities on bike-ability [CBC News] Researchers at UBC and Simon Fraser University have come up with a way to rate how good major Canadian cities are for cycling. Modelled on a site called Walk-Score, researchers tallied up three factors: topography, bike accessibility to shops and the number of bike lanes. The results are [...]
Video of a little trek I took from Jones Avenue and Queen via Queen Street to Leslie Street, via Leslie to Lake Shore Boulevard. Some residents of Toronto’s downtown east side neighbourhood known as Leslieville, want the City of Toronto to install cycling infrastructure along Leslie Street when it is redeveloped this year. This video [...]
From tragedy to disgust: Video of dead cyclist stolen [The Star] Earlier this month, bicyclist Jenna Morrison was struck and killed by a truck while turning right from Sterling Rd. to Dundas St. W. Now, the family has been rocked by the news that a video camera containing footage of the much-loved yoga instructor dancing [...]
One Step Closer to Separated Bikelanes on Adelaide and Richmond Streets
By Joe T. | November 7, 2011
Back in June, Rob Ford presented his BikePlan, which essentially was just a re-hashing of some earlier concepts by other politicians and I think, originally, by Dave Meslin, including most signficantly, an idea to put separated bikelanes on Richmond and Adelaide Streets. That plan is one step closer now due to the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee [...]
BlogTO has a post today about the removal of the Pharmacy Ave. bikelane. The Birchmount bikelane is also due to be removed thanks to the backwards-looking decision of Rob Ford’s regime at City Council. Although the vote to kill the Jarvis bike lanes got most of the attention earlier this year, they weren’t the only [...]
City Council is meeting this coming Wednesday (Sept. 21st) and Councillor Josh Matlow (Ward 22, St. Pauls) has a proposal on the agenda by substantially increasing the fine (to $500) for parking on city arterials or in bikelanes during rush hour periods. I don’t see parking enforcement officers ticketing bikelane parkers much (but do, on [...]
UPDATE! 44 shirts have been bought. This has now raised $264 for Bikes without Borders‘ Pedal-Powered Hope Project! On my way to work this morning I had a little brainstorm about making a Jack Layton I Bike T.O. shirt, so that’s what I did. It’s orange (you can change that to another colour if you [...]
My most vivid memory from my many years of riding in the Ride for Heart is riding along and having a tandem bike come up along beside me. I thought nothing of it other than “cool! a tandem!” until I looked at the people riding it and saw Jack and Olivia. I nearly fell off [...]
Great Press Release from Bikes without Borders and House of Anansi Press: Rob Ford thinks “cyclists are a pain in the ass.” These cyclists are saving lives. House of Anansi Press is proud to sponsor a fundraiser for Toronto-based organization Bikes Without Borders, providing bicycles and bicycle ambulances to Community Health Workers in Malawi. On [...]
The future of the Jarvis bikelanes is being decided today (or maybe tomorrow) by City Council. If you can’t make it to City Hall in person today (or tomorrow), you can watch the activities of Council via this live feed from Rogers. Need to know more info about Jarvis? The Jarvis Bikelane is Doomed, and [...]
I didn’t like writing the title of this post, but the following HAS to be said. We’re in danger of losing the 1-year-old Jarvis bikelanes as the Ford Mayoralty has shown that they believe (and they’re right) that the Torontonians that voted for Rob Ford and his idealogical counterparts voted for them to 1) reduce [...]
If you haven’t heard already, on Thursday the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee at City Hall voted to take out the Jarvis Bikelanes that were installed about a year ago. This is not the final decision on the Jarvis bikelanes though… the matter now goes to City Council on July 12-13, and the Toronto cycling [...]
The headline for this Toronto Star article is about opposition to road tolls to pay for Mayor Ford’s enormous (and unfunded) subway plans, but if you read past the first few paragraphs, you’ll see that in a telephone poll (PDF) conducted by Forum Research found that a “whopping” 72% of those surveyed support the rumoured [...]
The Fort York Pedestrian and Cyclist Bridge is, for all intents and purposes, dead. Some background, in case you haven’t been following along: You may remember our post from a couple weeks ago when the Public Works Committee decided that a beautiful pedestrian and cyclist bridge that would link historic Fort York (and waterfront neighbourhoods) [...]
This information is from Save the Fort York Bridge , who is publicizing the following to help drum up support for overturning the decision to scrap the beautiful pedestrian and cyclist bridge planned for Fort York: 1. 1000 Letters to Mayor. The Battle Is On To Save The Fort York Bridge https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=144787658927784 Thu May 12 between [...]
You may remember our post from a couple weeks ago when the Public Works Committee decided that a beautiful pedestrian and cyclist bridge that would link historic Fort York (and waterfront neighbourhoods) to the park system and neighbourhoods north of the railway tracks along the waterfront) cost too much money and it would be better [...]
The National Post has an interesting article about Seinfeld-esque Bizarro World that is forming around the issue of separated bikelanes in Toronto. Denzil Minnan-Wong, head of the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee, is pushing a plan of 4 streets in downtown Toronto having physically-separate bikelanes to ensure safety for cyclists (which includes novice and tourist [...]
The dismantling of Toronto continues, sadly, with the Public Works Committee nixing plans for a beautiful cyclist and pedestrian bridge (above) meant to link Fort York to neighbourhoods and parks north of the rail corridor. Even though financing for the bridge is already budgeted, Councillor David Shiner, a Rob Ford ally who subscribes to the [...]
