TorontoCranks

The charges for riding on the Gardiner last year at Critical Mass worked their way through the courts in the last few weeks and have been all dropped. One charge from the ride for ‘failing to obey a police officer’ resulted in the cyclist pleading guilty and he received a reduced fine of $60. The charges for riding on the Gardiner were all bogus, as they did not apply to it. All of the charges should have been dropped because the cyclists were stopped for law that did not apply. Though pleading guilty to a $60. fine probably saved the cyclist loads of aggravation.

I do not think I am going too far out on a limb here to suggest that had the charges for riding on the Gardiner went to trial and there was a finding of not guilty,  it would have a created future free-for-alls on the Gardiner. A lot less risky for the prosecutor to drop the charges than to proceed and lose.

Thanks to Angela B. and Kyle for the info.

June 19 - July 3 | Opening 20 | 7-9 PM
“Will You Be My Bicycle” Hotshot Gallery
Photographs from a ‘Public History of Cycling in Toronto’ by Martin Reis
(includes photos of Ghost Bikes and ARC memorials and more)
PLUS! Artwork by Paul Johnson from his popular ‘Cycling in Toronto’ comic
series … HotShot Gallery | 181 Augusta Avenue (in Kensington Market)

Found myself this morning in the Portlands with some free time. I decided to take a little tour of the bike lanes to see how they are fairing in the civic strike. I assume that the strike includes people who clean our streets, though I stand to be corrected on that. I wanted to see if they were full of debris and litter. Happy to report that they did not seem any worse than usual. My route included College, Wellesley, Sherbourne, Shuter, River, Gerrard and Dundas. Sadly, they were littered with cars parked in them. This was 7am in the morning and there was an abundance of free parking.

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Cycling advocate Wayne Scott is taking the municipal strike in stride and says that he is also getting good exercise doing it. He has rigged up his bike to take his trash to the dump. I did not have the heart to tell him that the DVP does not really qualify as a garbage dump.

…Seconds count in an emergency! When you have an emergency in Toronto just dial 9-1-1.

What is an Emergency?

An emergency is any situation where there are people or property at risk. Examples include fires, crimes in progress or medical emergencies… - Toronto Police

Safe Cycling - Share the Responsibility Campaign

Officers will pay particular attention to those motorists who endanger the lives of cyclists, including vehicles parked in designated bike lanes. - Toronto Police (see pdf below.)

s.180 of the Canadian Criminal Code -

Common nuisance

(1) Every one who commits a common nuisance and thereby

(a) endangers the lives, safety or health of the public, or

(b) causes physical injury to any person,

is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

As an added bonus this year, we have the Cyclists Union supporting this initiative. The police have been such a credible bunch when it comes to cycling. Oh well, fuck accountability.

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166551 - Safe Cycling - Share the Responsibility Campaign - .pdf

“Cyclists do not pay gas tax, licenses or car insurance, they have no rights to use our roads!”

How many times have you heard someone say this or something like it? It is an absolute myth. Let us get that straight right now, it is a myth. There is a flipside to this too. Cyclists claim that they should have their taxes reduced because they should not be paying for motor vehicle infrastructure. Unfortunately, that too is a myth.

Any good or service you buy has gas tax, vehicle maintenance, fuel costs, motor vehicle license costs and insurance factored into its costs. There is no way of getting around it unless you live entirely self sufficiently. This is not rocket science but economics 101. So when the cost of insurance goes up, we all pay for it. While some of us may not receive an insurance bill in the mail, we all pay for car insurance. Yes, maybe it would be better if we had distinct separation of a goods price and the costs of bringing it to market… that is another issue altogether. Cyclists buy goods, those goods are transported by motor vehicles. So yes they have an interest in seeing that there is viable motor vehicle infrastructure. Cyclists cannot claim a moral high ground. Even if you buy local it is very hard to get away from the costs mentioned above. Just because you reduce your footprint does not change the fact that you are still paying the aforementioned costs. For the record, I am not arguing that the motor vehicle infrastructure is properly managed, its not, just that everyone pays for it and for now needs it.

So if you are one of those people who keep trying to perpetuate this myth I am going to tax your shit. Yes, each time you take a shit I am going to tax you. See how much you like that. One of the few things in life that you do not need a motor vehicle to bring to market.

When I have to pick up my son from daycare we ride up a part of Coxwell to get to the Cosburn bike lanes. Coxwell is an alright street to ride except for the part that goes by the East York General Hospital (that is its old name, think they have renamed), parking is allowed on Coxwell in front of the hospital between Sammon and Coxwell. No big deal you just have to realize when riding by that the taxis are always jostling for fares in this stretch and there are a lot of people opening their doors without paying attention. Kind of understandable, people are stressed going to a hospital. Most are there for bad news. I take this into account and make sure that I stay away from doors, taxis and the wandering souls in this stretch. Today that put me and my son a door length away from the parked cars and slightly into the left lane.

Had this driver charge up from behind me blowing his horn, then pointing to the left lane yelling that, “This lane is for motorists!” He better watch out, he might get some of the “War on Car” faction after him for ceding an entire lane to non-motorists. I said some nice things to him. He passes me. Caught up to him at the lights. His wife starts to rationalize his behaviour to me. She claims he was concerned about the “…welfare of my child…”  Yes, so numb nuts is so concerned about the welfare of my child that he runs his car at us? This makes sense. The only thing he was worried about was me encroaching into the “motorists’ lane”. She told me that I should riding closer to the parked cars. Such great concern for my kid that she wants me to run him into the door zone. Do you know what the delay was that the driver would have faced had he really cared. All of about zero seconds. Even after passing me, we both arrived at the same red light.

I have been working on the attitude of letting it go. I resist saying nothing to the idjits out there unless a collision is imminent. If I have the urge to say something I keep it under the noise of the street. People that run cars at you are beyond any sort of help. Sort of disappointed in myself today cause I did not let it go. Still frazzled I guess from about 40 minutes earlier when a car swerved into me, one minute the car is in the left lane then all of a sudden he is filling my field of view. All because he did not want to drive his very pretty car over a pot hole. Managed to keep shut, well ok, I probably look liked a nut for a couple of minutes as I quietly muttered to myself.

Oh well, y’all watch out for that motorist lane now.

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I passed this male cyclist on Danforth. He was cruising along in the curb lane and seemed quite content, had long hair and a shirt that had a saying on it that ended in “…FUCK!”

A couple of minutes later he blows by me trying to hunt down a car in the left lane. He was screaming at it, though I could not understand what he was saying. Sounded like gibberish with a few swear words added in. I kept close thinking that he may have been hit by the car. Then he went after another car, then another. He is riding smack dab in the middle of the lane trying to swerve at passing cars. Spits at one.

Comes to a stale red light. Blows through it. Traffic screeches to a halt. I have to hand it to those drivers, they did a superb job in stopping in time. The guy kept going, kept trying to run cars off the road. Then he stops going after the cars and just starts to ride as when I first encountered him.

I do not know what set him off, I lost sight of him after I first passed him. It was quite bizarre to witness. I am used to cars going ballistic but never have I seen a cyclist go postal on a multitude of cars. Maybe he just reached a point where he could not take the daily abuse from drivers… maybe he had other issues.