MB Toronto
Morning Brew: Bixi bike sharing in Toronto, Build Toronto projects revealed, OpenFile launches, racial discrimination in taxi industry, break and enter suspect nabbed, shortage of neurosurgeons costing taxpayers
The Bixi bike sharing program is coming to Toronto. City council voted in favour of the proposal, which will see 1000 public-use bikes strategically placed throughout the downtown core. Users can either apply for membership (which has certain privileges) but tourists and other one-off users will also be able to approach any of the solar powered docking stations and use a credit card to rent a bike. Some councilors expressed concerns over the financials, since the City has signed on as a guarantor for the loan used to fund the project, and others are not happy that half of the profits generated will go to Montreal.
Build Toronto, the agency tasked with generating monies from underused city land, is set to reveal its first four major projects. The Globe and Mail has some early but vague details about what these projects are: the recently proposed TTC headquarters in York Mills, a massive office and residential complex at Downsview subway station, a condo development at Front and Sherbourne, and a yet-to-be-revealed development on a vacant industrial lot (Westwood? Kipling?) in Etobicoke.
Yesterday saw the launch of a highly-anticipated new journalism project dubbed "OpenFile." Wilf Dinnick, whose extensive career spans roles at news agencies including CBC, Global, ABC and CNN, has devised a local news concept and site that aims to bring about a higher level of interaction between the citizens and the reporters. While the idea is not really that different from what's being done by local news agencies and blogs (who seek out and handle news tips from the public regularly, and allow readers to contribute commentary and multi-media to build on stories), the presentation is somewhat different in that these processes are more readily observed out in the open.
Taxi licensing in Toronto has been fraught with problems for a long time, and way back in 1998 a task force was supposed to reveal and fix issues related to racial discrimination in the industry. Years later, it appears that the problem has not been fully solved... and there are calls to once again look into allegations of racial discrimination in taxi licensing. Higher-level (or "standard") licensing is dominated by Caucasian owner, while entry-level (or "ambassador") licensing is occupied largely by visible minorities. Having a standard license allows the taxi owner to hire shift workers and earn money round the clock, while ambassador licenses only allow owners to operate their cabs 12h per day.
Police have apprehended a break and enter suspect who they believe is responsible for a number of crimes in the area bounded by Dundas, Dupont, Bathurst and Lansdowne. They'd previously issued a warning to residents -- because there was concern that the suspect would become violent -- which may have helped put them on higher alert and watch.
On the weekend, a patient in Toronto requiring emergency surgery on a life-threatening brain aneurysm had to be flown down to Buffalo for care because a doctor was simply not available. Evidently, shortages of qualified neurosurgeons and other medical care specialists in Toronto and across the province is costing taxpayers a lot of money. How can we make our neck of the woods more attractive to professionals in the field?
Photo: "Dirty Water" by sniderscion, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
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Hmm... maybe we'd keep the money in Toronto if Toronto ever generated and achieved an original idea. And, isn't this just the Bixi deal that failed for this year? So we waited an extra year for the same deal? What happened? Astral Media didn't promise enough kickbacks as part of their bike share scheme?
And Jerrold, kudos on the unusual restraint on your anti-bike bias. You do so much better when you don't editorialize.
I don't agree with the University plan the way it is but if you removed parking on that avenue you could easily fit a bike lane and widen the other lanes some. Traffic would not be affected since the on-street parking removes a lane most of the day anyway. Most of the places they put bike lanes hasn't really changed much for the traffic since a bike lane rarely removes a full lane of traffic. Where it does, it is usually on roads that were never meant to handle the loads of overflow traffic from the expressways and such - like Eastern Ave where it has a bike lane. That street wasn't meant for the volume that people who complain against the bike lane expect it to support.
Also, I don't hear you railing against the drivers who park or stop their cars to the side of the road at times like "rush hour" so they can have convenience while REALLY snarling already congested traffic. I can drive around a bicycle easily enough without changing lanes, a car or truck not at all.
Next time you are in "snarled" traffic. Take a look and see what is causing it at the other end. I can guarantee that 9.9 times out of 10 it ain't a bicycle or a bike lane.
Elizabeth, how would you cross the train tracks on quiet side streets?
In my opinion we should make all main arteries into the downtown core toll highways and charge drivers in the downtown core. Then use that money as well as tax money to create an incredible and free transit system. Many more people would decide to use transit if it was dramatically improved and free and driving downtown was tolled , then the traffic downtown would be dramatically reduced and we could put bike lanes everywhere and pedestrian areas.
Also, as soon as the stations are set up, there will be screams of rage from drivers, as they take up a lot of parking spaces. Councillors won't be able to take the heat.
It's really too bad because the system is fantastic when properly implemented. Why council feels the need to cheap out on everything I don't know--they end up wasting more money that way.
Is there any east-west route that bike-lane skeptics and/or naysayers are willing to concede might be able to accommodate bike lanes? And when I say east-west, I mean a street that stretches beyond the downtown.
Also, add to that what Mark said. How many side streets are you willing to navigate, making turns in all directions to get to where you are going instead of using one (relatively) straight line? This is the reason most drivers don't take side streets only to get home and why any (relatively) straight E-W path is inundated with cars which leads those same drivers to be even more vocal about congestion and anything else which adds a second or two off their commute or requires them to slow from 60 to 40 for any length of time.
Look at it this way - the DVP and QEW have ZERO bike lanes and multiple car lanes and I defy you to show me a rush hour where there isn't "snarled" traffic on some point of these highways.
I fully expect the next argument from these same "motorists" is to take out the crosswalks since they are barely used and installed by the highly influential and socialist pedestrian cartel and all they do is "snarl already congested traffic".
Really not a big deal when you think about it. Goodness, and that doesn't even take into account the obvious growth in cyclists in the past 11 years.
This shouldn't be an argument about who is congesting what. But how am I supposed to get to school, and work without somebody sharing the road with me. Either I'm in a 3m x 1.5m car or sitting on a bicycle that is barely larger than myself. I'm terribly sorry your commute takes you an extra few minutes, but it'd take a hell of a lot longer if that 20% didn't cycle because drivers had made it an unsafe and unacceptable form of vehicular transportation on their own selfishly hoarded roads.
Every person on transit and on a bicycle is another one out of your 'safe' moving, high-speed seeking, sitting alone in your luxury car dream satisfying lifestyle.
So let us, the meager 20% have at least a little bit of paved deserts where no green things grow, and the sun burns too hot, and no one can safely cross. Just a tiny tiny little bit. We promise it won't hurt too much.
I actually think it would be great if every road had a bike lane in the city. Cyclists go 30 km/h in a 50 or 60 and hold up traffic because they ride way off the curb and don't let anyone go around unless they change lanes and in rush hour, that's not going to make things any easier on traffic. I have news for you Andy, roads were built for cars. I thought that was fairly obvious judging by the width of them and those lines painted on them.
Hope your spandex makes you go faster though. You and the rest of the clowns training for the tour look fantastic.
I also drive though and have a dual perspective which helps toe the middle. I see what you are saying about people not being able to pass bikes. I see so many people absolutely unable to get around a cyclist on the road. However, it is not because the cyclist won't let them but because these people operating the motor vehicle have no conception of their vehicle's dimensions in space and are terrified to make determined movements so they slow down, creep into the next lane, tailgate the bike. All sorts of unpredictable and erratic behaviours and THAT makes these people dangerous to everyone else on the road and slows down traffic flow. There are few roads that one must change lanes to pass a bike safely unless you drive a Yukon or some other such monstrosity. You don't blow by a bike but you don't need to give him a car length of lateral space either.
As for riding off the curb, look at the HTA, cyclists have 1 meter from the curb. Hell, the MTO even tells you to do that on their website - http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/pubs/cycling-guide/section3.0.shtml. Read the page, I bet you will pltoz when you see the part about "taking the lane". Motorists often don't understand that one and lose their S*** on cyclists.
Also my friend, roads were built for vehicles, of which bicycles are. I thought that was fairly obvious.
Yes, SOME cyclists ride in illegal ways.
but, SOME drivers do as well, and that's what makes everyone frustrated, is that both sides often adamantly refuse to accept responsibility for their peers. However, your concept of 'sides' is boiling down to who owns the roads, and thus who has a right to travel on them.
Here are the arguments so far in this thread.
1. They are both for both bicycles and automobiles because there is enough room.
2. The are for both because that is mandated by law.
3. They are for cars because there isn't enough room.
4. They are for cars because they are big and lines are painted all over them.
No offense Jaime, but that was fairly unrealistic of you to say, the re-purposing of streets by painting NEW lines on them, proves that you can in fact change the road system which isn't just for cars anymore. I guess when a new streetcar line gets a dedicated centre lane, you'll be pissed off as well because it was meant for cars only. But I really don't want to get into personal arguments.
I just don't understand why people can't share the road. It's not hard, all it takes is a recognition that people on all methods of transportation do illegal things sometimes, and truly those people should be reprimanded or a better system needs to be developed to address the different conditions in which different vehicles move within the same space. Also, clearly a greater level of education is required, because cyclists have rights that are encroached on daily by drivers who, according to physics may injure or fatally wound a cyclist with just the wrong move, but cyclists must not put themselves in the way of danger either.