Check out the video, courtesy of www.grist.org.
Of course it's staged, but a powerful statement nevertheless.
... I'd settle for a simple ticket for all offenders on Toronto's streets.
Can you spot the Alien Lunatics? They will be the ones approaching the barrier on Martin Goodman Trail at top speeds from opposite directions, with no humanoid fears of death or dismemberment. (Jake Lakey/Toronto Star File Photo)
Contrary to popular belief, Toronto does not have a war between pedestrians and cyclists.
Nor does Toronto have a war between cyclists and the drivers of motor vehicles.
What Toronto has is a war between Carbon-Based Life Forms and Alien Lunatics.
The aliens — whose ranks include representatives from all three categories of traveller — seem to be winning.
This is unfortunate, because the extraterrestrials among us appear to have little or no understanding of the physical, emotional, or legal properties that govern life on Planet Earth.
They have no clear concept of momentum or gravity, for example, no notion of caution or fear, no ability to anticipate the future, no capacity for empathy, no inkling of the law.
They also seem to be colour blind, unable to distinguish between red and green.
But what do you expect? They are alien lunatics.
(Metaphor alert: Nothing in this article should be taken to mean that Toronto streets are literally being attacked by actual invaders from space. All depictions of aliens in this article are purely figurative — we’re talking about idiot commuters. Try to remain calm and do not call 911. Now, back to our story.)
You will encounter hundreds of alien lunatics on the roads of this city practically every day. They dress and comport themselves as if they were human. Most of the time, you can barely tell the difference — as long as they are standing still.
The trouble starts when they begin to move.
There should be a law against that, and maybe one day there will be, but we’re not there yet.
When alien lunatics begin to move, they expose themselves as what they really are — creatures from some distant solar system sent here to take control of our roads, to cause us grievous bodily harm, and to make it seem that we — pedestrians, cyclists, motorists — are at war with each other.
But we’re not.
The conflict on Toronto’s roads does not pit different modes of conveyance. It pits people with a perceptible brainwave pattern against witless idiots from outer space.
Sometimes the idiots take aim at each other. (Why? Because they’re idiots.)
Consider the Martin Goodman trail stretching west from Bathurst St. along the lake shore.
At intersections along the way, municipal workers have installed metal barriers ostensibly designed to encourage cyclists, in-line skaters, joggers, and other users of the trail to take care at these locations.
They would be wise to do so because there is not really enough space for two travellers proceeding in opposite directions to negotiate the barriers at the same time without dismembering each other.
To avoid such a fate, one traveller or the other — preferably both — needs to conduct a critical velocity-reduction manoeuvre known on Earth as “slowing down.”
That way, they can proceed through the narrow opening one at a time, an arrangement known hereabouts as “taking turns.”
But extraterrestrials do not seem to grasp this notion.
Instead, they approach each other at top speed from opposite directions, racing wildly toward the barrier in a desperate if completely irrational game of chicken, fully expecting that the other party will wimp out first, or else they’ll both be killed in a heart-stopping, bone-crushing collision of flesh, Spandex, and metal.
Whatever.
Some cyclists invariably do wimp out. (Guilty.) Others do not.
This is a sure way of distinguishing Carbon-Based Life Forms from Alien Lunatics.
The CBLFs have a sense of their own mortality — not to mention the mortality of others.
ALs seem to lack this appreciation.
Alien Lunatics also drive cars and love to amuse themselves with playful little procedures such as sneaking up behind an unwitting cyclist before suddenly gunning the engine and roaring past, close enough to the bicycle so that if it strayed from its path by even a few centimetres, the rider would be knocked over and quite possibly killed.
Alien motorists do not seem to understand that a cyclist’s first reaction, when alarmed, is to tense up, or that a bicycle’s first response, when its rider tenses up, is to wobble, perhaps uncontrollably.
Or maybe they do understand. Maybe that’s why alien motorists aim their vehicles so close to cyclists in the first place. In outer space, they probably treat dead Earthlings as trophies. They probably mount their stuffed remains above the kryptonite mantel and tell interminable tales about the good old days of hunting Earth-dwellers in an exotic killing zone called Toronto.
Yes, it is a war out there — a war between sane, sentient creatures, who would recognize Margaret Atwood if they passed her on the street, and psychotic trophy-hunters from a parallel universe, who would not.
Which brings us to pedestrians. They can be trouble, too, especially if they happen to be lobotomized hiking enthusiasts from Alpha Centauri.
They jaywalk. They cross against the lights. They fail to look both ways. They shake their webbed fists at law-abiding terrestrial cyclists and motorists for failing to cede the entirety of the road.
They are the problem — they and their fellow aliens, whether stumbling with their children along the streetcar tracks, careening along the sidewalk on their bicycles, or drag-racing on Jarvis St. in their parents’ cars.
We have seen the enemy — and he is from Pluto.
-Oakland Ross, Feature Writer
The number of cycling-related head injuries has dropped significantly over the last decade, according to new national statistics, and officials are crediting a growing use of helmets.
While the number of hospital admissions due to cycling injuries across Canada remained stable between 2001-02 and 2009-10, the number attributed to head injuries fell by 27 per cent, according to new data released Thursday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
“It intuitively makes sense. If you have something to protect your head you are less likely to have an injury,” said Greg Webster, director of primary health care information at CIHI.
There were 4,325 cycling-related injuries in 2009-10, compared to 4,332 eight years earlier. Meantime, the number of cycling-related head injuries stood at 665 last year, compared to 907 in 2001-2002.
Only about one in four of the overall cycling-related hospitalizations involved a collision with a motor vehicle
“For three out of four, something else is going on. It could be just a crash on a trail or a collision with another cyclist or a pedestrian,” Webster said.
While the numbers point to a positive trend, they also show the message about helmets hasn’t reached some. Of those who still ended up in hospital trauma units because of head injuries, 78 per cent were not wearing helmets.
Cycling injuries account for half of all hospital admissions related to summer sports and recreational activities. And close to half of all cycling injuries occur in June, July and August.
CIHI purposely released statistics on wheel- and water-related injuries in advance of the August civil holiday long weekend to remind Canadians that summer is peak season for such misadventure.
“For all of these injuries we no longer use the term accidents. They are not accidents and things that are inevitable and should happen. People are making decisions that either increase or reduce their risk of having an injury,” Webster said.
“So it is really about individuals monitoring their behaviour. For any of these activities, obviously alcohol shouldn’t be involved. They need to pay attention to the rules, use the right safety equipment, not be distracted by cellphone or other things and really pay attention,” he added.
Overall, there is an average of 194 deaths in Canada every summer from activities such as motor vehicle collisions, all-terrain vehicle collisions, cycling, boating and swimming.
The number of serious injuries involving ATVs is growing faster than for any other type of activity. In 2009-10, there were 3,386 hospitalizations for ATV injuries across the country, a 31 per cent increase over eight years. Those at highest risk were young men, aged 15 to 24.
Webster believes this number is on the rise because more people are using the recreational vehicles.
Motor vehicle collisions still represent the second most frequent cause of injury, second only to falls, accounting for 18,964 hospitalizations in 2009-10. Still, the number dropped by a significant 21 per cent from eight years earlier.
The number of water-related injuries has remained stable since 2001-2002, with 331 injuries occurring in 2009-2010.
-- Teresa Boyle, Staff Reporter
Emily Niedoba, injured after being hit by a 240-lb. cyclist in downtown Toronto, is considering civil action. She says cyclists should be licensed and be required to carry insurance. (RENE JOHNSTON/TORONTO STAR)
For Emily Niedoba, June 5 is pretty much a blank slate — she has no memory of being mowed down around noon by a 240-lb. cyclist who ran a red light at Yonge St. and Rosehill Ave.
“I don’t remember anything about getting hit — my last memory was being back at the gym having a shower,’’ she says.
Continue reading "Cyclists need to be licensed, says injured pedestrian" »
Organizers estimate nearly 1000 rallied in protest to Mayor Ford's cuts to bike lanes on arterial roads in the city after meeting at Carlton and Jarvis Wednesday night. (Lucas Oleniuk/Toronto Star)
On Wednesday evening hundreds of cyclists filled Jarvis St., sidewalk to sidewalk, rallying to preserve the one precious strip they call their own.
Continue reading "Cyclists take over Jarvis to protest bike lane removal" »
More than 900 cyclists are planning to take over Jarvis St. on Wednesday evening to protest city council's contentious decision to remove the road's bike lanes.
City council voted 28-9 last week to spend $410,000 to erase the year-old, two-kilometre bike lanes on Jarvis St., as well as lanes on Birchmount Rd. and Pharmacy Ave. in Scarborough.
The same vote also approved a plan, put forward by Ford ally and Public Works Chair Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, for a 14-kilometre network of physically separated lanes on four downtown streets, and asked staff to try to avoid erasing the Jarvis lanes until there is a protected lane on nearby Sherbourne St.
"While we agree with Councillor Minnan-Wong that Toronto needs a network of protected bike lanes, we strongly oppose the notion that they emerge at the cost of infrastructure elsewhere," said Andrea Garcia, director of advocacy for the Toronto Cyclists Union, the group planning Wednesday's event.
A Facebook page for the event lists 937 confirmed attendees as of noon Tuesday.
"While we move forward with protected bike lanes, the Ford administration sent a strong signal that people in cars matter more than people on bikes. Mayor Ford chose to ignore the facts and the community while making decisions based on an ideology that bikes don’t belong on arterial roads," Garcia said.
Organizers plan to meet at 6:30 p.m. at Allan Gardens, east of Jarvis St., between Carlton and Gerrard Sts., and will then takeover the entire roadway in a critical mass-styled ride.
"This is a family friendly event where we plan to ride together on Jarvis Street and take lanes of traffic. Come one, come all!" the event description states.
The Jarvis lanes were installed last year at a cost of $59,000 and at the expense of a fifth car lane, which changed direction depending on the time of day.
Staff say the bike lanes prolong car commutes from two to five minutes during rush hours.
The protected lanes, likely similar to those in Montreal, will be a first for Toronto but most will probably go on streets that already have painted lanes. With the loss of Jarvis, Birchmount (2.5 km) and Pharmacy (3.4 km), while adding Dawes Rd. (2 km), the overall cycling network shrinks.
While some cyclist reacted with disappointment after yesterday's council vote to eliminate the Jarvis bike lanes, others are finding the humour in it.
Joel Loughead posted the listing below last night on Craigslist for the bike lanes (click for a bigger version):
Alexander Labayen started his own bike share program, lending out wheels from his large personal collection to people in his neighbourhood. (VINCE TALOTTA/TORONTO STAR)
Nicki Thomas, Staff Reporter
Before Bixi, Alexander Labayen devised his own public bike system.
Stash some bikes near Roncesvalles Ave. Lock one up near Casa Loma. Keep another over by St. Lawrence Market.
“You never know, you might be with a friend and you just want to ride around the city,” said Labayen, 35, the force behind the urban bike blog, 416Cyclestyle.
Since then, Labayen has ditched downtown for Etobicoke. With little hope that Bixi will ever expand to his current community, he’s come up with another way to bike share.
If you’re in the neighbourhood and you need wheels, just borrow some of his.
It’s a pretty informal system. He’s got about 20 bikes parked in his garage, hanging on the walls and stuffed in the rafters. There are a couple of logbooks, where he might write down who borrowed a cruiser and who took off with the training wheels.
Most importantly, it won’t cost you a dime.
“If you have something, share it,” said the married father of two. “It doesn’t have to be on a big scale. You don’t have to have 20 bikes in your garage to do something like this.”
While Labayen brings bikes to his suburban brethren, the city is mulling over how to expand Bixi. It currently has 80 stations between Jarvis St. and Spadina Ave. and from Bloor St. to the lake. A proposal from the Toronto Cyclists Union would see the borders expand to High Park, Broadview Ave. and Dupont St.
City staff has until September to figure out how to expand the program, which recently hit its 100,000th ride.
At question is who is responsible for approving and paying for an expansion — the city or Bixi — and what revenue and ridership targets warrant an expansion.
Andrea Garcia, spokeswoman for the Toronto Cyclists Union, is a public bike share system expert, who wrote her thesis on the topic. She’s never come across a Bixi-type program in a suburb. But she applauds Labayen’s do-it-yourself system.
“We’re all for any program that’s going to increase the visibility or uptake and awareness of cycling,” she said. “We think anything like that is great, especially in areas like Etobicoke where the cycling ridership is slightly lower.”
Labayen said he’s seen the cycling culture in his Markland Woods neighbourhood change over the years. There are more cyclists using the new bike lane on Renforth Dr., more families taking rides through the neighbourhood. He believes that cycling begets cycling, which is one reason he’s keen to have as many people as possible on bikes.
“A lot of silent advocacy is just seeing people riding a bike. If you show people they can do it, then they do it,” he said, adding that it’s also the best way to see your neighbourhood. “That’s all I’m giving people. Another way to figure out the bits and pieces of their community.”
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