Art bike inspires councillor, but will he save it from the scrapheap?

An old Raleigh bike sat chained to a post -- alone, unloved and unclaimed -- outside a stretch of Dundas St. W. for years, just another piece of urban clutter.

When Caroline Macfarlane decided to turn the bike into eye-pleasing art, painting it a neon shade of orangey-pink, the city promptly slapped a removal notice on it. Macfarlane, who envisions using abandoned bikes as a city-wide art project, found the notice while returning to put plants in the bike's basket.

Gary Crawford, the city councillor for Ward 36 Scarborough West, was taken with Macfarlane's beautify-it-yourself ethos, saying in a news release: "I was really taken away by the whole idea. There are probably 1000's of unsightly abandoned bicycles in the City. Imagine if we woke up one morning and all these bikes were transformed into wonderful works of creative expression.  What these artists have done has brought attention to how a small act of creativity can make the City of Toronto a more beautiful place to live."

He knows of what he speaks. A conservative who usually votes with Mayor Rob Ford, he's also a professional landscape and portrait painter, and part-time drummer in a classic rock band.

After meeting with Macfarlane, Crawford announced he's launching an initiative called "10,000 Ideas for Creative Change in Toronto" and is urging residents to tell him their ideas on his Facebook page, through Twitter or by calling (416) 392-4052.

But is he going to save Macfarlane's art bike from death row? An aide says the councillor is talking to city staff to see what he can do.

 

Beauty in the eye of the rider

 
The idea of elevated light rail has frequently been dismissed as a non-starter in Toronto. The fear is that it could create Gardiner Expressway-like scenarios around the city and interfere with above-ground utility lines.

But this photo of the Brentwood Station on Vancouver's Millennium line, sent by Metrolinx CEO Bruce McCuaig, proves it needn't be ugly and could in fact add a little wow to the landscape. Of course this picture is shot from above, not the view most people would enjoy. Other photos online, however, show that the station is still arresting from the rider's perspective.

Metrolinx and the TTC are analyzing the potential impacts of above-grade trains as a way to meet Mayor Rob Ford's goal of reserving road space for cars but expanding transit. Building above ground is less expensive than burying rail lines. With automated light rail such as that used in Vancouver it's also cheaper to operate because you don't have to pay drivers and computerized signalling means you can run more trains.

The technology being used in Vancouver is the next generation of Toronto's SRT, which theoretically can also operate unstaffed.

Toronto cycling advocate passes the torch

 
Yvonne Bambrick, the enthusiastic and civically engaged head of the Toronto Cylists Union is cruising to greener pastures, although she's not saying which way she's pointed.

Bambrick was the first executive director of the union since that was established in 2008. When she decided earlier this year it was time to move on, she stepped into the role of communications director while Andrea Garcia, director of advocacy and operations, got her feet firmly planted on the union pedals.

Under Bambrick's direction, the union has become an influential voice not just for cycling in Toronto, but for walking and transit. She has lent her energy and support to the upcoming Bixi bike sharing program, cycling lane expansion and projects like the Union Station bike station and on-street bike parking.

Although she is a fierce advocate for cycling as a means to a healthier city, Bambrick is also a patient listener even when others' views aren't necessarily aligned with her own.

Here are her closing remarks.

Where the candidates stand on Transit City

The latest survey of candidates' views on transit are now posted on the Public Transit Coalition's website.

The coalition is the same group that just spent $500,000 from the TTC workers' union to set up a website and ad campaign warning against the evils of privatized transit and the one that supported Mayor David Miller's fight against the province's deferral of $4 billion in Transit City light rail funding in last spring's budget.

Not surprisingly the survey questions are geared at gauging candidate support for Transit City and for maintaining city council oversight of the TTC.

Incumbents seem to score well on this survey, hardly a shock since they were in the government that backed the Transit City plan.

Where candidates stand on walking and biking

The Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation has released its survey of candidates' positions on walking and cycling issues in the city, asking each whether they support pedestrian policies and the city's bike plan and the timelines they project for implementation. The survey which includes all municipal candidates from mayoral wannabes, to councillors to trustees.

Not all candidates responded, however, including mayoral frontrunner Rob Ford. But he did do the survey in 2006 and his positions haven't really changed.

Here's the media release:

The Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation (TCAT) releases the results of its 2010 Municipal Candidate Election Surveys today. TCAT surveyed all Toronto candidates to provide voters the candidates' views on active transportation issues and the concrete steps that can be taken to improve cycling and walking in Toronto. Surveys were sent in August 2010 to all of the mayoral, councillor and school trustee candidates – 475 candidates in total, with 137 respondents to date.

The survey for mayoral and councilor candidates contained nine questions gauging support for specific cycling, pedestrian and public transit projects in the city. School trustee candidates received a different survey, related to increasing opportunities for students to safely walk or bike to school. Of particular interest was support expressed for TCAT’s top three priorities for the next term of council:

• A Complete Streets Policy for Toronto: 69% per cent of 13 mayoral candidates and 77% of 84 council candidates strongly support developing and implementing a Complete Streets policy. This policy would ensure our streets are routinely designed to provide the safe travel of all road users, including cyclists and pedestrians.
• Full implementation of the Toronto Walking Strategy by 2019: 54% of 13 mayoral candidates and 79% of 84 council candidates say they would fully staff and fund the Pedestrian Projects Unit of the Public Realm Section.
• Building a new major east-west bicycle lane on Bloor Street and Danforth Avenue: 46% of 13 mayoral candidates and 45% of 83 council candidates strongly support this important artery for cyclists.

“It was important that our questions reflected issues that both our coalition members and the city as a whole have told us are major concerns and priorities,” said Nancy Smith Lea, TCAT Director. “We asked about a Complete Streets Policy because they are hugely successful in the United States, Toronto transportation staff supports it, and it provides a holistic solution to providing safe streets for all users of Toronto’s streets,” continued Smith Lea.

Promoting cycling, walking, and public transit use is crucial for Toronto to reduce local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions; fight obesity; provide safe routes for the elderly, children and people with disabilities; and bolster local businesses. “Safety, health and the economy are all concerns that the majority of the population shares. Promoting policies that improve the safety of our streets increases the number of people walking and biking. This in turn improves individual’s health and increased customer traffic to local businesses. These surveys provide voters what they need to choose candidates that will take steps to promote active transportation,” said Smith Lea.

To read the candidates’ individual responses, visit TCAT’s web site

Download the full summary reports: mayoral, councillor, and school trustee.

Download a copy of this press release here.

Background
This is the second Toronto election that TCAT has conducted a municipal candidate survey, with questions based on its active transportation platform. The 2010 TCAT platform, “Action 2014: Taking the Next Step,” provides a detailed analysis of concrete steps for the city to take in all areas of its operations to improve walking and cycling in the next term of council.

Fare system duel continues with website updates

Of the 68 parties who requested the details on the TTC's open payment requirements, only 11 have submitted the official application for the multi-phased bidding process.

According to the TTC's procurement website, Accenture, the company that designed the provincial Presto payment system being rolled out by GO Transit is not among them. Neither is MasterCard unless it is hidden under another name in a consortium.

Visa, however, is moving ahead on in the procurement process which will see interested parties talk turkey over the next few weeks on the details of the TTC's specs.

Meantime, to counter allegations from some TTC officials that the financial details of its open payment deal would eventually be more transparent than those surround Presto, the province has added some details of the Presto Accenture contract to the Presto website. The only dollar details, however, are those that have been previously quoted by the government and Presto officials.

Presto peeve from one of GO's squeaky wheels

A couple of years ago fed-up GO commuter Pat Eales launched an on-line petition complaining about the number of late trains on the Lakeshore West line.

She tapped into a groundswell of discontent that inspired GO to start a customer service committee and pick up its socks. GO's on-time performance has been on the rise and although there are lots of reasons for that, including schedule adjustments that better reflect real trip times, Eales' petition was a watershed moment.

But it wasn't enough to keep her on GO's committee or commuting into Toronto every day. Although she has a new job in the suburbs, Eales continues using Oakville transit and she even got on board with the new Presto fare card when it was introduced on those buses.

But it wasn't long before she found a shortfall with the new fare card. She ran into a negative balance on her card -- something Presto permits once to avoid stranding riders who have made an honest mistake. So Eales immediately went online and used her credit card to top up her e-purse and clear her debt.

But guess what? The next time she got on the bus, her card wasn't accepted by the reader. Seems GO, which administers Presto, doesn't let customers pay their debt and use their card again until they've actually gone into a station and settled up with a ticket agent.

When Eales called to complain and inquire she was told that the rule was clearly posted on the Presto website. But when she asked for a citation she got a vague response and was frustrated because she couldn't find that stipulation anywhere on the website.

So the Toronto Star called GO and transit officials 'fessed up. Eales couldn't find the rules on the website because that information wasn't there. That's been changed, according to Suzanne Adamkowski, manager of Presto client relations, who provided this link on Tuesday.

Wen we asked why on Earth Presto users couldn't clear their debt online Adamkowski was somewhat apologetic. The system was programmed according to the requirements set out by the various transit agencies using it years before Presto was rolled out.

"I can’t answer for what their thinking was at the time. It’s something that’s in the system that would take some reprogramming. There is no plan to fix it immediately and,... there are several things and that’s one of them that I’m bringing up at our operating committees in the next little while," said Adamkowski.

 

Also on the list is a 'remember me' feature so users don't have to retype their long Presto identity number every time they want to enter the site's registered user area. Because the Presto numbers are so long -- mine has 17 digits -- and to make the system more convenient, transit officials are considering allowing you to log into Presto using your email address -- a feature of virtually every website now.

 

"We have a new software deployment going in November that will add things like concessions – the ability for seniors and students to use a Presto card," Adamkowski told me.

 

The limit on how much you can load on your e-purse will also be raised from $320 to $1,000. 

Everybody wants a piece of the TTC's payment action

The specs for the TTC's open fare payment system have been requested by no fewer than 68 parties, including major credit card companies, banks and even Accenture, the company that won the $250 million contract to design the province's rival transit farecard, Presto, which the TTC doesn't want to install.

Some of those names, ranging from newspaper reporters to Metrolinx officials, aren't likely to register as official bidders. But it will be Monday before the TTC publicly announces which companies on the long list are making a serious play for the business, worth about $900 million annually.

The business opportunity is extreme, given that TTC ridership continues to climb and the Canadian market for micro-payments is only going to expand. Transit fares are considered a great gateway to convincing more of us to convert to the so-called contactless credit and debit card for those small purchases we're now transacting in cash.

"The card is the same card you use to buy your newspaper and coffee," Mastercard vice-president Cathleen Conforti told The Toronto Star this summer in a phone interview from her New York office.

She wasn't coy about the company's interest in the TTC and used the Mastercard experience on New York transit by way of example.

"You can use your card to go buy a Metrocard. You register for your monthly pass and give them your credit card information and you tap with your card every day and the payment platform knows you have that. The most important thing we're supplying is the convenience for the consumer," she said.

And there's no hassle for the rider in terms of converting to a special credit card, said Comforti.

"Over 99 per cent of active cards are PayPass enabled. In Canada you do not have an issue in enabling consumer cards. Globally,... it is a feature everybody wants on their card," she said.

Her company, which is on the TTC list, has been involved in transit for years in Salt Lake City, Paris, Liverpool, Warsaw and Taiwan.

Bad day for Toronto's streetcars

It was out with the old and out with the new this week as mayoral race frontrunner Rob Ford suggested that Mayor David Miller's new suburban light rail lines to the suburbs were a flight of madness that needs eliminating. He also said that downtown traffic would move faster if we got rid of some of the old streetcar lines and replaced them with buses.

Never mind that people like streetcars better because the tracks offer a sense of permanence that reassures them their ride won't be rerouted or eliminated in hard times.

According to Ford's website -- he didn't give The Toronto Star an interview -- buses would allow better traffic flow at less cost.

But it's not clear whether buses are easier on traffic. The law now requires that motorists yield to buses pulling in and out of stops and it would take more than three times as many to carry the same number of commuters who pack the streetcars along King and Queen.

Typically buses stop more than streetcars too, particularly on suburban avenues like those where the Transit City lines are planned.

Not much news in Ford's rejection of the newfangled suburban light rail lines. But it was a welcome announcement anyway from the east-end Save Our Sheppard (SOS) crowd who took to their namesake avenue Wednesday lobbying for a halt to construction of the Sheppard LRT, the first Transit City line scheduled for completion.

According to SOS stalwart Patricia Sinclair, Ford showed up for the morning rush-hour event, along with rivals Sarah Thomson and Rocco Rossi. (pictured here with Sinclair)

Another idea that keeps popping up, the conversion of the SRT to a subway, is being misrepresented as a matter of simply popping bigger trains on the original light rail above ground track. But transit experts were quick to point out that subways couldn't handle the curves on the SRT and the whole route might have to be changed.

That exercise would easily up the cost from the $1 billion Ford has hung on the project.

And don't even get transit insiders started on the viability of changing the Metrolinx Big Move plan, including Transit City, by the Pan Am Games in August 2015.

The Sheppard subway extension being proposed by Ford is about 4 kilometres longer than the Spadina subway extension, which is about 8 kilometres with six stops, that won't be finished until at least late 2015. It's been in the design and engineering mode for at least two years and the tunnel boring machines the TTC ordered about a year ago to drill the hole haven't yet been delivered.

So creating a 10-stop subway in less than five years seems unlikely at best. And, by the way, the idea that the boring machines Metrolinx has ordered for the underground portion of Eglinton could be transferred to Sheppard is a non-starter. The custom-built machines aren't the right size for subway digs. It's conceivable those that are to be used on the Spadina line might work but then you would have to wait until the end of 2015 to start employing them.

Online tool helps cyclists plan routes

It works for transit, why not cyclists?

This month Toronto's online cycling newsletter, Cyclometer, points to a neat little online tool called Ride The City. It lets you map a route online and shows which sections have bike paths or lanes. You can even select a safe, safest or direct route.

You can drag the little green cyclist on your screen to figure out what streets are nearby your destination.