Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Pedal Streetcar
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Freedom
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
House of Pistard Skidder Cartoon
Love it!
Cars: Out Of The Way
"We don't need any new infrastructure, what we need is to clear the existing infrastructure of inefficient vehicles and replace them with efficient ones."
Low-tech Magazine has a fine article on
bike power!
Illustration by Marriedtothesea
Monday, November 09, 2009
Dundas West & Dupont
Sunday, November 08, 2009
A Bike Thief Writes Back
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Bicycle Symbol Designs I like
Friday, November 06, 2009
Can't Ride This One
Fine stencil work!
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Rive Yourself A Raise ...Bike To Work
A New Reward For Drivers (Coming July 2010)
Slight problem. Cars are not green, ever. Bicycles sure are but I suspect we won't get much of an acknowledgement from the Province anytime soon. We just get lip service (6mb .pdf), don't we? Notice the lack of funding commitment and lack of a firm timetable, etc.
Hint: Search for the word 'Funding' in the .pdf.
Photo Source: http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977738852
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Transparency
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
11 Impossibly Loaded Bicycles
This is the 12th bicycle that could have been included ...
(Photo) Mary Mattingly’s precarious bipedal vehicles from her Nomadographies
Monday, November 02, 2009
Bad Bike Karma
Thank You
OK. I used to give out free sticks of Juicy Fruit gum to drivers parked in the bike lane with the comment: 'Hey, here's a free stick of gum with your free parking spot." Oh, well to each his won.
(Note: Original 'Juicy Fruit' action by Ben Smith Lea)
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Ghost Bike Update
This is one of the first ghost bikes installed in Ontario outside of Toronto. It was placed at the collision scene where Shane Vandermeer, 20 died near Cambridge.Photo source
Meanwhile, the Ghost Bike installed by ARC for Harold Donald Bilodeau at Spdina and Nassau has been removed by persons unknown.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Ride The City (Safer Route Mapping)
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Velocipede
First Annual Hallowheelin' Ride
in conjunction with: dandyhorse magazine / spacing magazine / now magazine
the First Annual Hallowheelin'
Urban Cycling Challenge
Saturday, October 31st
Open to ALL cyclists of ALL skill levels.
Two Courses: Easy and Hard
$8 To Ride, Includes Halloween After Party
Registration Starts 530pm at Manic Coffee 426 College
Ride Starts at 700pm SHARP!
Halloween afterparty @ CineCycle 401 Richmond
(Around back, off Spadina)
Costumes STRONGLY suggested. Lights and Bag MANDATORY. Helmets suggested. Rain or Moon.
Tonnes of prizes furnished by: Manic Coffee | Bikes On Wheels | Cycle Solutions | MEC | Origins Coffee | Blondie's Espresso Bar | Sweet Pete's | Bombshelter |
Jet Fuel Coffee | Franklin Tattoo| Great Lakes Brewery
All proceeds going to FoodShare: http://www.foodshare.net/index.htm
Postcards by Tino
A selection of original Toronto cycling postcards are available exclusively at the fine new Hoopdriver Bicycles Shop on College (just east of Dufferin)More samples
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Cyclo Cross Season
The Bell
Off-duty cop who beat up cyclist on Queen street in 2007 = Not guilty!
Remember this? Buddy stops at the traffic light at Queen and Bay and driver gets his nose out of joint about it. As in 'Get out of my f#!%ng way. Driver gets out and pummels the guy. The original event was covered on the Spacing Wire
From the National Post article linked to below:
"Justice John Ritchie said in his decision that Mr. Tierman was defending himself and his vehicle from the cyclist, who was going to use his bike as a weapon. Pursuant to Section 27 of the Criminal Code, the defendant was justified in using force to prevent the attack. “The issue, in my mind, is whether the defendant used excessive force,” Justice Ritchie wrote. “
… It is my conclusion that the force used was not excessive in all of the circumstances.”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/10/17/hope-for-michael-bryant-judge-acquits-motorist-of-assaulting-cyclist-in-2007-altercation.aspx#ixzz0V52wveR5
Monday, October 26, 2009
Le son du pignon by David Martin
"A bicycle repairman absorbed in dull everyday work is swept over by the repetitive rhythm."
Bike Station Halloween Open House
You are invited to come out and support cycling in Toronto by attending the Bicycle Station Halloween Open House on Friday October 30th. This is a free event to let people know we are opening the Bicycle Station to winter storage by not enforcing our 48 hour rule from November to March. Everyone who arrives in costume will receive a free Halloween Loot Bag filled with ghoulishly good treats. If you are going to be downtown that day be sure to come by to warm up with free Hot Cider and pick up a few treats for the road. Better yet, park your bike here and know it rests safe and sound while you trick-or-treat.
You are also invited to participate in the event. Participants will have their own table to display promotional materials and will also receive a Free Halloween Loot Bag. This will be a great time to let our Bicycle Station members and customers know about your cycling group or organization. If you would like a table for your group or organization, please let us know as soon as possible. You may reply to this email or call us. Our phone number is 416-338-3666
More Info
More Info
Yours
Kate Sage
Sunday, October 25, 2009
With Love From, Sao Paulo (Again)
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Fall Bliss #2
Friday, October 23, 2009
Green Light For Cyclists (UK)
Cyclists will be permitted to ride the wrong way along one-way streets under a change intended to encourage more people to give up their cars or use them less.
The Government will announce today that cyclists will be permitted to ignore no-entry signs: a practice already followed by many, including David Cameron, the Conservative leader.
The Department for Transport is authorising a trial in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, Mr Camerons home authority in West London, in which a small plate saying Except cyclists will be attached to poles carrying no-entry signs.
If the trial is successful, the department intends to extend the policy to the rest of Britain and permit thousands of one-way streets to become two-way for bikes. It believes that long diversions around one-way systems are a significant deterrent to new cyclists, who might be less confident about breaking the rules.
Cars Are Death Traps In Many Ways
Cyclist's death highlights auto hazards
Cars are death traps in many ways.
October 19, 2009
by Albert Koehl
Darcy Allan Sheppard accomplished this year what almost 3,000 other Canadians will fail to do: get more than fleeting public attention for his death on our roads. If Sheppard's death had not occurred in downtown Toronto, in gruesome circumstances, and under the wheels of a car driven by Ontario's former top law-maker, the public would already have forgotten his name. While the tragedy on Toronto's Bloor St. may have highlighted the frailty of the human body in conflicts with the car, the fact is occupants of cars are hardly safe from the danger on our roads.
 | Polluting emissions from car and truck traffic claim 440 lives in Toronto alone each year. |
Although cyclists are over-represented in road fatalities, the most common victims of road accidents are drivers and their passengers, comprising three quarters of all deaths. Motor vehicle occupants also count heavily among the 20,000 Canadians wounded so seriously by motor vehicles each year that they require hospital care, often for long terms. So routine are serious traffic accidents that we more often hear about them as obstacles in the morning traffic report than in news headlines. Cars aren't deadly just because of collisions.
Polluting emissions from car and truck traffic claim 440 lives in Toronto alone each year, according to the city's public health authority. Climate change, which is caused in significant part by transportation emissions, will claim more lives still. Over 35 percent of Toronto's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are from motor vehicles. The tragedy of these numbers is not that we accept them so willingly, but that we accept them despite the obvious alternatives.
First, buses and streetcars are many times safer than cars, while emitting a fraction of the air and climate poisons. A 30 percent reduction in traffic emissions would save 190 lives in Toronto each year and result in $900 million in health benefits, according to Toronto Public Health. Mass transit can be improved quickly with better and more frequent bus service.
Second, bicycles produce zero climate and air pollutants — while posing minimal risks to other road users. Cycling fatalities can be reduced. In certain European countries where bikes have been given dedicated space, cyclists (despite shunning helmets) are much safer.
"Good fences make good neighbours" wrote the poet Robert Frost. Painted lines for bikes make good relations on our streets.
Yes, cyclists must obey the rules of the road, although this doesn't help cyclists injured by motorists in so-called "doorings" that are all too common. When I cycle, I fairly diligently obey every rule of the road but sometimes marvel at the irony of it all: complying with the rules of a society that has already carelessly passed through urgent warning signs of climate change and unnecessarily wasted so many innocent lives.
Third, cars are transportation products, not necessities. Other personal transportation products would make our cities safer and healthier. Power and speed, along with polluting emissions, are car design features, and consequences, that kill.
We may be able to justify the use of a car to carry groceries, take kids to soccer practice, or pick-up grandparents but do milk and eggs really need to leave the mall in a machine capable of achieving 0-60kmph in 6 seconds? Low cost, low emission, low speed vehicles, similar to the electric ZENN car, provide another logical alternative, especially since city traffic doesn't average even 40kmph anyway.
Finally, when our roads are safer and more hospitable places, people will walk more. The car may be part of our culture but this is no reason to stand in the way of safer and more efficient options. The facts support a war on traffic deaths and injuries, traffic pollution, and vehicle GHG emissions that have made us all — motorists, passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians — victims.
Albert Koehl is a lawyer with Ecojustice (formerly Sierra Legal), a Canadian environmental law organization. In November 2007, Ecojustice and KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, a church-based social justice organization, demanded that Canada's Auditor General investigate the government's oil and gas subsidies and the cuts to programs for poor households.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Fall Bliss #1
David Byrne - Bicycle Diaries (New Book)
DAVID BYRNE with Jack Layton, Ken Greenberg and Yvonne Bambrick at IFOA, Fleck Dance Theatre (207 Queens Quay)Saturday (October 24).
Article in NOW Magazine
SPIN by Evelyn Parry
Written and performed by Evalyn Parry
With Anna Friz and Brad Hart | Directed by Ruth Madoc Jones
Starring: The BICYCLE
As muse, musical instrument, and instrument of social change. A Two Wheeled Evening of Entertainment, Featuring: Music, Spoken Word and Theatre.
The Safety Bicycle: Amplified!
Using modern effects Pedals and contact Microphones, the players manipulate the acoustic sounds of the Bicycle to make Music
The 1890’s: The Golden Age of the Bicycle!
Exposing the Bicycle as a Dangerous Agent of Women’s Emancipation | Ballads of High Adventure! Theft, Heartbreak, Bicycle-Auto Collision and the Urban Rider.
OCTOBER 25th, 8 pm at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre (12 Alexander St.)
as part of the HYSTERIA Festival | Tickets $10 in advance call by telephone
to reserve at 416-975-8555 or on the world wide web at www.artsexy.ca
to reserve at 416-975-8555 or on the world wide web at www.artsexy.ca
