Take The Lane

Guelph's bike box is operational

The Guelph Mercury has this story about the city's new bike box on Chancellors Way at Stone Road, and a video here.

I have some questions about protocol based on the video (like, what do you do with a right-turning car behind you when the bike box is full of cyclists waiting for the light to change?), but it looks pretty interesting.

Just another change to roadway behaviour to challenge the brain cells of our motorist friends.

Cyclist hit hard by pot-possessing Jag owner

There will be much more talk on the blogosphere about popular New York bar owner Ray Deter, who is clinging to life after being struck by a car Monday during the supper hour.

Much of the chatter has to do with the driver of the Jaguar, who was found to possess marijuana, and was let go with a ticket for the pot, but no charges in the cycling incident. According to the various news reports such as this one from the New York Daily News, Deter cut left in front of the Jag driver.

What's not clear from the photos (here from DNAinfo.com) is where the two principals were in relation to the clearly marked bicycle box at the intersection, or just how fast the Jag driver was going.

Deter, who suffered sever head injuries, was not wearing a helmet, although it is not clear what good a helmet would have done him since he was thrown into the windshield, cracking it, and then up onto the roof, going through the glass sunroof. It would have been a pretty hard hit.

Maybe not the first segregated bike lane

I think I fell victim to hype when I posted recently that Ottawa is getting the first segregated bicycle lane in Ontario.

This was announced as part of the Ontario Bike Summit in Ottawa this week, and gave the opportunity for the local media to demonstrate just how "bicycle-friendly" the capital is. (Here's a typical report, this one from CTV.)

I think it would be easy to argue, that what Ottawa is showing off here isn't much different from the segregated bike lane along Blair Road in Cambridge, from the village of Blair until it becomes a multi-use path as it veers off-road, about 2.5 kilometres along: the Blair segregated path is raised, marked and separated from traffic with breakaway bollards.

The big difference is that the Cambridge path is two-way, and I can't speak to how well serviced it is in the winter.

The Ottawa path is inner-city hardcore, and might actually become useful if enough bike lanes, trails and bicycle-friendly streets connect to it.

So, not the first in Ontario. Maybe the first downtown segregated bike lane? Anyone else have an example of one in this province?

Urban downhill cycling is nuts

Watch this video of urban downhill in Chile and make all the jokes you want about your commute to work.

Mapping the best places to bike in your city

You probably already know which areas of your city are better for biking. Now, some university researchers in B.C. are mapping what you know.

According to this story from The Canadian Press, a group at the University of British Columbia has spent five years gathering information from users about the "bikeability" of Vancouver neighbourhoods: the linkages of bike lanes, the topography, the available cycling infrastructure. They've taken that information and produced colour-coded maps to create an easily accessible look at the "bikeability index" of various parts of the urban area. You can see their work here.

The intent is to encourage people in those areas to think more about cycling, and, one would expect, to encourage people in "less bikeable" neighbourhoods to advocate with their municipal politicians and officials to make improvements.

The group has obtained funds from the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research to finance an expansion of the project, to be undertaken at Simon Fraser University: by 2012, they hope to have maps made for major centres in every province, including Toronto. 

Waterloo, Ottawa, Windsor and Ajax are Bicycle Friendly

Good news for four Ontario cities that have received Bicycle Friendly Community designations, announced at the Ontario Bike Summit in Ottawa today.

Waterloo and Ottawa were given Silver designations; Ajax and Windsor earned Bronze designations.

I'm fairly certain this will spark a round of discussion: how can this community be classed as silver when it has fewer bike lanes than that community? And so on.

First, your community has to apply to the Bicycle Friendly Community program. Second, it's about more than the number or quality of bike lanes.

According to the criteria, the five "Es" to be considered are engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement and evaluation. Does your community plan bike parking, adopt the active and safe routes to school program, promote bicycle events or advocacy, train law enforcement to be bicycle-friendly, and does it have a bicycle master plan? Here's the score card, as developed by the League of American Bicyclists, which helped bring the program to Ontario.

If you are on your community's cycling advisory committee, or known someone who is, have a look at the links. Get thinking about how your community stands up against these first Ontario Silver and Bronze communities. And tell your mayor about Bicycle Friendly designations. Politicians are notoriously competitive. You might ask your mayor why Waterloo or Ajax is a BFC, while St. Catharines or London isn't.

The jury is out on this One

It irks me when a writer uses hyperbole to make a point.

Then I just want to cry, rend my jersey from my body and roar to the heavens like The Hulk midway through transformation.

OK, maybe not that much.

But I was irked by Scott Tracey of the Guelph Mercury with this week's Jury of One, his published column in the newspaper.

Tracey is writing about cyclists and traffic laws, and how cyclists need to respect the Highway Traffic Act. I agree with him, until he writes: "on any given day, I see dozens of cyclists, knowingly or otherwise, simply breaking the law."

Wow. On any given day? That means any day, and every day. So, daily, Tracey sees dozens of cyclists breaking the law. Let's say that while one might assume that by dozens, he means many dozen, that in this case, he is referring to the minimum for "dozens," which would be 24 cyclists.

Where is he seeing 24 cyclists daily breaking the law? In Guelph? Does he sit on his porch with a clicker near a four-way stop? There's a four-way stop in front of my daughter and son-in-law's place in Toronto. I'm sure there are more than a dozen an hour who blow through the stop sign, or at least hesitate. (A roughly equal number slow to a near-stop or stop completely.)

Is it on his cycle commute to work? If you travel at rush hour, I'm sure you would see dozens of cyclists. (I travel at off-peak times, and if I did see a dozen riders in the space of my 30-minute commute, I'd be amazed.) And of those dozens of cyclists that he saw, was every single one of them breaking the law? And how were they doing that?

Perhaps they were all riding on the sidewalk. Of course, that's a local municipal bylaw offence, and not "breaking the law" in the context of the Criminal Code (national law) or the Highway Traffic Act (provincial law).

Perhaps none of them had a bell. That's breaking the Highway Traffic Act. There's an offence worth writing a column about. Or was he talking about visible roadway behaviour: running stop lights, failing to signal a turn, riding through a crosswalk?

Did Tracey see dozens of cyclists breaking the law on any given day? Well, my guess is that he conflated events. Couple of incidents on Monday, maybe a few hotdog cyclists on Tuesday, someone who didn't signal on Wednesday, and by the end of the week, why, there were "dozens" of these idiots on the road.

And with that evidence, he used his Jury of One column to throw the onus for roadway safety where it belongs -- not on the motorists who cause the majority of roadway fatalities and injuries, not on the careless drivers who have made the auto insurance industry into a wallet-draining megalith -- but on the "dozens" of cyclists who daily break the law and merely tick off the people who witness it.

Thankfully, cases of law-breaking are decided by a jury of 12, and not a Jury of One.

Record your own bike bell, or bike yell

OK, I so totally want this: A DIY Ding Ding from Think Geek.

It will record up to 20 seconds of information of your choice: barking dogs, inappropriate comments to any pedestrian in short-shorts, the sound of a chain falling off. It also has a preset, standard bike bell sound.

There's a video of the DIY Ding Ding in action on the website. I found especially amusing the recording of "I'm turning left, turning left ... oh, I mean right. Right!" as the cyclist signals left and turns right.

I know people who could use this!

(Buyer beware: I have not seen this product up close or tested it, so cannot endorse it. It could be a piece of junk. It will cost you $20 with shipping and handling to find out for yourself.)

Can you ride a motorbike.

The Ontario Cycling Association has sent out an unusual request: they need a motorcycle driver for today's road national cycling championships in Halton.

The women's and men's events begin today at 6 p.m. in the Rattlesnake Point area.

Call the OCA at 416-426-7416.

(Since this is the nationals, I'm thinking you e-bike riders can just watch...)

On the verge of the Ontario Bike Summit

Disappointed that I won't be at the Ontario Bike Summit in Ottawa next Monday and Tuesday.

This is the first one I've missed, although now that more municipalities (Guelph, Kingston, Waterloo) are holding bicycle-friendly symposia or active transportation conferences, there are more opportunities than ever to hear planners, advocates and end users share ideas about how to build a better cycling future.

Ottawa is great venue for the bike summit, though, especially with the cycling infrastructure work being done by cycling champions such as Marie Lemay, CEO of the National Capital Commission, and one of the summit speakers. Ottawa is getting the first segregated bicycle lane in Ontario, a pilot project that, I am sure, will lead to more such projects around the province.

I'll also be disappointed not to be there on Monday when the list of Ontario's first Bicycle Friendly Communities are announced. I understand that Windsor, Ottawa and Waterloo will get BFC designations, but don't know at what level.

Eleanor McMahon, founder of the Share the Road Cycling Coalition and summit organizer, said the reps from the League of American Bicyclists, whose program this is, said they had never seen such strong first-time applications for BFC designations.

I'll also be disappointed not to be there on Tuesday, when conference participants will be discussing the release of an advocacy toolkit designed to emphasize cycling issues to those running in this fall's provincial election.

Municipalities may administer cycling infrastructure, but the province sets the framework in which such infrastructure can exist. If the Education Ministry smiles on the Active and Safe Routes to School program (and provides incentives to school boards that adopt an active transportation charter), then boards are likely to line up to be pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly. If the Health Ministry commits resources to facilities that combat obesity (such as cycling trails), then municipalities are likely to undertake programs that qualify for funding.

If you are going to this year's Ontario Bike Summit, tweet me, or email, what you hear or see. I'd like to hear your impressions.