Take the Lane

Some words from a motorcyclist to we bicyclists

A few of my co-workers ride bicycles, and even fewer ride motorcycles. One of them, our font of all things Cambridge, Kevin Swayze, recently wrote me a letter that I am pretty sure he felt would be seen as being overly critical of cyclists.

Although he prefaced his note by saying that he had read my posts and comments from you, I'm pretty sure he hasn't read some of the most critical ones. If anyone can be critical of the bad habits of cyclists, it's other cyclists.

Nonetheless, I thought I'd share the letter with you. It's long, so is posted here, where you can read it if you choose.

I tend to agree that motorcycles have some common ground with cyclists, in that they are often in the blind spot of motorists, no matter where on the road they are.

But I really do believe that cyclists are the undisputed invisible minority of the roadway. Even motorcycles have the engine power to drive out of trouble, whereas every year, dozens of cyclists are overtaken by metal monsters that kill them. Truly, cyclists are the most vulnerable of those actually travelling on tarmac.

Does Waterloo's "uptown" discourage bicycles?

A Take the Lane respondent pointed me to an ire-raising article in this week's Waterloo Chronicle that makes Waterloo look comical.

In brief, a Waterloo woman locked her bicycle outside the Starbucks on King Street in Waterloo and came out to find a second lock on her bike, placed there by First Gulf Development, the, uh, people-friendly developer responsible for the building on that side of King Street. There was also a note attached, indicating how she could get her bike back from the First Gulf security desk. The upshot is that First Gulf doesn't want nasty little bicycles cluttering up the landscape of their project.

I always wondered why architectural drawings of proposed buildings rarely show cyclists ... the project managers who all drive BMWs don't like them! But they are right, of course. Bicycles just get in the way of progress. If we really wanted bicycles in our downtowns, we would have put out bike racks for them, allowed bikes to be carried on buses, created bike lanes... Hey, wait a minute. don't our communities already do that to encourage bicycles? Didn't anyone tell First Gulf?

Perhaps the next large Critical Mass event should end up at the Waterloo Starbucks, where dozens of bicycles could be locked up along King Street. What a sight that would be. I wonder if First Gulf has enough bicycle locks to deal with a mass event?

Or, if you prefer to sound off, you can do so the following ways:
First Gulf Development Corp.: 1-905-814-6860 or send an info@firstgulf.com.
Waterloo Mayor Brenda Halloran: 519-747-8700 or email her at bhalloran@city.waterloo.on.ca

Bike Train expanding this summer

The Toronto-Niagara Bike Train is about to expand to other points in Ontario. The Ontario Tourism Ministry has announced $92,000 in seed money to expand the Bike Train concept to three more destinations.

Justin Lafontaine, the guy who makes Bike Train work, is heading out to Windsor to talk to community groups and businesses there for a one or two weekend pilot project this summer that would see a Bike Train run from Toronto to Windsor, with the idea of exploring some of the Essex County area, Pelee Island, etc.

Also on the list are future Bike Trains from Toronto to North Bay and from T.O. to eastern Ontario (Kingston, Brockville, Cornwall).

Not very likely that the train to Windsor will stop in KW to pick up passengers. Running the Bike Trains is a logistical nightmare, says Lafontaine, and every stop adds time and labour (mostly because of the loading/unloading of the bikes) and increases the cost. Even getting a baggage car routed to the line is a challenge, since few baggage cars are in place to be used on the lines in southern Ontario.

The Niagara experiment has been a big success: the tourist industry there is happy with the new blood that cycle tourists represent. And, there is the secondary effect of re-introducing the idea of carrying bicycles by major rail. As it is now, if you want to haul a bike by VIA, you have to be willing to buy a box, remove the pedals, turn the handlebars, etc and pack your bike for long-haul shipping ... even if you are only going to be on the train for a few hours.

Bike Trains help train execs think about bicycles as an extension of the passenger, rather than freight.

Where will the next gen of wrenches come from?

You've probably encountered your share of good wrenches and bad wrenches. There are people who live and breathe bicycles, and there are people who are just starting out and learning the hard way . . . on your beloved bike.

Places like Guelph's Winterborne Bicycle Institute aim to provide the training and experience that produces a quality bicycle mechanic, but there aren't as many Winterbornes as we might like. So, the Bicycle Trade Association of Canada and the GTA-based Learning Enrichment Foundation are partnering to create the Bicycle Assembly and Maintenance Program.

The organizers hope the Toronto-based program will appeal to young people who might be sniffing around looking for a career path. They want to crank out between 40 and 50 bike mechanics a year, with the first grads ready by mid-April. The whole plan is to be rolled out next Tuesday in Toronto. When I hear more, I'll pass it on.

Deadly decision in Fredericton

It appears that a Fredericton cyclist made a decision that had deadly consequences for him earlier this month. According to the Fredericton Daily Gleaner, Doug Taylor, 56, was riding on a side street on Jan. 17 around 6 p.m. when he cut into traffic on an arterial street and was hit by a car. He died on Jan. 23 without regaining consciousness.

Mike Staples of the Gleaner says that police did a thorough accident reconstruction and can see no reason for Taylor to have done what he did. No charges will be laid against the driver. Staples says Taylor was a year-round cyclist who, his friends says, always wore a helmet, although not this time. Head injuries were cited as the cause of death.

So really, two deadly decisions, and they are decisions you have probably seen other riders make almost any day: riding without a helmet, and deciding to take a chance and blow a stop sign or a traffic light or just dart through because "I bet I can make it."

With betting, aren't the odds stacked against you?

FURTHER TO THE ABOVE: A call from Const. Ralph Currie of the Fredericton Police Force added some details to this story. Three witnesses not in the subject vehicle watched as the cyclist turned into the traffic flow and was hit by the car. It was cold at the time -- minus 27C -- and there was black ice on the streets. No witness indicated that the cyclist appeared to make any attempt to slow or stop before turning from the side street onto the congested arterial street.

New Grand River Cycle website

Yeah, it's freezing out and the bike lanes are full of snowy crud that has frozen to the consistency of fossilized trees, but if you're not winter cycling, you're thinking about warmer-weather cycling.

And then you can cruise over to Grand River Cycles new website. It's not exactly all business, but pretty darn close. With time, maybe a forum for cyclists to chat, or some favourite ride photos. For the moment, it's mostly about the new stuff coming in, and there is always something drool-worthy to look at.

More energy for Ontario cycling

I wish I could have been in Toronto last Friday for the Ontario Cycle Tourism Forum. The folks behind the Toronto-Niagara bike train are behind this initiative to consider how to develop the cycle tourism market in Ontario.

Hey, if Quebec can attract millions of dollars with its Route Verte ($134 million spent by Route Verte users last year), why can't Ontario?

The various presentations will be posted on the Tourism Forum website, so you may want to bookmark the site and stay in touch to see what was said.

Who should have a right to the road?

The recent post about best practices to ensure shared road use has certainly stirred some responses, and got me wondering about the whole notion of a "driver's licence."

It is simply a permit to operate a motor vehicle, and although it is renewable on the basis of a paid fee every five years, there is no requirement for most of the lifetime of the holder to prove competency, beyond the initial rounds of tests.

Although it is a specific-use document, the driver's licence has come to be considered, like a Social Insurance Number or a Birth Certificate, a lifelong document, and has thus acquired a cachet of importance that far exceeds its real value. Part of that cachet is that the holder of the driver's licence feels he/she has a nearly exclusive right to the road. It is usually an indication of car ownership and thus, wealth.

So, the driver's licence is often the document of choice for simple identification, cashing a cheque, or opening a bank account. The new enhanced driver's licences in Ontario and other provinces will actually take the place of a passport for the purposes of travelling to a foreign country (the U.S.).

Yet, unless you own a car, you don't need a driver's licence. No one under the age of 16 possesses one. Many over the age of 80 will not bother to renew theirs. Many women (for reasons of their own) will never get one. Many who choose to bicycle or take transit or who live in urban areas and need not own a car, have no need for a driver's licence.

Yet every person is a road user. Shouldn't there be some certificate that guarantees the rights of every citizen to the use of the road? Not that I suggesting more layers of bureaucracy, but maybe we should have a road user permit, that is granting to any road user -- pedestrian, equestrian, wheelchair/scooter user, cyclist, farm vehicle operator, horse-and-buggy owner and motor vehicle operator -- that is a prerequisite for any other type of licencing. Let the road user permit become the lifelong document, and force a regular review of competency on the secondary permits, depending on application.

After all, you have to have an E-test of your car every two years. Surely it is not too much to ask that a certificate of competency be obtained for anyone who drives a bus, truck or car?

Who best signs roads for shared use?

I got a request from Lorna Boratto of the Oxford County Public Health on behalf of a colleague in Chatham-Kent, that I hope one of you can answer.

Boratto wants to know if anyone knows of any research or current practice that would suggest the best signage to use in rural areas to increase awareness about shared road use, specifically relating to pedestrians and cyclists.

This is part of the ongoing look at active transportation in those communities. How do we best sign roads to alert motorists that the road is shared? Where is it being done now? What works? What doesn't?

You can respond to Boratto at her lboratto@county.oxford.on.ca, but I'd be interested to hear what you have to say, too.

Who rode to work this week

Now that the cold-weather alert has been called off, here's a tally of who rode to work this week in the coldest days of the year so far:

Matthew Tiessen rode Thursday: I rode to work yesterday. Cold. Nothing like my years of winter riding in Winnipeg, Ottawa and Edmonton...

Brian Oliver of Winnipeg rode this week: I live in Thompson, Manitoba, roughly seven hundred kilometres north of Winnipeg, and as wind chills did not dip below -51 deg C during the last couple of weeks, there was nothing really out of the ordinary to keep me off my bike. This is my second winter of cycling here and I do alarm my co-workers, although they are used to it by now.

GRT driver rode every day: I ride my bicycle to work every day and this week was no exception. I did have to use a head warmer under my helmet this week for extra protection.

Dave didn't ride: I have biked to work when it's been this cold, but this week,no. Don't like snow on the road when I ride, either. Trails OK.

Leon Cook of Great Britain rode: I have commuted all week, 24 miles a day round trip. I have done all winter, but here in the UK the coldest it got last week was -8. Wusses weather compared to your proper stuff!

By Thursday, Plam rode three days: I biked 3.5km each way to the University of Waterloo three days this week so far...

Jeff didn't ride: I'm wussing out this week . . . Riding in extreme cold is not fun. Riding in the snow could be fun--if it weren't for the fact that drivers don't adjust for the conditions, and think cyclists should just disappear instead. Yet, somehow, snowy conditions seem to be a get-out-of-jail-free card for any motorist who injures or kills a cyclist.

One thing I noticed about the alternate bike routes this week, was that while bike lanes were a mess, the bike trails were pretty regularly plowed. The Iron Horse Trail remains a real resource for cyclists wanting a north-south car-free route.

Thanks to everyone for writing in, and now that the weather is not so brutal, good cycling.