Squiggly Bike Lanes pop up on Bloor & other global bike activism

[angela bischoff]

Today 's (Saturday's) Toronto Star Poll reads:
Should the addition of more bike lanes be a priority for the city? Vote now!
http://www.thestar.com
The online poll was down most of the day, but just got fixed this aft.
We're currently at 70% in favour.
-a

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Twice in the past month squiggly painted bike lanes, complete with bike
symbols, have popped up on Bloor -- between Spadina and Bathurst, and then
between Ossington and Dufferin. You can see pics on the Bike Lane Diary
http://bikelanediary.blogspot.com/
Wow, imagine if such amateur yet bold symbols of cyclists' needs started
popping up in city streets all over the world!
-a

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Surprise lane pops up on Bloor
NOW Magazine June 7-13, 2007, by Jenny Yuen

The mysterious emergence of a bike lane on Bloor had veering motorists and
cyclists suffering from an acute case of white line fever last week.

There were no reports of accidents, but the spray-painted lane taking up
half of westbound Bloor certainly left a lasting impression on commuters.

A group of anonymous artists known as the Urban Repair Squad painted the
bike lane from Spadina to Bathurst, their way, says one member, "of
inspiring people not to wait for the city to save us from smog and
traffic."

Timely, too, for bike advocates who fear the Cycling Committee's recently
revamped terms of reference will put the brakes on projects in the core.

Councillor Adrian Heaps, the newly minted cycling Committee chair, says
that won't be the case.

"There is an improvement plan for Bloor from Avenue Road to Church, and
I'd like to integrate a bike lane into that, in addition to having some
kind of proper storage for bicycles," he says.

Transportation Services plans to remove the lane, but it may find its work
cut out for it in the coming weeks. The URS says to expect more
spray-painted lanes. (We're told Queen West is the next target.)

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Letter to the Editor, NOW Magazine
submitted by Angela Bischoff, member of Take the Tooker.ca

Kudos to the Urban Repair Squad for taking the initiative to paint the
much-needed bike lane on Bloor in true Tooker style. (Surprise lane pops
up on Bloor, June 7)

With one of the highest bike ridership numbers in the city, high car/bike
collision rates, and no streetcar tracks, everyone -- including city staff
-- agrees that Bloor is the most obvious place to paint a bike lane. So
why wait?

Unfortunately, city staff didn't appreciate the lack of straight-line
technology employed by the Urban Repair Squad, and so last week a cyclist
reported that he saw 20 city staff with 4 large trucks blasting away the
much appreciated bike lane.

What a shame! It certainly cost the city more to remove then it would've
cost to properly install.

And that's the thing -- bike lanes are cheap. It just means removing some
on-street car parking. Since Bloor already has tons of extra car parking
lots situated above the subway, what's the problem?

Please call your City Councillors and ask for a bike lane on Bloor and
Danforth before more cyclists are discouraged from riding, crushed or
doored.

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Making the Tooker
published June 14, NOW Mag

I applaud the civic engagement shown by the Bloor Bike Lane Bandits (NOW,
June 7-13). They proved we can lose one lane of congestion on a street
with a subway line and make the Tooker!

Shamez Amlani
Streets Are for People

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On other bike fronts...

I thought it was great we got 26 people out to our TaketheTooker ride on
June 10, but catch this. More than 250,000 cyclists participated in the
Berlin "Sternfahrt" bike ride on Sunday, June 3. Photographs can be found
here: <
<http://gallery.radzeit.de/v/Sternfahrt/2007/>http://gallery.radzeit.de/v/Sternfahrt/2007/>
and here
<<http://gallery.radzeit.de/v/Sternfahrt/2007/Brandenburg+an+der+Havel/P1020112.JPG.html>http://gallery.radzeit.de/v/Sternfahrt/2007/Brandenburg+an+der+Havel/P1020112.JPG.html
>.

Car burnings are on the rise in Berlin and no one knows who is doing it. A
website tracks the date, location, and make of car that went up in flames
-- 66 so far:
http://www.brennende-autos.de/

-a

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