Socialist Economics

The city threw temper tantrums to get a portion of the tax that motorists pay at the pumps to offset their lack of fiscal restraint and then tells those same contributors to the city coffers that they are not welcome to use the roads. BTW Councilor De Baeremaeker if you are riding on the sidewalk you are contravening the law.....

And as far as Mr. Penalosa's comment; ""All it takes is leadership," he says. "That's why we elect leaders, not followers." I have to wonder what city he is talking about.

The road less travelled
Toronto's utopic bike network has been a bust, but the winds are changing and the mayor insists the political will to carry out his ambitious plan is just around the corner, Catherine Porter writes
April 14, 2007
Catherine Porter

Glenn De Baeremaeker is ringing his bicycle bell and bouncing along the sidewalk of a busy strip of Eglinton Ave. East.

He has clipped on his panniers, buckled his helmet and set off on an hour-long pant to his cluttered office in city hall, where he has become a powerful figure. He's chair of the city's works committee, which oversees all of Toronto's infrastructure, including its roads. What would he like to see less of? Cars. What would he like to see more of?

You guessed it.

Ring. Ring.

"The more you help cyclists, the more you help cars," he says over the roar of jostling grocery trucks and gleaming SUVs speeding full-throttle down six lanes of asphalt.

"If the 50,000 of us who ride bikes on a regular basis jumped back into our cars, there would be more congestion. And if we were able to encourage another 50,0000 out of their cars and onto bikes, the person who either wants to drive to work or has to ride to work, there's 50,000 fewer cars on the road. So it's better for everyone."

The age of cycling is upon us. Toronto Mayor David Miller announced last month the city will resuscitate its plan to build more than 1,000 kilometres of bike lanes across the city by 2012. More money and staff have been thrown in for the first time in years.

A growing number of councillors see cyclists less as large flies on their windshields and bicycles more as a clean, healthy and – most importantly – legitimate form of urban transportation.

"The political stars are aligned," says De Baeremaeker, who pulls up into his underground parking space at city hall on his 21-speed. He dutifully parks it between Councillor Maria Augimeri's black Honda Accord and the empty space reserved for Councillor Gord Perks, a TTC fanatic who doesn't have a driver's licence. "If we don't get it done now, we never will."

There is a crater-sized pothole: To complete the bike network, the city will need to build 760 kilometres of bike lanes over the next five years, almost seven times what they've accomplished since 2001.

That's when the bike plan was unveiled – a $73 million utopian vision of bike lanes stretching down roads, through parks and along hydro corridors every two kilometres. From any point in the city, a cyclist would be no more than a five-minute pedal from a path. The reality has been different. Pitifully funded and pathetically staffed, the plan quickly disappeared from the city's radar. Only 41 kilometres of dedicated lanes have been built since 2001. Another 77 kilometres were added by posting signs on residential streets declaring them "shared lanes."

By last year, staff had dwindled to one person who managed to spend only one-third of his $3 million budget.

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