Vote for bikes
As much as I hate Harper and his bullshit federal politics, it appears I'm going to have to focus my attentions – and hopefully those of anyone reading this – more locally. The race to become Toronto's next mayor is already yielding some interesting comments that certainly need to be addressed.
My primary point of interest here is that concerning bicycles in the city. Let's start with this whooper about Rocco Rossi from the Globe and Mail:
"When Rocco Rossi vowed to banish bike lanes from major streets, the suit-and-tie crowd at the Empire Club event erupted into its most enthusiastic applause yet for the first real speech of the 2010 mayor's race."
In the same speech Rossi also suggested he'd put a stop to most of the Transit City plan. All this in the name of making sure that those who choose to drive can continue to be the privileged class while the rest of us our on the bottom of the pile.
Given the incredible number of pedestrians killed by cars in the past 2 weeks you'd think we'd be talking about how to reduce the number of cars on the road and slow down the rest of them. However I'm more inclined to think Rossi might suggest banning walking before he ever dreamed of offending the cities road warriors.
Fortunately it's not looking like Rossi has a hope in hell of winning this election, but George Smitherman might and his stance on bikes isn't much better. Sounds like he's not interested in doing anything for cyclists that might some how be conceived to impede drivers.
Fortunately there's some hope. Adam Giambrone is set to run and there's no doubt Transit City, cycling and all the other things important to growing a healthy Toronto will be on his agenda. I've also not heard much about what Pantalone is up to but I'll definitely be keeping an eye on him.