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Duly Quoted: Rocco Rossi

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“This is sheer madness.”
—Rocco Rossi, mayoral candidate, speaking about the entirely reasonable bike lanes that the City will start installing on Jarvis Street on Friday. “When I am elected mayor,” Rossi also said, “I will paint over these lines and I will get Torontonians moving again.”

Comments

  • http://piorkowski.ca/ qviri

    As I’m reading this quote, Rocco Rossi’s creepy face looks at me from the Google Ad, happily proclaiming “Fiscal responsibility, for a change.”
    Fiscal responsibility is painting symbols that do nothing to address core issues at hand, apparently.

  • http://undefined Aaron

    Good thing he’ll never be Mayor.
    Paint over bike lanes to get Torontonians moving? He’s so short sighted, it’s ridiculous. How can anyone expect someone like that to effectively run our city?

  • CanadianSkeezix

    The reality is that these bike lanes have no undue negative impact on traffic on Jarvis, notwithstanding the sob stories of a few Rosedale denizens. What is sheer madness is that Rossi doesn’t seem to care about reality, but only cares about making up stories about congestion and fear-mongering.
    Rocco, pay more attention to the facts, and less to opportunities for pandering.

  • http://undefined metabaron

    Well, the last route to core is now gone. And no I don’t live in Rosedale and don’t have mansions or drive Mercedes. I would gladly ride a bike if it was safe to ride a bike. I don’t understand how this city expects to increase bike riders when it is simply not safe to ride unless you are already road warrior. I’d never dare to ride on many of these major arteriries as I have experience as a car driver. So, paint a few bike lanes for the 20-30 people that will be using it. How is that going to solve the city transportation problem?

  • http://paul.kishimoto.name Paul Kishimoto

    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3402/3342003343_40b32098cd_o.png
    Metabaron, cite your “20-30″, please.

  • http://undefined MW

    “I don’t understand how this city expects to increase bike riders when it is simply not safe to ride”
    That’s exactly what making bike lanes does. It improves the safety of cycling in the city.

  • http://undefined Delissa

    I look at a lot of cycling/active transport blogs and something I’ve noticed is that it is increasingly a young person’s movement. Young people see bikes as urban, hip, European, cheap, simple, stylish. Cars are for suburban dinosaurs who need a heavy carriage to get their lardasses around.
    I’m fine with all of this. But what I don’t get is why politicians, who want and need young people’s votes, are ignoring this trend. Give young people what they want! It doesn’t hurt that improving bicycle infrastructure will also address a number of serious problems too.
    It’s not like there are no good examples out there. Check out markenlei’s videos on YouTube. We should just copy the Dutch example and get on with it.

  • eller

    I saw Rocco at Yonge and King on Tuesday, so tall and sweaty and so confused. I looked straight at him and he didn’t stop to me to speak about his campaign, but his flyer crew made a point to chat with me.

  • http://undefined anthill

    Hey, I found 20-30 people that might use the Jarvis bike lane.

  • CanadianSkeezix

    Nonsense.
    There will still be a full arterial road comprising four full lanes of motor vehicle traffic, and the introduction of the bike lane will not have any significant impact.
    How does that qualify as the “last route to [the] core” being “gone”?
    Opponents of the Jarvis Street bike lanes are such drama queens.

  • http://undefined anthill
  • http://undefined Andrew

    Wait until you have a kid, and then we’ll see if you still want to avoid having a car.

  • David Toronto

    Rocco Rossi isn’t the only one obsessing about
    the bike lane issue. Listen to CFRB; Jerry Agar
    and the other daytime hosts are continuing
    to talk this issue to death.
    No wonder CFRB is 11th in the listenership
    ratings.
    Rossi reminds me of Tom Jakobek and John Tory.
    And where is Jakobek today? And why isn’t
    Tory smart enough to know to stay away from
    talk radio?

  • eller

    I saw Jakobek on a reality TV show a while back.
    http://www.slice.ca/Shows/ShowsPage.aspx?Root_Title_ID=115230

  • thelemur

    For once, his oddly cropped used-pencil-eraser head didn’t show up on my page.

  • thelemur

    And Rossi hasn’t helped the tone of the discussion by caling the bike lanes ‘undemocratic’.

  • http://undefined K.

    Hahaha, so many people dumped all over Miller for so many knee-jerk reasons, and now look what we’re getting in return.

  • http://piorkowski.ca/ qviri

    I imagine the six-lane University Avenue doesn’t qualify, because, uh, well, it’s just not the same.
    The truth is the core could be made to move twice as fast with elimination of curb-side parking. You will never see this suggested, though.

  • http://undefined Jerzy

    I have not one but 3 kids. So yes, I have a car.
    But when I’m not taking them with me (like for example, going to work in the core), a car isn’t required. Biking works fine for that. It’s not an either-or choice.

  • http://undefined smc

    Honestly, couldn’t this have all been avoided but putting bike lines on a more suitable street, like, oh I don’t know… CHURCH ST which is a block to the west and cuts right into Ryerson U from Bloor??!? That way Jarvis would still get to be functional and cyclists would have a little room to breathe with waaaay fewer cars and exhaust. Who are all of these cyclists that want to bike on the major arterial roads anyway?

  • http://undefined EricSmith

    Plenty of the people who dumped all over Miller are happy to see blowhards like Rossi and Ford in the running. They are, of course, short-sighted, but “implications” and “consequences” are not really big factors in populist thinking.

    In a nutshell: “Taxation is theft!” then, later: “Hey, why isn’t my street getting plowed?”

  • http://piorkowski.ca/ qviri

    This might come as a shock to you, but some cyclists want to bike on ‘arterial’ roads for the same reason drivers want to drive on them: they go places and there are few obstructions.
    Hit the red light going uphill on Church at Alexander, stop, wait for it to change back while a single single-occupancy car crosses, get up to speed again and get back to me.

  • http://undefined rich1299

    Jarvis is simply going from 5 car lanes to 4 car lanes and 2 bike lanes, it’ll still be functional, in fact it’ll be even more functional since more people will be able to use the street now. Didn’t the city study say reducing the number of car lanes on Jarvis would only add 2-3 minutes to a trip into the downtown core? Big deal, life will go on as always for car drivers even if they have to spend an additional 2-3 minutes travelling down Jarvis.

  • http://undefined smc

    Yeah, I’ve done it. It’s part of my bike route to/from Cabbagetown. And it still beats riding on Jarvis. I question your definition of “uphill” as well, that’s quite a minor hill compared to Ave north of Dupont or Yonge north of Summerhill.
    Church is a perfectly reasonable alternative that would accomodate cyclists by giving them a straight/direct route to the downtown, without messing up a major arterial road. Same as St. George/Beverly does without messing up University/Avenue Road.
    …as for the “shock” comment about direct routes? Spare me your valuable insight that people like to get from A to B as quickly as possible. Speeding up and slowing down are part of both biking and driving in the city. Talk to the genius traffic engineers at the city of Toronto and get back to me why it is more efficient to have a series of stops in succession rather than trying to keep traffic flowing.

  • http://undefined smc

    I recommend that you try driving on Jarvis at peak hours and tell me how long that trip actually takes. Losing a lane anywhere has a pretty drastic effect. For an example, check out Dupont between Lansdowne and the Junction where they removed a multi-use curb lane for a bike lane. What used to a flawed but at least better than Bloor as an east-west route through the city, is now constantly backed up from 3pm-7pm every day. I bet the residents are thrilled that for the sake of a few bikes (and it is, literally, just a few), there is a complete traffic breakdown until you hit Dundas.
    As well, I hope we all also enjoy the impact of an extra 2-3 minutes of cars idling and spewing exhaust into the air so bikes have a dedicated lane. Also, how does that 2-3 minutes affect traffic flow for streets that intersect with Jarvis? Will that also mean more delays/gridlock and more idling on other streets? Nothing better than constant exhaust fumes and frustrated drivers.
    Good job City of Toronto, well done again!

  • http://piorkowski.ca/ qviri

    No, it’s not a large hill, we don’t live in Vancouver. It is a hill, and when I’m going to work, I’m not always looking for a workout.

  • http://piorkowski.ca/ qviri

    … continued:
    the fact remains that Church is a lesser street and will necessarily have more stops. This is not conductive to getting places fast.
    And nothing says we can’t have bike lanes on both.

  • http://undefined smc

    I agree whole-heartedly with the elimination of curbside parking. Especially on streets like Bloor where it only serves to hold up traffic (bike or auto) to accomodate 10 cars or so.

  • http://undefined Lucky_Pierre

    I used that section of Dupont before there were bike lanes. Still backed up every morning and evening rush. The most annoying part of biking in this city is having to pass 2 lanes of bumper-to-bumper single occupant cars that aren’t going anywhere. Sometimes you can pass in the curb lane, sometimes you have to go in between cars… Now with the bike lanes we can go full speed instead of dodging and weaving through idling cars, or riding illegally on the sidewalk, just to get to work on time.
    What makes people think that the least efficient, most expensive, dirtiest and (even without bike lanes) often SLOWEST mode of transportation downtown is the best?

  • http://bit.ly/accozzaglia accozzaglia

    Speaking from plenty of (driving, riding, walking) experience, it is categorically safer to ride a bike along an arterial on which there is zero on-street parking. It eliminates the real danger of the dreaded “door prize.” For this reason, Jarvis is less undesirable as a bike-prepared arterial than Church could be.
    In the growing major city of the 21st century, on-street, public parking is a threatened species that will be overtaken by off-street, underground private parking.

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