Have you ever cycled along the Pickering and Ajax waterfronts? You should. It's one of the best recreational bike rides in the GTA with beautiful scenery and mostly-flat trails, but presents Toronto cyclists with a big problem: how to get there. Because the Waterfront Trail all but disappears through most of Scarborough, you're stuck with either riding the long, miserable route along Kingston Road and Lawrence Avenue to get to Pickering or driving your......

This bold sign near one of the picnic areas in Sunnybrook Park warmly welcomes visitors before sternly laying out the conditions of play. No cycling on hills? No Frisbee without a permit? No kites? Since when? With the busy summer season approaching, are by-law enforcement officers going to be ticketing kids for playing catch or riding their bikes in the park? Fortunately, it looks more like the sign makers are even less familiar with......

In a world where the squeaky wheel gets the grease, cyclists may be a little too well-lubricated for their own good. No matter how much noise they think they're making, cyclists just can't seem to push their agenda as well as, say, the Canadian Automobile Association can push theirs. Into this breach is stepping the Toronto Cyclists Union, the latest in a series of formal and informal organizations to try to help Toronto cyclists......

When the City of Toronto issued a press release last week detailing its TTC strike contingency plans, cyclists quickly noticed that alongside the proposals for parking restrictions and pleas for employers to allow workers to use staggered schedules, "cycling" and "bikes" were mentioned exactly zero times. Spacing Toronto's Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler reported yesterday: Mayor David Miller noted this, too, and said earlier today that during the last TTC strike he was concerned by the thousands......

Last week, undergraduate students at UTSC (University of Toronto Scarborough) rejected the U-Pass by a stunning margin, with full-time students voting against it 1674 to 622, and part-time students spurning it 53 to 16. Minus the abstentions and spoiled ballots, that worked out to 73% No for for full-timers and 77% No for part-timers. When last we wrote about the proposed offer—a compulsory $60-a-month transit pass for all students, with no potential to opt......

Cycling in Toronto has been undergoing a bit of a renaissance lately. Hundreds of people took to the streets last September to promote a cross-city bike lane on Bloor Street, the cycling intervention collective Outdoor Urban Repair Squad was named the best activist group for 2007 by NOW Magazine, the Toronto Cyclists Union is launching this spring, and the city's Bike Week has become so packed full of events that it will stretch into......

Jarvis Street, circa 1910. (City of Toronto Archives) Torontonians should be ashamed at what happened to Jarvis Street. The city's first paved road was once the grandest tree-lined boulevard around, bracketed by the mansions of some of Toronto's wealthiest movers and shakers. Then, in the 1940s, the stately Jarvis boulevard was transformed: trees were pulled down and sidewalks ripped up to make way for the automobile. Jarvis Street was turned from a gorgeous historical......

Duke's Cycle has just announced on their web site that their new location (until they rebuild on Queen Street) is going to be at 452 Richmond Street near Spadina Avenue, just a few blocks away from the store that burned down last month in the massive Queen West fire. They join National Sound in quickly re-establishing themselves in the neighbourhood. Duke's is still hoping to open the doors on the new space on April......

A line of high-fiving cyclists paraded along the city's newest bike lane Monday morning. Then, without warning, a gust of wind tangled the whole thing, nearly sending every set of pedals flying. No injuries, though; every cyclist remained mounted. A few bemused, rubbernecking motorists gawked at the intersection, watching one helmeted participant lay an ironically tire-shaped weight to keep the "bike lane" from blowing into traffic. Happily, things held together long enough for TaketheTooker,......

Dragging a bicycle down the stairs of a subway station often comes with an abundance of "tsks" and dirty looks from fellow passenges, and a wayward pivoting front wheel can catch on clothing or trip up the flow of human traffic. Plus, some riders can get royally peeved if something is impeding their way as they fly frantically down the stairs to beat the door chimes—waiting for the next train is, of course, unthinkable.......

Forget the snow, it's time to start planning your summer of cycling. The Toronto–Niagara Bike Train will be returning this year with an expanded schedule, more travel options, and some getaway package deals. Building on last summer's successful pilot program which saw dozens of cyclists and their bikes riding the train between Toronto and Niagara Falls on each of four weekends, the 2008 edition of the Bike Train spans eight weekends from late June......

Sarah Lazarovic––curator of the garage-based Montrose Portrait Gallery of Canada––is painting a portrait of a Torontonian (be they Mirvishes or Meashas) every day. Each Monday, we'll feature one of those portraits here. Duke's Cycle began its life in 1914, so while the Queen West fire decimated its present digs, it's no surprise that Gary Duke and family have vowed to find the strength and moxie to bring the venerable velo shop back to life. Check......

It's a gloomy time of year to be a cyclist, but Dave Meslin and the Toronto Cyclists Union are still finding time for projects in between their slushy commutes. The group is about to launch its own magazine, and they're looking for a name. They've narrowed the list down to 11, selected from over 250 names submitted by Toronto bike fanatics (Torontoist's official vote is for "Spoke & Word"). Take a look at the list......

What kind of people don't like riding their bikes in a Toronto winter? People who have never tried it, that's who. Even as more and more people choose not to get off their bikes when November comes around, many non-cyclists still view winter cycling as unwise, dangerous, or impossible. So as part of its first Bike Winter campaign to raise awareness of cycling as year-round transportation, the City of Toronto is hosting the Coldest......

In the battle of who owns the roads, cyclists and motorists are frequently at each others' throats. Over the last few years we've seen a heated altercation in Kensington Market and another that resulted in a motorist being stabbed with a screwdriver. It seems that the threat of a streetside melee is always looming. At Yonge and Bloor on Monday afternoon, a motorist attempted to make an illegal right turn and nearly knocked a......

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. You know that our transportation system is in dire straits when so many cyclists can get so excited about......

How many times have you been biking down the street and thought to yourself, "Wow, I wish I had a Pop-Tart!" Well, one enterprising cyclist (here parked near Yonge & Lawrence) has found the solution to this age-old problem––attaching a toaster oven directly to the handlebars of the bike. No word on exactly how the thing works, but we're guessing it's solar-powered.......

Last week, we reported on a confrontation at College and McCaul Streets where a cyclist stabbed a motorist in the neck and face with a screwdriver. Police have arrested Yonan Inwia for assault, but give no further details. It's stories like this that need Rosie DiManno: "Yonan Inwia fell roughly to the ground, his hands reaching out in a Christ-like fashion to break the heavy fall. Little did Yonan know, today he would be......

Remember when, nearly two years ago, a motorist and a cyclist were involved in a particularly newsworthy physical altercation which involved cup throwing, car-keying and bike stomping? At about 9:45 a.m. this morning, another shocking confrontation between a motorist and a cyclist took place at the intersection of College and McCaul Streets. During their heated dispute, the cyclist stabbed the motorist two to three times in the neck with a screwdriver. The cyclist, described......

With a little over twelve hours to go until this year's Capture the Flag, Lori and I are feeling anxious and excited. Not entirely sure the 3,000 glowsticks we've purchased will be enough, not confident that we will be able to handle the crowd, and not certain that the game will go smoothly at all, there are a lot of things to worry about. We've spent the week calling up wholesale companies in the......

Toronto cyclists and motorists have always shared a contentious co-existence. Sure, both sides often behave poorly toward each other, but there is one very important difference: cyclists aren't surrounded by airbags and crumple zones. Though much of the conflict stems from aggressive driving, many drivers simply aren't used to sharing the road with bikes, nor are they necessarily entirely aware of the rights of the cyclist. The new Ministry of Transportation Driver's Handbook has......

As we know, the bike lanes in Toronto leave something to be desired. Cyclists have been talking about it for a while, and now city officials have proposed a plan that would make Toronto more bike and pedestrian-friendly by creating special downtown "bikeways" (including one on the Bloor-Danforth corridor) as well as implementing pedestrian-friendly traffic signals. Daniel Egan, the city’s manager of pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure, said that they're looking at "creative solutions," such......

This weekend, the Ex is once again hosting Toronto's popular Clothing Show, the retail sales event offering "the unique, the unusual, and the handcrafted" to the citizenry. Currently celebrating its 30th anniversary, this event has been taking in greater numbers over the years because of its talented pool of local designers. And though there's an increasing amount of lazily silk-screened American Apparel T-shirts being touted as "alternative" fashion, it's still the best place to get......

As you may have read, Blue Rodeo played a series of free concerts around the city yesterday. As you also may have read, there's a provincial election going on. Reader Matt Kim sent us the following story of a rather odd intersection of the two: Me and some of my co-workers left early today to see Blue Rodeo, who were playing various spots around Toronto, promoting their new album. By the time we'd arrived,......

If you can imagine, for a moment, that Queen West has been designated a streetcars-and-pedestrians-only zone, it would not be that much different from the traffic flow in 1907, or this weekend. Join Streets Are For People this Saturday for World Carfree Day. Celebrated in over 1,500 cities around the globe, Toronto's version is custom-tailored to our homegrown oil addiction. This Saturday, there are two related happenings to be aware of. The first is......

With some 2,212 responses in just under two weeks, our TTC survey is done, and the complete data is in the hands of Michael Anders, the TTC’s Market Research Director. Tomorrow, Wednesday, the organization will be holding a special meeting in Committee Room 1 at City Hall to discuss their next steps, and Anders has told us that they "will be prepared to discuss [Torontoist's] findings" (whatever that means!––either way, Torontoist will be in......

Yesterday, after spending the morning and early afternoon at Day 1 of the Cabbagetown Festival (article to come), Torontoist decided to go for a relaxing bike ride through the Don Valley. Clearly the relaxing part of the plan didn't pan out, as we happened to be first on the scene of a wild brush fire, the flames of which were moving rapidly west and south thanks to unusually hot and dry conditions. Then, while......

Found at Queen and Palmerston. Photo by Miles Storey......

From October 1–4, the Walk21 conference comes to Toronto. Keynote speaker Dr. David Suzuki will be joined by a host of academics, urban planners, elected officials and activists to discuss urban pedestrian issues. Lectures, discussions and workshops will cover the theme of “putting pedestrians first” in policies and infrastructure in order to make active transportation viable and attractive in increasingly dense urban areas. Running concurrent to Walk21, the YWALK youth forum is aimed at......

We’ve mentioned the Bicycle Film Festival a few times before, but we’re going to give special mention to it again today because tonight at 7 p.m. is the screening of the festival’s first shorts programme, featuring Warriors: The Bike Race. The Warriors is basically one of the most excellent films ever, and in August of 2002, 89 gangs of bicycle riders took an all-night race from the Bronx to Coney Island in a sort......