Our New Sport, Backpedalling on Bikes

By Desmond Cole

Just get over it already! Photo of a guaranteed bike lane in 2008 by Martinho from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

In Toronto, the word on the street is “wait.” The Board of Trade recently ranked us dead last in commute times among comparable big cities. The United Nations Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) claims Toronto’s cluttered roads are costing the country $3.3 billion a year in lost productivity. Premier Dalton McGuinty has delayed four billion dollars in funding for Transit City, David Miller’s light-rail mega-project, and now says the TTC will have to wait until at least next year for a long-term funding deal.
Well, we could always ride bikes, right? Wrong! Cycling is impractical, annoying, and yields unconscionable amounts of human sweat. It’s almost as embarrassing as that other low-cost form of getting around—walking. We’re all tired of these two-wheeled terrorists hogging the best one-sixteenth of the roadway. If they had any self-respect they’d get cars, but who really wants them competing for road space, fuel, and parking? Can’t they just disappear or something? But we regress. Er, digress.

The fact that cycling won’t solve each and every commuting challenge outweighs any potential benefits. What if someone perfects that flying car we’ve all been waiting on? What purpose would our wussy bike lanes serve then? Mayoral candidates and journalists alike remind us that whining, stalling, citing anecdotes, and creating phony class wars are more useful than half measures like dedicated lanes or integrated bike networks. With the obvious exception of our Olympic Heroes, public money for cycling is an irresponsible waste of resources. Here, then, are seven ideas that will accomplish the lofty policy goal of putting Toronto’s granola-eating pedal punks in their place:

1. Eliminate free parking for motorcycles and motorized scooters. Giorgio Mammoliti wants to tax cyclists, but he’s ignoring root causes. Motorized two-wheelers are dangerous forms of gateway transportation to non-motorized, two-wheeled insanity. Giving motorcycles and scooters free parking just because they take up less space and cause less pollution only emboldens the pedalists. The smaller your ecological footprint, the more you should be taxed.
2. Lower the driving age to eight. The only reason there are any cyclists on our streets is because we offer them no alternatives in their youth. I remember my father taking the training wheels off my bike one Sunday in an abandoned Sears parking lot and letting me go. I knew by the tears in his eyes that he was thinking, “I really wanted his first ride to be a Buick.” Alas.
3. Convert Toronto’s iconic bike ring posts into tethers for mounted police officers. This would be a double boost for local businesses: increased police visibility and less space for destitute cyclists who have no money to go shopping anyway.
4. Create a new Bike Plan comprising only one route—a circuit around the grounds of Queen’s Park. Cycling is a recreational activity. Putting lanes anywhere that might move someone efficiently across town is wasteful and hurts cars. Since our provincial politicians will enjoy the view of frolicking cyclists, and since this is the only kind of infrastructure project they can currently afford, they can pick up the tab.
5. Install video screens above traffic signals on city streets. Since no one is moving, the ads on the screens (car commercials?) will generate a significant revenue stream that the city could dedicate to building the oft-discussed Annex-Rosedale-Leaside-Bridle Path Expressway. The move will also infuriate cycling activists, many of whom live secret double lives as public space activists.
6. Enact a city policy stating that no new cycling infrastructure may be installed two years prior to or three years after a municipal election. This will give politicians enough time to carefully consider planning options.
7. Terminate the City of Toronto Bicycle Friendly Business Awards. Did you know they have an award for best suburban business? No one in the suburbs even rides a bike! The program’s lavish trophies should be melted down to their original metals, cashed in, and returned to taxpayers in the form of a rebate. Even if this costs more than the program itself, the message it sends will be unequivocal.