Archive for the ‘Toronto’ Category

Ottawa > Toronto

The Ottawa Citizen offers a short piece describing the positions of mayoral candidates on cycling policy. Mike described this as “why Ottawa’s mayoral race is better than Toronto’s”; given that the Toronto candidate who once said “it’s their own fault” of cyclists who get killed in traffic now has a narrow plurality in the polls, he’s probably right.

Update: The Toronto municipal bureaucracy, however, does keep hope alive with a plan to add bike boxes around five busy intersections, including the terrifying College & Spadina.

Recent cycling links

1. Cycling in Ottawa contributor appears on CTV News to discuss bike safety in the wake of recent cycling deaths.

2. The New York Times’ ethics columnist goes for a bike ride around New York City and discusses cycling ethics.

3. The 2010 Bikeway Network Improvements pass Toronto City Council, but the high-profile plan for a segregated lane on University Avenue (which I was really looking forward to) fails due to an ostensible voting error by one councillor.

4. An NDP private member’s bill in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario would require drivers to leave 3 feet of space between their vehicles and cyclists; write your MPP.

Spacing Ottawa

We’ve been quite fond in the past of linking to articles from Spacing, the fantastic Toronto-based urbanism magazine. Now, CiO readers should be sure to subscribe to their new Ottawa blog, where they cover such issues as Lansdowne, pedestrian bridges and Big Joe Mufferaw. As well, in Spacing Radio #012, you can hear Spacing Ottawa editor Evan Thornton discuss the tension “between the ceremonial and the everyday” in designing Ottawa.

Finally, I recently bought a print subscription to Spacing, and despite the high price, it’s definitely worth it. Given the huge amount of content these folks create covering urban issues in a variety of cities, I’m happy to support them.