With the court challenge against the Ford government’s Bill 212 expected to be held on Wednesday, April 16, Toronto’s cycling community will be hosting a Critical Mass ride on Friday, March 28. Meet 6:00 PM at Bloor and Spadina for 6:30 PM departure. As with other Critical Mass rides, the route is never provided ahead of time. This announcement offers a good opportunity to recap what has been happening with this bill since Doug Ford won his third majority last month.
Originally, Cycle Toronto was planning to host their annual winter cycling tradition – the Coldest Day of the Year Ride – on Saturday, February 15. However, the heavy snow that weekend and uncleared bike lanes at the time made them postpone the ride to today. This year’s ride lived up to its name with -8’C temperatures unlike in past years which saw about 70 people brave the cold from Perth Avenue Parkette to Michael Power Park in Etobicoke.
As was widely expected, Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative party secured its third straight majority last night. This is despite him being the least liked premier in the country and all the trouble he caused including the RCMP Greenbelt investigation, the destruction of Ontario Place for a mega spa nobody wants, the crumbling of our health and education systems, and the ripping out of Toronto’s bike lanes. And of course, those $200 pre-election bribe cheques. However, there is a lot more to rant about aside from the outcome itself.
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| Editorial cartoon via Theo Moudakis |
More than 50 centimetres of snow had fallen in Toronto in a series of snowstorms from February 12 to 16; something which the City recently admitted could take as long as three weeks to remove. Since I needed to do my weekly grocery run in Chinatown, I took the Mozzmobile (cargo bike) this morning to see the status of the bike lanes.
Back on October 23, a group from Bike Brampton led by David Laing attended the Rally and Ride for Road Safety at Queen’s Park; some of whom biked all the way from Brampton. To return the favour, Jess Spieker of Friends & Families for Safe Streets organized a group to take the GO Train to Brampton yesterday for Bike Brampton’s delivery of a ghost bike at Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria’s office on Hurontario Street.
Upon reviewing the North York map for the 2025-27 Bike Plan, one of the most significant projects in the pipeline is the Bathurst Complete Street from Bainbridge to Steeles Avenues. A cycling route which also shows up in York Region’s 2022 Transportation Master Plan. Ahead of the public consultation scheduled for Thursday, January 30 (6:00 – 8:30 PM) at Rockford Public School, let’s look at what this project has to offer, as well as what’s needed to further improve connectivity in the area.
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| Bathurst Complete Street rendering - Via City of Toronto |
My last two posts about the September trip to Central Asia focused on Uzbekistan; the first part dealing with Tashkent, Samarkand, and Shahrisabz while the second talked about Bukhara and Khiva. However, the trip also included four days in Almaty, Kazakhstan and another four days in Istanbul on the way back home. Let’s look at what Almaty has to offer, as well as some of the sights in Istanbul we didn’t explore back in December 2019.
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| Helen and I at the top of Shymbulak peak near Almaty |
