Fight for Bikes Protest at Christie Pits

Earlier today, Zev and Eva – two University of Toronto students who started “Fight for Bikes” organized a protest against Bill 212 at Christie Pits Park. The turnout was incredible with some claiming there were at least 1,500 which would make it even larger than the September 23 rally at Queen’s Park!

As part of the rally, I was invited to speak along with MPP Jessica Bell, Dr. Derek Tsang, Federal NDP candidate Norm Di Pasquale, Zain Khurram of Toronto Youth Cabinet, and Phil Pothen of Environmental Defence. Here’s a photo of MPP Jessica Bell, Eva, and Zev.

One of the local YouTube channels live streamed the ride and the speeches started at the fourteen-minute mark. My speech was at around 30 minutes in, but a fair number of people had trouble hearing. Therefore, I included the full text below.

Jun Nogami’s blog post did a good job summarizing the rally as always. Given this and the YouTube livestream, I won’t repeat the same points, though Norm did get the crowd going with his “Save our bike lanes” chant!

After the speeches, we assembled for the ride along Bloor. We had to walk our bikes for the first few minutes because of the huge crowd, while police officers and volunteers corked the intersections.

A video was shared on Reddit which showed the insane turnout.

Thousands turn out for protest to save bike lanes
byu/ICanGetLoudTooWTF intoronto

This “Ford Wants Cyclists Dead” sign on the purple t-shirt sends a powerful statement.

Several people had signs where they can fill in what Doug Ford could also ban to improve traffic. This photo wasn’t clear, but it said Taylor Swift given she will be performing in Toronto starting next week.

At Brunswick Street.

East of Bay Street where we were informed to keep riding to Sherbourne as opposed to the original plan to stop at Yonge Street.

After Sherbourne, we turned onto Wellesley towards Queen’s Park.

The ride arriving at Queen’s Park.

Zev and Eva thanked everyone before the ride dispersed.

Here’s another good sign I noticed before leaving.

Thanks Zev and Eva for organizing today’s awesome rally, as well as to all the speakers. If you want to help Fight For Bikes with future rallies and rides, please go to their website, e-mail them at fightforbikesto@gmail.com, and follow them on Instagram.

The protest has gotten some coverage from CityNews, Toronto Today, E-Bikes International, Toronto Star, and Canadian Cycling Magazine.

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Photo courtesy of Jun Nogami

Good afternoon, everybody! First off, I would like to thank Zev and Eva for organizing this awesome rally and to the fellow speakers here with us today!

The Toronto Community Bikeways Coalition was started early in the COVID-19 pandemic with a call for temporary bikeways along subway lines and suburban bus routes to help essential workers get around. Today, our group is focused on holding City Hall accountable to their road safety and climate goals, amplifying community voices, providing policy solutions, and hosting fun events such as the Cycling Good Cheer ride which will be happening next month.

One bikeway which is very important to us is Bloor Street for which “We Belong on Bloor” is our latest campaign. It takes a lot of work to make these bike lanes a reality. There’s hosting mass rides such as Bells on Bloor which Albert Koehl started, distributing postcards in the neighbourhoods, canvassing businesses and community groups to get their support, getting people to sign petitions, attending public consultations, writing to city hall, making deputations, and – my personal favourite – doing bike counts to show how successful the bike lanes are.

Of course, you can’t measure success by bike counts alone. Cycling in Toronto has become a lot more mainstream. [It’s not just racers in spandex with their road bikes, but also everyday people biking to work, students heading to school, parents bringing their kids in their cargo bikes, food couriers, and sometimes pets are taken along.]* This wouldn’t have been possible without all of you, as well as groups such as TCBC, Cycle Toronto, Friends & Families for Safe Streets, Yonge4All, David Suzuki Foundation, Toronto East Cyclists, and so many others.

Despite this big tent of support, despite these successes, and despite the fact people called for bike lanes on Bloor for almost fifty years, Doug Ford wants to throw all of that out the window! Worse still, this was announced when Toronto had a record number of cyclist deaths at six for this year alone!

Road safety should never be a partisan issue. There are people who vote Conservative who bike and who want safe streets for everyone. But since the Ford government insists on ramming this through – along with their other screw-ups such as Ontario Place, Highway 413, the Greenbelt, and our healthcare system – we road safety advocates have the moral obligation to vote Ford out of office! Especially in Scarborough, Etobicoke, North York, and the 905 where many Progressive Conservative seats are.

I’ll close off with the following point. Saving lives is far more important than saving time which this bill probably won’t even do.

Thank you.

* This part was cut short because Derek Tsang already mentioned this point before I spoke.