Bixi Bikes comes to Toronto

BIXI Toronto launched May 3rd with 1000 bikes in over 80 locations. They can currently only be found within the downtown core (from Bathurst east to Jarvis and Queens Quay north to Bloor) but Bixi is hoping to expand. If you live and/or work in the downtown area Bixi might be for you, especially when it’s only $95/year for a well tuned bike whenever you need it. If you’re only in Toronto visiting BIXI has both day rates ($5/day) and 3-day rates ($12). I was hoping to use BIXI when I go to one of my favourite restaurants this week, Pizza Libretto. But there are no BIXI stations near by and it could be up to an extra $12+ if I don’t return the bike within 90 mins!

Toronto Bike lanes

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford recently announced that he is removing the bike lanes on Jarvis Street. Traffic engineers at the city of Toronto claim that commuters are faced with much longer commuting times and only 600 cyclists are using the Jarvis Street Bike lanes. This may have been more digestible to city cyclists if Ford had offered up some alternative. There is a cycling culture in downtown Toronto and Ford could have proactively offered up another street for bike lanes. Cyclists could instead be offered north routes on one-way Bleecker Street and southbound access on another adjacent route to Jarvis.

For an urban, supposedly active city Toronto’s bike lanes are disconnected, random and usually dangerous to say the least. Biking Toronto has a great website where cyclists can interact and they offer up a map of the existing bike lanes. I try and ride my bike in the city, but it’s usually not on bike lanes (mostly because there aren’t many in the area I live in). Driver behaviours vary day to day; you never know when someone is going to try and cut it close. My suggestions for safe city riding:

1. Wear a helmet (duh!)
2. Ride about 0.5 to a full meter from the curb or parked cars. As a cyclist you have the right to be in the right hand lane (as a slower moving vehicle). If you leave yourself some ‘wiggle’ room by the curb you can save yourself from falling over. It also indicates to drivers to move almost over into the left hand lane to get around you.
3. Do NOT ride on the sidewalk (it’s for pedestrians)
4. Wear bright colours. The more visible you are, the more likely other cars and cyclists will see you.
5. Carry ID, a mobile phone and have money for a cab.

The Sidewalks are for Pedestrians

Suggestion #3 is to not ride on the sidewalk. One it is illegal. And two it frightens pedestrians.

One of my favourite ways to stay active and healthy is to run track workouts down at Varsity Stadium with the University of Toronto. For my warm-up and cool-down I usually go and adventure through Queens Park and campus, seeing old buildings I used to attend classes in and getting my legs ready for something blisteringly fast (well fast for old lady legs!). Recently my fear factor has gone up significantly; there are so many cyclists jumping on and off sidewalks or just steadily riding on sidewalks. I am very afraid that one of them is going to plow into me one day. While it wouldn’t be as devastating as being hit by a car, I think the damage could still be quite significant.

Cycling friends please leave the sidewalks to those of walking and running.

With summer here I’m going to try and get in as much time on my bike as possible. I may even start waking up and ridiculously early hours just to get in a long road ride before I go to work. My goal is try and ride my bike to work once my competitive track season is over, but we’ll see given how dangerous it may be.

Enjoy your summer.  Why not enjoy your summer on your bike?

The conference started out with David Miller’s last appearance of the Mayor of Toronto. He spoke about the initiatives Toronto was undertaking to reduce their carbon footprint, including the waste diversion programs and gas collection from landfill sites. He spoke passionately about being the leader of the C40 cities. Miller was honoured by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Donna Cansfield, and Stockwell Day, the Minister of the Asia-Pacific Gateway. Toronto can only hope that the succeeding mayor will be as passionate about sustainability (ha!).

Sustainable Electricity. Sustainable Transportation. Sustainable Cities. Building Sustainable Lives for all citizens

… Was the theme of the first day. Barry LePartner, somewhat of an alarmist, spoke about the failing infrastructure in the US. He predicts that the Minneapolis bridge disaster might just be the first of many. Dalton McGuinty lunch speech was about Ontario’s leadership in sustainable energy, with the FIT program and promotion of electric vehicles. His speech may have been more credible had he left the new Harry Potter movie out of his speech.

The second day was about the past/current (?) financial crisis, and was disappointing in comparison to the first day. Speakers skirted the main topics ‘Have we seen the bottom?’ and ‘What are the fundamentals for Sustained Growth?’. Perhaps these issues were avoided because commenting on them would be insulting both the Canadian and American Economic Advisers.

The highlight for me over the two days was an interview between Amanda Lang and Martin Wolf. Wolf spoke to the failing US economy and the reliance of the Canadian Economy on the US (given that 75% of Canadian exports go to the US). But it was not just the hard facts that he laid out, he also shared his views that the Developed Nations are naive to think they can continue on the path their on; the Developing and Emerging Countries will not only overtake the Developed Nations but they will surpass and leave them behind in their dust. He couldn’t repeat enough that we have to change the way we currently conduct business. He eluded to the fact that we value the ‘wrong’ things, we are too much of a commercial society that consumes meaningless goods. His candor and enthusiasm were welcomed by the crowd, especially in comparison to the high-level, reluctant speeches of his peers.

A more inclusive summary of the conference can be found here (shortly )

Pasternack, a lawyer and municipal policy adviser, admitted that he was not a climate science expert, but proved he was an expert on policy to help mitigate and adapt to climate change. One theme that Pasternack hammered home was the idea that climate change contributes to deteriorating infrastructure, changes in weather patterns, etc but that it is not the root cause in these changes.

Why Do We Need To Respond?

Cities, hubs of economic activity, generate the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions. That’s not surprising given that about 50% of the world lives in an urban environment. The C40 Cities, The Climate Leadership Group estimates that 75% of the total electricity use is in cities.

Not only do cities need to adapt due to the emissions they release, but also due to the changes in weather patterns. Extreme storms are causing electrical outages and washing out roads. Cities need to adapt their infrastructure to mitigate the climate change effects.

How Will Cities Respond?

The city of Toronto has come up with a mitigation and adaptation plan; they believe that the two go hand-in-hand to successfully combat climate change. From Ahead of the Storm, a City of Toronto a climate change adaptation strategy, the following Venn diagram was borne:

The C40 cities have all come up with mitigation and adaptation strategies. The C40 cities understand that cooperation and transparency are necessary to make real gains in combating climate change; the cities have made their climate change action plans publicly available.

In a perfect world cities would be making grounds mitigating the effects of climate change, instead cities are left pondering what the next steps are. Pasternack cited that insufficient funds, lack of consensus, unengaged stakeholders and legal impediments are thwarting city efforts. More than anything cities are powerless due to paramountcy and preemption.

The success of cities is held in balance with economic and social sustainability, but also environmental sustainability.

The other day I was thinking about how the system could be better, at the municipal, provincial and federal level. My thought was,

The individuals in charge of a specific portfolio should have some experience in that sector.

For instance, the Minister of Education should have worked in education, as a teacher, a principle, a professor, etc. The Minister of Justice should have worked in the legal field. The Minister of Finance should be a finance guy or gal. The Minister of Transportation should be a transportation engineer.

And this would work at the municipal level too. We need hard working technical officials to help put Toronto back together.  Sorry to pick on you Adam Giambrone, but your lack of knowledge of public transit systems has not been good for Toronto, neither was your scandal!

I’m not saying we should take away from the elected officials. We live in a democracy and should be represented by an elected official of our riding, district, area, however you want to call it at the federal, provincial and municipal levels.

What if instead of having to draw from the elected individuals as top cabinet representatives that we either elected or appointed technical representatives?

Although there maybe some drawbacks, including more officials that need to be paid a salary (could we increase the size of a riding and decrease the number of elected officials?) or lack of policy knowledge (easier to learn than technical knowledge), I think the benefits could far outweigh the disadvantages.

• Technical Knowledge: officials would have technical knowledge of their portfolio and could provide more sound advice to the premier
• Timely Decisions: officials could make timely decisions and not have to rely on the technical knowledge of a support staff. This could not only be a time savings but also a $ savings too (didn’t we learn enough from the EHealth scandal?)
• Public Support: the public may have more trust in the decision made my a technical representative with a thorough understanding of the problem

Our democratic makeup has got us so far but as with everything else I think it’s time for an evolution. We need hard working, technical people to help us move forward in the 21st century. We need forward thinkers. We need officials who are not afraid of change, not afraid to push the envelope and not afraid to make a few mistakes along the way.

Here are some of the highlights:

LEED for Homes

Last year I achieved the LEED AP accreditation, just before the new system of rating was implemented. Now LEED has introduced new rating systems for New Construction, Commercial Interiors, Core and Shell, Existing Buildings, Neighbourhood Development and Homes. Both Derek Satnik and Richard Vermeulen gave presentations the Thursday morning on how to design homes and neighbourhoods to be sustainable and more livable. They argued if you looked at it from both a bottom line and a life cycle cost perspective that you could build a home for none to very little additional cost.

Although it is argued that a LEED home only saves about 15% of the energy of a traditional home, it does get you thinking about how to do things with a minimal foot print. Ideally we begin to design and construct homes that are 50% more efficient, off the grid, and with recycled or renewable materials. Satnik discussed the other environmental standards including Energy Star, EnerGuide,  BREEAM and many, many others. While he said none of these is perfect it does help to minimize the impact of homes.

And think how good would it feel to not have to pay your hyrdo or water bills ever again…

Furniture

Made in Canada by Canadian designers with Canadian materials (mostly), meet Nienkamper. Their website seems to be down this morning but I was really impressed with the quality of the furniture at the store. I’m currently trying to figure out if I can order a coffee table from them without having to put a commercial order in.

Fatboy also peaked my interest. They have unique lounging chairs and blocks for the home. I think I’ll have to get one of their hammocks for reading and relaxing next summer!

While there were many textiles that were intriguing, they were only available for commercial purchase. While I’m interested in purchasing eco-friendly textiles I do not need to outfit a commercial space; I only need enough for a small 1-bdrm space.

I was also interested in the green roof and gardening materials. I attended a presentation on Thursday morning regarding gardens, but it was more about the International Garden Festival than about how we can use vegetation to minimize our carbon footprint.

I will be reluctant to attend the Green Building Festival next year. Although the presentations I attended were well done, I was not impressed with the exposition this year. The Direct Energy Centre was an improvement in venue location from when I attended two years ago out by the airport. It would be good to see industry getting together with the universities to brain storm both large and small solutions to our sustainability conundrum.

On October 25th all of Ontario goes to vote their municipal leaders. Here in Toronto the race for mayor seems to be cooling down. While candidates continue to campaign, Rob Ford seems to be storming ahead with the lead.

What? Rob Ford? The man who has insulted at least half of the city’s population; he announced he was opposed to gay marriage and does not support immigrants coming to Toronto. He’s been arrested for impaired driving. But this blog is not meant to be about bashing Ford (I’ll save that for another day).

When we go to the polls on October 25th we will all be voting for the future of our cities and towns. Toronto is at a cross-roads. With construction having started on the Spadina Subway extension and the current transit system somewhat in limbo the city needs a mayor that will revitalize transit and make it a priority of their term.

What does the city need for Transit?

Last week I vented about Rossi’s proposal to tunnel the Allen expressway down to the Gardiner. My theme with transit is similar; Toronto needs to work with what it has before unrolling expensive, ostentatious, impossible transit.

Currently Toronto is serviced by 3 subways, a Rapid Transit line (an extension of the Bloor-Danforth subway line), 11 streetcars and (≈) 144 daily bus routes. Wow, sounds pretty robust. But it’s still inefficient and people opt for their car over transit.

In addition each of the suburban communities has a transit system, Mississauga, Brampton, Viva (servicing York Region), as well as, GO Transit and VIA Rail (servicing a variety of communities). And while the transit operations are starting to ‘work’ together (under PRESTO) there is no seamless system for transit riders to move between the systems (something else to take into consideration when voting).

What can we do better?

1. Work with what we’ve got: When you look at the system map it’s clear that Toronto has the means to have a great transit system, it just needs some tweaks (see suggestions below). London, UK drastically improved reliability when it introduced a congestion charging scheme. First people chose transit over cars due to the cost savings. With fewer cars on the road and dedicated bus lanes, transit was more efficient, even faster than your personal automobile so people switched to transit for efficiency.
2. Dedicated streetcar and bus lanes: Not only do they improve transit times, they also improve transit reliability
3. Signal Priority: As a bus approaches an intersection the lights change in favour for the bus. This is necessary with dedicated lanes to keep transit vehicles moving on schedule
4. Add to the system: Not new routes, just more vehicles on the routes. People opt for their personal vehicle in off-peak hours because their bus runs every 30mins to hour. Reduce that to ten minutes and more people will choose transit over their vehicles.
5. Permit bicycles on subways during peak hours: The new buses and street cars are equipped with bicycle racks, but you’re still not permitted to bring on the subway during peak hours. People would be much more inclined to switch out of their cars given the means to travel efficiently through the city, which means bringing your bike on the subway any time of the day.

Aside from suggestion 4 all of these examples are very low cost to implement and can improve the reliability of the TTC. But what would cost more having more buses in a dedicated transit lane with signal priority or constructing dedicated streetcar and subway lines?

What are the Candidates Saying

Rob Ford: Ford wants to see more streetcar lines, but as the Transit Toronto blog argues this will only increase congestion. He also wants to see an additional 12km of subway lines along Sheppard Avenue. His final comittment was to for 100km of bike trails (rumour has it these are not to be on Toronto roads). His transit plan was released on youtube and just like the quality of the video, his plan is lackluster.

George Smitherman: Smitherman’s plan is called the Integrated Transit Plan. At the heart of the plan is customer service; including free service for seniors between 1oam and 2pm, a transit charter, and a promise to keep vehicles clean and maintained. Looking at a longer term horizon (10- and 20-years out) Smitherman is committed to extending subway lines and adding more LRT lines.

Rocco Rossi: Rossi has a 5 priorities for improving transit in Toronto, #1 being to build more subways. He also recognizes that Toronto cannot continue to operate as a silo, under priority #2 Rossi recommends a stronger partnership with Metrolinx. While this will improve regional transportation, Rossi ignores a massive part of our current local system, buses.

Sarah Thomson: Again she sees subways as queen bee. She’s going all-out, stating that the city needs another 58km of subway lines (the current system is 70km so she’s trying to almost double it). Thomson does have the most aggressive cycling plan with more than 1000km on-road and 40km off-road through utility corridors.

None of them look to our existing system and how to make it better. Instead they’re promising unrealistic, expensive systems. Smitherman’s plan seems best, work on the small things before tackling the big ones, create a better sense of ‘community’ our transit system and while he spells out big ticket plans, he understands that Toronto needs to keep moving – ‘faster, better, easier and safer’.

Over the next few weeks I’ll look at some of the other relevant issues for Toronto’s Mayoral campaign including municipal taxes, city roads and anything else relevant to sustainable cities and transportation.

A little history…

The Allen Expressway was originally designed to be a connection from the 401 all the way down to the Gardiner, known as the Spadina expressway. Construction began in 1963. Homes were demolished, neighbourhoods destroyed and air pollution was increasing for surrounding residents. Opposition continued to mount. Modifications to the Spadina Expressway were made in 1964, it meant the expropriation and demolition of more homes. by 1966 the city opened the first section from Wilson Avenue down to Lawrence, with a massive, highly efficient connection with the 401. Construction down to Eglinton continued but in 1969 a group led by Alan Powell and Jane Jacobs known as the “Stop Spadina, Save Our City Co-ordinating Committee” (SSSOCCC) formed committed to halting the progress of the Spadina Expressway.

Based on the Eglinton terminus the SSSOCCC won.

What does Toronto really need?

Does Toronto need a buried expressway? Didn’t we learn enough from Boston’s Big Dig? The multi-billion dollar project was way over budget, has not improved efficiency and has not helped reconnect citizens to the waterfront.

Toronto needs roads to function more efficiently, better bus transportation on existing roads and traffic engineers to work together to get our city moving again, from pedestrians, to cyclists, to buses and finally vehicles.

Toronto needs a mayor who can think about what the citizens really need. Do they need their taxes raised to fund more projects? Or do they need a mayor who can work with what the city already has and make it better?

Give me a KISS

Do you remember when you were much younger and someone told you to follow the KISS principle? Keep It Simple Stupid. While I was driving back from class I thought of a few things the city could do before it was forced to construct an underground expressway

• Eliminate illegal parking/stopping on streets during day hours: Bathurst was crawling today. Why? Because a delivery truck decided to park facing south on the northbound lanes. Instead of two lanes of traffic, it was reduced to one. In addition the one lane competed for right turn space, since the driver had parked so close to the intersection. Flow would have been uninterrupted without the truck illegally stopped.
• Dedicated Pedestrian Crossing at all major intersections: I wrote a blog on this before. The Dundas square intersection almost ‘gets’ it. But instead there should be no pedestrian crossing when traffic is moving. It is safer for pedestrians to cross when the intersection is completely stopped.
• Eliminate Street Parking: You cut capacity in half with street parking. Facilities can be built in nearby areas. I see the other side of the argument, that it hurts businesses where street parking has been eliminated. However, the loss of business due to congestion is likely greater than the cost of lost business.
• Dedicated Bus and Carpool lanes: Their benefits are well documented and require little infrastructure for implementation.
• Signal Timing: Ever feel like you get a green light as the one in front of you turns red? City Traffic Engineers need to set routes as ‘main lines.’ Consecutive green lights would allow people to come into and out of the city easily.

Instead of dreaming of elaborate, expensive, complicated infrastructure, lets go back to the basics. Instead the city should work with its existing infrastructure. Make the roads move efficiently. Make buses move along those routes efficiently. Make it attractive to live in the city again. Work with all the great infrastructure that exists in the city before we bring in more.

Maybe Rossi has a vision. Or maybe he thinks a massive elevator will transport vehicles up to meet the Gardiner.

While his end of camp tag line seems comical now, Toronto’s bus system is depleting so rapidly that it might take a year for you to see your friends again (ok, not really). Unless you live directly on the subway there is little hope that you can travel on the transit system efficiently.

40 minutes to go 5 kilometers?

Reported in the Globe and Mail yesterday, Toronto’s bus routes “fail those who need it most.” According to their research only those who are part of the ‘creative class‘ can afford to live on the subway routes. The remainder, the working and the service class can’t afford to live along the subway, despite needing it the most. Unable to afford a car, insurance and parking these people are forced to use ‘The Better Way‘.

Would a Congestion Charging Scheme Improve Bus Scheduling in Toronto?

In early 2003 London introduced a congestion charging scheme; camera’s were installed and charged people who drove into the city. Rates varied by time of day and day of the week. People who lived in Central London were charged a tax to own a car. And more buses were added to there vast route network just prior to the congestion charging scheme implementation.

The overall result: there was a 30% reduction in automobile traffic. Reliability of the buses increased. With reliability increasing more people saw buses as an attractive alternative to get in and an around town.

Toronto currently does not have a congestion charging scheme. Individuals commute to and from the suburbs, local Toronto residents drive anywhere and everywhere with no other viable option available. In the end the TTC, along with individual automobiles, competes for space on the road.

Forget “fancy, European-style light-rail transit” and subways. Create dedicated bus lanes and carpool lanes during rush-hour. Implement a congestion charging scheme. Promote living where we work. Once again make all aspects of the TTC ‘The Better Way.’

It seems like most north-south routes through the core of the city are under construction (Bayview, Mount Pleasant, Yonge and Avenue). And a select few east-west streets are also under construction, namely the Gardiner Expressway and Bloor Street, Toronto’s main lateral arterials.

Construction is only adding to an existing gridlock problem. Last week the National Post reported that Toronto was rated the 2nd worst city in the world for traffic congestion by IBM. Johannesburg took the #1 spot for worst traffic. Residents perceive that traffic is getting worse (9% of commuters felt the quality of their commute had declined) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OCED) estimated that Toronto lost $3.3 billion last year in productivity due to the congested roads.

Toronto’s gridlock is getting worse, between the increase in population and the increase in construction it is excruciating to travel through the city by car. And currently there is no public transit solution worth considering (would you rather be stuck on a crowded bus or in your own car?)

Someone said to me the other day,

Is all the construction a conspiracy by David Miller to convince Dalton McGuinty and Queens Park that we need Transit City Now?

The solution is not just a mass transit upgrade for Toronto. Part of the solution also includes a cultural shift (i.e getting people out of their individual cars and back on to buses, getting people to move back into the city and out of the suburbs). It should also include more bike lanes, but bike lanes with a buffer from traffic; Toronto’s driving culture still isn’t capable of sharing lanes.

Regardless of the outcome, Toronto is stuck with massive delays, congestion and, thus, pollution from the added construction to the gridlock. And while I understand that there is a huge infrastructure gap and the roads NEED to be fixed a better construction mitigation plan should have been sought out.

Through the month of January Toronto was plagued by a string of tragic pedestrian deaths. In total there were 14 deaths in Toronto, some of them quite tragic. Between transport trucks, streetcars and busses the pedestrians stood no chance.

Who was to Blame?

The debate as to who was at fault in these accidents has been a topic of discussion in the media. Whether it is the cars or the pedestrians who are not paying attention is the question. But either way isn’t it both parties faults?

As a pedestrian I don’t think I’m would want to play chicken with a transport truck. Even a SmartCar!

In 2007 the City of Toronto did a study, The Pedestrian Collision Study. Here is a selection of the conclusions of the study:

• 83% of pedestrian/motor vehicle collisions resulted in either minimal or minor injuries
• 12% of pedestrian/motor vehicle collisions resulted in major injuries or fatalities
• 50% of fatalities in pedestrian/motor vehicle collisions were seniors (aged 65+).
• 72% of pedestrian/motor vehicle collisions involved male drivers versus 28% for female drivers.
• Pedestrian/motor vehicle collisions occurred most during the autumn and winter seasons.
• Pedestrian/motor vehicle collisions occurred more often in the downtown area.
• Pedestrian/motor vehicle collisions occurred more often along arterial roads.
• Pedestrian/motor vehicle collisions distributed as follow: at intersections (47%), at non-intersections (37%), and other/unknown (16%).

The City of Toronto did a similar bike-car collision study in 2006. The results can be found here.

What I was reminded of yesterday was does it really matter who is at fault? In the end the pedestrian ends up dead or seriously injured.

How Can we Prevent Future Deaths

1. Alertness: Most importantly both drivers and pedestrians need to be more aware – pedestrian’s in particular. Again as a pedestrian if you play chicken with an automobile the automobile always wins
2. Turning – Left or right, as drivers we should be more aware when turning. Right turns are often worse. On a red light drivers are only looking for on-coming traffic. When lights are green drivers often forget about pedestrians and rush to make the turn
3. Updating Our Intersections: The ‘Scramble’ intersections of downtown Toronto are great, but we can make them even safer. In New Zealand and Japan pedestrians are only allowed to cross when all lights are red. In this manner cars and pedestrians are not competing entities
4. Slow Down: the issue of decreasing speed limits in cities has been raised. Unofficially people in Toronto drive 15-20km/hr over the speed limit so decreasing the speed limit would give drivers more response time
5. Txt Msgs, Email and iPods: Pedestrian’s cannot just walk in oblivion. Be aware of your surroundings and focus on the busy road around you, instead of the latest gadget.