$70M expansion program launch interrupted

BYLINE: Ian Robertson
NEWSPAPER: The Toronto Sun
SECTION: News; Pg. 8
DATE: May 28, 2009

A sidewalk press conference was disrupted yesterday when a bareheaded cyclist ordered reporters, onlookers and supporters of Toronto’s $70-million bike lane expansion program to scramble out of his way.

As city Councillor Adrian Heaps predicted cleaner air, better health and better downtown business with more people peddling to work and play, the bicycling bully ordered everyone aside, “or I’ll run you down.”

No cops were at Sherbourne and Wellesley Sts. — where Heaps announced the east-west bike path will be extended 2.3 km — and the shaggy-haired cyclist contentedly rode north, unhindered on the Bleecker St. sidewalk.

Heaps, head of the city’s cycling committee, was startled, calling the sidewalk sabotage “against the law.”

As the city prepares to expand bicycle lanes by 100 km, officials are working on an education program with police to keep roads and sidewalks safe for all, he said.

The city hopes “to double the number of bicycle trips in the city and reduce the number of bicycle collisions and injuries” with the $70-million, five-year plan, he said.

More people pedalling would help ease problems of obesity, vehicle pollution, 1,800 Torontonians dying annually from smog-related ailments, and a $2.3-billion shortfall in business revenue “due to downtown congestion,” Heaps said.

Year-round cyclist Yvonne Bambrick, executive director of the Toronto Cyclists Union, welcomed new lanes, but urged Heaps to require better snow-clearing by city staff.

Hamish Wilson, who has been cycling for 20 years, staged a one-man protest and said the city must be more consistent with snow-clearing along Wellesley, which narrows from 2.4 metres “to a substandard 1.2 metres” on one corner.

Filling up at a nearby gas bar, neighbourhood motorist Vernon Reicker, 65, opposes the Jarvis St. bike paths because of “24-hour traffic.”

“It makes no sense to put bicycle lanes there,” Reicker said. “There are going to be frustrations and risks to people.”