Author: Val Dodge

Trashing the bike lane

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55 Cosburn Ave. puts its garbage in the bike lane

This is what the bike lane in front of 55 Cosburn Ave. looks like every Wednesday morning. All of the other buildings on the street put their bins on the sidewalk (which is also not allowed, according to section 844-14 of the Toronto Municipal Code), their front lawns, or paved garbage pads beside the sidewalk, but whoever puts the bins out for this apartment building apparently thinks that the solid white line on the road is to keep traffic away from his garbage.

I only started riding this way to work three weeks ago. The first week, I was a little surprised and was willing to give the culprit the benefit of the doubt. Last week, I took pictures. This week, I took action: calls to the City’s right-of-way management and by-law enforcement. I also called the building superintendent from the lobby phone and asked for the bins to be removed from the bike lane. The woman who answered said that she’d tell the super about it, but I suspect that nothing happened.

We’ll see if this scene looks different next Wednesday.

In the Dark at Todmorden

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Live with Culture at Todmorden Mills

Risa and I went to an interesting little event at Todmorden Mills Saturday night called Dark. Think a kind of mini-Nuit Blanche at a half-dozen locations within one site and you get the idea.

Sean Dixon plays the banjo under the old Don River bridge

While the concept was solid and the performers talented, the result was a little hit and miss thanks to some questionable decisions made by the organizers. The primary problem from our perspective was that none of the outdoor performances were amplified. With the always-busy Don Valley Parkway only 100 metres away, it was difficult at best to hear Sean Dixon (above, with banjo) and his partner playing. Adding to the noise problem were cars passing over the bridge from the parking lot. They invariably ran over a loose metal plate at the far end making a percussive ka-chunk! just out of beat with the music. The setting—in the old Don River channel before it was diverted to make room for the Parkway—couldn’t have been nicer, though.

Similarly, Melissa D’Agostino’s entertaining one-woman turn as an immigrant casting off her baggage at the train station was all but drowned out by the large diesel generator placed just behind her audience.

Even a couple of small amplifiers would have made a big difference in both cases. I’m sure that the organizers felt that microphones and speakers would have made the performances less intimate. That view is certainly valid, but please lose the generator and traffic on the DVP next time. Maybe the event could be held during one of the Parkway’s scheduled maintenance shutdowns, and the generator could be moved further away from the crowd.

Elyne Quan gives a reading in the basement of Helliwell House

Elyne Quan (above, in a 25 second exposure) gave an emotional reading of a new piece in the basement of the Helliwell House, lit only by a single red compact fluorescent bulb and the LEDs on her copy stand. This performance did not need amplification, but some air conditioning would have been appreciated. I’d have liked more time to explore the rough stone-floored basement, which isn’t normally open to the public.

Other performances included comedy, dance, and theatre spread around the grounds, including performances in the old Don train station and the Wildflower Preserve. Overall, it was an interesting event that shows promise for future editions. I hope the organizers take some lessons from the inaugural attempt.

The incredible awareness of Durham Chair Roger Anderson

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Pond and wind turbine in Pickering

In a rare sign of semi-consciousness, the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority announced yesterday a $100 million region-wide initiative that included things like GO Transit improvements, bike lockers, bike racks on all local buses, and more. Naturally, none of this information appears yet on the GTTA’s “temporary” web site, so you’ll have to take my word for it. Oh, and they don’t have any funding for this vision, either. Still, it seems that a faint pulse yet beats in the Authority’s barely-warm body.

In reaction, Roger Anderson—Chair of Durham Region and past president of the Association of Municpalities of Ontario—is quoted in today’s Star as saying, “I understand the quick-win scenario, but if you’ve got $1.8 million to spend I think you can find something better to spend it on than bike racks.”

Maybe Chairman Anderson isn’t aware that his region is home to one of the best urban-parkland rides in the GTA in the form of the Pickering portion of the Waterfront Trail (the subject of an upcoming post on this site), including the grandly-named Millennium Square, where the picture at the top of this post was taken.

Maybe he’s not aware that Durham Council passed a resolution in 2004 to establish a regional Bicycle Plan, declaring in a subsequent newsletter that:

Cycling is a viable mode of transportation, which provides environmental, health and economic benefits. As a transportation alternative, particularly for short distance trips, cycling is environmentally friendly, promotes a more active lifestyle, requires less infrastructure than the automobile, and compliments the use of transit.

Maybe he’s not aware that the resulting study published in 2005 noted that, “There is some opportunity to increase “Bike-n-ride” behaviour by providing cycling-friendly public transit measures such as safe and secure bike parking and bike racks on buses.”

Maybe he’s not aware that some adults use bicycles for both recreation and transportation, even in Durham. Tellingly, a search for “bicycle” on Durham’s web site turns up a lot of links about kids (“Children like to […] try to balance on a 2-wheel bicycle”) and helmets (“Get into the helmet habit”), but nothing about bike lanes or other facilities other than the above-mentioned newsletter and study.

Maybe he’s not aware that he’s a dinosaur.

Maybe he’s just not aware.

Inspiration in a soft solid

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Take the Risk

I’m not sure what I was expecting when I opened up my first package of Degree anti-perspirant, but I sure wasn’t expecting a motivational message. It’s been four days since I let my underarms take the risk and the only thing they’re doing so far is sweating a bit more than usual.

Risa, who’s a long-time Degree user, assures me that there are no such messages on the women’s product. Does Unilever think that men need more motivation than women, or just that we’ll buy any crazy thing that talks to us in the morning? Thanks, I think I will take the risk and buy a different brand next month. Something that doesn’t bring Successories to mind.

Bike Train II: The long way home

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View north along the Welland Canal

Well, I did it. As I’d threatened to do earlier this year, and just four weeks after reiterating my vow, I rode back home to Toronto after taking the Bike Train to Niagara Falls.

As on my previous Bike Train adventure with Risa, the ride to Niagara was a joy. We were a little late leaving Union Station and about 45 minutes late arriving at Niagara Falls, but it was still better than driving. Especially when I looked out the window between naps and saw the stop-and-go traffic on the QEW.

From my perspective as a two-time rider, the Bike Train has been a resounding success. VIA Rail and the other partners are seriously stupid if they don’t expand the program next year, running more frequently and to more destinations. And don’t make Bike Train founder Justin Lafontaine load and unload the bikes at Niagara Falls any more!

Ride Details

I’d originally planned to ride from the Niagara Falls train station to Niagara-on-the-Lake and follow the Waterfront Trail from the very beginning back to Toronto. But I decided earlier this week to cycle west to the Welland Canal and ride down the Welland Canal Trail to Port Weller before continuing along the Waterfront Trail to Toronto. Taking this road less travelled taught me three things:

Read More …

Wildlife sightings in the Don

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Great Blue Heron stretching in the sun

It’s amazing what you can see during a lunchtime walk. I’m going to exercise my somewhat questionable bird-identifying skills again and proclaim this one to be a young Great Blue Heron. He stood on this rock in the middle of the East Don River in the Charles Sauriol Conservation Reserve for at least five minutes before starting his hunt for food nearby. More remarkable than this single bird though were the two deer that had been standing right beside him in the river. Naturally, both deer fled before I was able to get a clear picture. If you squint you can see one deer and the heron (both circled) in the shot below.

A Great Blue Heron and a deer face off in the Don River

Is the Taste of the Danforth in decline?

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I wrote an article on Monday for Torontoist about this past weekend’s Taste of the Danforth street festival. The main thrust of the story was that the Taste seems to have lost its focus, becoming just another corporate branding orgy like every other. Some of the comments following my post (and also after BlogTO‘s Taste wrap-up) are illuminating, with the vast majority expressing disappointment with the event. While hardly a scientific poll, it’s the kind of thing that should worry the organizers.

Even the people who half-heartedly defended the festival couldn’t come up with much more than that the event was “pretty meh” and probably “less corpo than the Beer Festival.” These ringing endorsements would look wonderful on next year’s promotional posters. “Taste of the Danforth: We’re slightly less corpo than the other branding orgy in town this weekend.” Or “Taste of the Danforth: Toronto’s meh-est street festival.”

So how does a festival which lives primarily by word of mouth deal with such near-universal bad reviews? If the people moved to comment online at Torontoist, BlogTO, and Chowhound are any indication, returning visitors will be fewer and farther between in future years.

I walked the festival twice this weekend and noticed two things: the crowds, while still huge, were noticeably thinner than last year and the year before; and many more people were expressing their disappointment at the supposed bargain prices ($5 for lemonade?), the crowds, and the general atmosphere. The task of navigating the huge event has become an ordeal to be endured, rather than an experience to be relished.

I was especially taken aback by the fact that the best gyros restaurant on the strip was serving up noticeably inferior product at their booth, presumably because it was outsourced for the event. Their normal delicious gyros was available in the virtually empty restaurant a few steps away. Even the merchants seem to be turning their back on the Taste.

All of the anecdotal evidence above suggests that the Taste of the Danforth is already in decline. There are basically two options for the future: the festival can continue down the current path for a few more years, milking its reputation for every last dollar until the whole thing inevitably implodes (can it be long before they start asking for financial support from the City?); or they can attempt to re-invent the Taste as something that people will actually enjoy once again.

My first suggestion would be to dump some of the high-priced corporate tents and beer gardens in the middle of the street and put in some chairs. People need to sit.

Lower Don trail reopens this weekend

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Cyclists rejoice! One of Toronto’s long-lost cycling routes is resurfacing this weekend when the Lower Don path south of Queen St. will reopen after 16 months of construction. Those attending the official ceremonies on Saturday morning should expect dignitaries, celebrities, balloons, a marching band, and…oh, wait a second. It turns out that for the reopening of a major bike and pedestrian path, all we get is some burly guy in an orange safety vest and a hard hat pushing aside a portable barrier. But the lack of an official event shouldn’t prevent cyclists from clinking their water bottles together in celebration.

Although the path may continue to look like a bit of a moonscape until landscaping is completed later this year or next, it’s already a huge improvement over what was there when construction began. The most visible upgrade for pedestrians and cyclists will be the elimination of the dingy, dangerous metal-grate underpass that seemed barely a couple of centimetres above the river most days. The ominous steel trap with bike-eating gates at both ends has been replaced by an at-grade underpass that can only feel palatial by comparison.

The bike path improvements are part of a much larger project that includes flood protection for downtown, access to a new park, and improved habitat for the three-headed fish that make their homes in the Don. You can get an appreciation for the size of the project from some of the pictures posted on Don Watcher. Many cyclists (myself included) weren’t happy to lose this important path for over a year, but the improvements may be worth the wait.

As for the marching band, there may be some kind of ceremony later this year after the pathway is landscaped. There will almost certainly be a media event when Don River Park opens on the other side of the tracks. That’s scheduled for sometime in 2008, but I can’t see it happening on time.

See Toronto Region Conservation‘s latest Lower West Don Newsletter (PDF) for more information about the flood remediation project. Don Watcher, who recently celebrated his second blogiversary, has done the most extensive reporting on the construction progress that I’ve seen.

A version of this article appeared on Torontoist.

Chernobylesque Part 2

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A baseball player is dwarfed by the remnants of Lakeview

Last month’s foray into a Chernobylesque landscape came courtesy of the Portlands Energy Centre near the Leslie Street Spit. Today’s comes from a visit on Saturday to the demolished Lakeview Generating Station in Mississauga, where baseball games in the nearby Lakeview Park are conducted in front of a rather surreal backdrop. Business as usual on one side of the chainlink fence, chaos and destruction on the other.

The piles of rubble from the demolition still loom over everything else within sight, completely dominating the landscape every bit as much as the station did when it was still standing. I guess the cleanup is going to take a while yet.

I look forward to the day when the PEC looks like this. Mississaugans, many of whom waited years to see Lakeview look like this, may soon be looking forward to the day when Lakeview’s rumoured replacement is demolished too.