Happy By-law Day: Enriching Life Through Enforcement

Firstly, I must wish everyone a happy Car Free Day, a special memorial day in which the privileged nations of the West consecrate the Ascension of The Ecological Movement to improbable heights (the birth of our Saviour, The Ecological Movement, is consecrated on Earth Day).  I spent the day in meditation, general feasting, and the imbibing of festive booze.  In other words, I spent the day as usual I do.  However, like most socially progressive middle-class white people in Toronto, I felt a slight pang of guilt that I should 'do the right thing', and so decided to make some sort brief acknowledgment of the occasion.  As today is also the Moon Festival and I like to be efficient, I decided to also make some gesture to the Chinese community in appreciation for their good food, cheap crap, and beautiful women.

I cast around for a suitable ethnic and vaguely ecological sacrament and decided, after much leafing through trendy lifestyle magazines, to celebrate with a tea ceremony: the boiling of the water, the savouring of the tea's bouquet, the admiration of the its colour, all consummated by the general slobbering and slurping of the cup's contents while I jingled the change in my pocket and watched squirrels lock in a gladiatorial embrace over the remnants of the neighbour's bird feed. 

Watching squirrels lock in fatal struggle over sustenance eventually got me wondering how the Toronto BikeThink Workshop had gotten on yesterday.  Though I was unable to attend, I was able to pay-off a few saddle-sniffing low lives  for the scoop: Team Oranje finally won a play off ('Dit is het jaar'!) with their revolutionary concept of copying other cities.  Sure, it was only a hastily put-together rough outline based on a brief observation of the infrastructure, but hey, it's the fact that they're Dutch that counts, right?  I'm sure its goal to improve cyclists' safety will impress the city council mightily.

Unfortunately, I doubt it will.  The proposals may have sent cycling advocates into raptures of infrastructural orgasm, but it just plain reeks to the roughened nostrils of the hard-nosed suburbanites who are catapulting Rob Ford's mighty impression into the mayor's chair.  After listening to their comments, one gets the impression that they sincerely believe that every vote for Rob Ford takes one cyclist off the road.  I wouldn't rush to dismiss them either because, by a shrewd appliqué of policy, it very well could.

Rob Ford sincerely wants cyclists and pedestrians to be safe.  His answers to TCAT's 2006 survey reflect that.  Ford also wants to save money.  Ford also wants to clear the road for cars.  How can he do all three?  Pass a Toronto by-law making helmets mandatory for cyclists.  The precipitous drop in cycling has been lamented in other nations that have adopted such policy.  It's a inexpensive by-law with the convenient consequence of appearing sincerely concerned for the safety of 'those people'.  And Torontonians, ever vigilant of their vanity, will be unknowingly coerced, just to avoid helmet hair.

Unfortunately, Rob Ford may be an ass, but he's not a dumb ass, and I'm afraid that Toronto's cycling advocates are severely underestimating his administration's capacity for dirty politics.

That said, there are some genuinely positive things for Toronto cyclists from Ford's campaign.  For the time being, Ford's team has become hyper-vigilant to avoid costly losses in voter support, which means we don't have to worry about their motor homes parking in bike lanes for at least another six weeks.

A fitting conveyance for people who treat their cars like a living room on wheels.

And now, back to the squirrels...