About Time in Toronto
According to the Globe and Mail, cycling in T-dot is picking up at a pretty good pace.
Cycle mania hits high gear; good luck getting tune-up
Soaring gas prices, bad traffic and the TTC strike are getting a lot of people back on their bikes
SUSAN KRASHINSKY
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail May 7, 2008 at 5:43 AM EDTFor cycling enthusiasts in Toronto, it was the perfect storm.
Every year around this time, a stream of people bring their bikes in for tune-ups and repairs. Cycling is growing in popularity, and it's not easy to find a good mechanic. But this year, high gas prices, nasty weather and a traffic-choked downtown core meant tune-ups were in high demand. And when the TTC strike hit in April, a flood of desperate customers descended on Toronto's bike shops.
"The TTC strike just blew our minds. That was the busiest day of my life," said Eric Kamphof, a manager at Curbside Cycle near Bloor and Bathurst Streets. Curbside was so busy that it had to reject repairs. "To reject bikes is a horrible thing to do, it's nothing we want to do. But if you're a mechanic, you want to protect your level of quality.
The truth is, weather aside, Toronto's actually a pretty good city for cycling. The Don Valley Bike Path is a spectacular stretch of pavement with no cars that I used to use to get downtown from Scarborough. Streetcar tracks can be a bit of a challenge, but only on a few roads. The city is relatively flat (at least compared to Vancouver) and the Waterfront path provides a convenient way to move East=West along the Lakeshore through the Beach.
December is a whole different story, although I used to ride through the winter it would be harder to commute. Vancouver's rain can be relentless, but it's relatively...clean.
The biggest problem in Toronto is the seemingly endless sprawl. In a city where people have the longest commute on average in Canada, cycling is tough. Commutes less than 10 km are easy on a bike: commutes farther than 20 km are quite a bit harder.
Still, it's good to see.
