State of the Traffic Union

I'm strolling along Richmond Street and bright flashing lights distract me in the distance. As I get closer I notice a motorcycle cop has someone pulled over. The criminal? A responsible-looking helmeted cyclist. The crime? Unknown. He hands her a ticket. Maybe she was endangering the lives of those cocooned in 2-tonne steel cages by not having a ding-a-ling bell to warn them she was there since checking mirrors is becoming passé.

The fine for not having a bicycle bell? $110. Cyclists are getting stopped for this infraction at random as part of the police's plan to make cycling safer entitled Safe Cycling – Share the Responsibility.

The fine for improper opening of a vehicle door? $110. The driver that recently committed that exact offense resulting in the death of a cyclist on Eglinton West? Not ticketed. According to the police ''If she didn't look, would that be negligence? It'd be very hard to label that as negligent,'' said Sgt. Burrows. Share indeed.

Over at I Bike T.O., many cyclists have weighed in with comments on their recent traffic tickets. Sadly, the police campaign is only serving to discourage cycling as a mode of transportation. As one reader points out, after receiving two hefty tickets (one for the bell!) for rolling through an empty four-way stop after deciding to take his bike rather than his car out, he'll think twice in the future.

I admit that my bicycle bell is sometimes useful in waking up drivers about to make a right turn off a side street without looking to their left. But the manic bell ringing seems to do nothing to stop the door flinging without looking. Maybe they do look, and they think whacking cyclists is funny.

Sure its safer to ride outside the door zone. But on narrow downtown streets like Queen, often doors open right out to the cyclist spilling streetcar track rut. Ride between the tracks in the only mixed traffic lane? Often its too congested, and way too slow moving for sanity - filtering next to the parked cars is the only choice. Faster moving? Gee maybe I would feel incredibly self-centered about slowing down a streetcar packed with 70 people on it, something that the SOV motorists making a left turn don't seem to give a second thought to. No streetcars and moving along? Better watch out for Angry Motorist (TM). After about two seconds of ignoring his horn, he will put his vehicle in park to get out and start a fistfight.

More effective than a bicycle bell for a cyclist alerting others to their presence is their voice. Clearly staking out my safe space in the center of a lane too narrow to share, I often find motorists, in particular cabbies, changing lanes right into mine so that if I kept my speed constant we'd collide. Maybe they didn't see me. Maybe they looked right through me. "HEY!!!" I bellow. "Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?" replies the cabbie. Maybe he does see me. Maybe he just does not give a shit. Stopped at the next red light seems like a good time to have a discussion to educate him, but you know what, if he doesn't understand what he was doing wrong, no amount of conversation is likely to clue him in. In the interest of road peace I keep my eyes focussed straight ahead and my mouth shut.

Handheld cell phones are still legal while driving in Ontario. The premier might think about. Without fail, every single clued out motorist conflict I have on my bike, has one glued to their ear. Oops. Sorry, one exception. Someone was eating lunch with no hands on the steering wheel.

Clued out drivers it is possible to be defensive against. Actively hostile ones are another matter. And one only gets a split second to judge if someone is just a hurried honker, or may have potentially lost their marbles while in control of a potentially lethal weapon directly behind you. Anger seems to be going in the direction of gas prices.

You would think that downtown SOV traffic would be on the decrease with the higher cost of gas and the excellent alternatives - if pedaling is not for you, it is well served by public transit. 6:30 pm downtown (past prime rush hour) its more logjammed than ever and frustrating on a bicycle. My Kona Dew has pretty wide handlebars, and with the rearview mirror sticking out another couple of inches to the side, filtering through it is tricky.

My rule on filtering? I won't pass anyone that is likely to have to repass me in the next few blocks. Its just rude. But when all the wide vehicles have to merge to get around one parked car, a bicycle can use that dead space to continue right on by. Its frustrating when drivers squeeze up so close to the next stopped car that there's no way to reach the dead space.

I watch as the majority of cyclists squeeze next to one car stopped at a light. There's no room for the motorist to start driving where they are as the cyclist starts riding. I'd almost feel sorry for the motorists having to deal with repeatedly passing these vulnerable cyclists - but I don't. We simply don't have enough room downtown for everyone to be sucking up valuable public space with a wastefully large vehicle. If people do not-so-smart things that cause drivers to have to drive slower (and thus safer for everyone) and with more attention, then that is a Good Thing.

I'm not meaning to sound so gloomy and doomy. Some days though in the traffic madness its easy to lose sight of the bikey love. I give brief thought to trading in the bike for another way. But what better way is there? The speed, the freedom, the virtually zero cost, the familiar motions of legs moving in circles that distract even when sick, low hassle parking, connection to the surroundings, ease of interacting with people, and the smiles.

The whimsy of it all. Zooming along at 30 km/h, but in an instant able to flick up a kickstand and fill a wicker basket or milk crate with goodies from the sidewalk fruit market. Detouring off the road into the canopy of trees on a ravine path. The orange glow of dusk and utter silence except the chirping cormorants or the scurrying of a bunny at Tommy Thompson Park.

Smiling at other cyclists. The fashionista with a red PVC rain coat and flowery messenger bag on a matching red Dahon folding bike. The elderly Chinese woman with a wizened face toodling along a busy street, looking anything but afraid. Staring curiously at the interesting geometry of a Moulton. All kinds of cargo being carried solely by human power - from the precious cargo of a smiling infant, to paddles on cycles heading for the lakefront. A one-legged cyclist who I can barely keep pace with.

Life happens on a bicycle. At a pace we can see and interact with.

The madness has to stop.

My blood pressure cannot take it. Commuting by bike is making me edgy because of all the motorist road rage that's out there. Its a really small percentage of drivers that are bad - but because of the number of motorists you encounter in any given day even 1% is too much. Add in a much larger percentage that are not paying a great deal of attention to driving due to cell phones, passengers, eating, or whatnot. Put 20% more of them on the road total after Labour Day. And add mind dumbingly slow gridlock to the mix - so that when I don't get harassed or yelled at I just get frustrated I'm either dangerously splitting lanes or going nowhere.

I'm on the way home tonight on Adelaide. Traffic has started to open up a bit (I think its around Church) after blocks and blocks of gridlock. I'm in the curb lane (I don't remember if there are 3 or 4 lanes here, its a one-way arterial). The curb lane is really narrow, there's no way it is safe to share at any speed. (filtering gridlock going super slow was tricky enough) I'm riding in the middle like the rest of traffic. I hear a car come up behind me at the red light and you can tell by the sound its a road rager, and he gives a toot as well. I can predict he's going to try something stupid when the light turns green, but what am I going to do? There is no where for me to move out of the way to let him pass unless I go into the crosswalk or onto the sidewalk, and why should I have to?

He revs the engine and tries to accelerate into me after the light, narrowly missing me as he changes lanes and also I need to swerve out to the right to avoid being hit. Making a mental note of his plate, I try to catch up. Its not hard to do, even without the gridlock, and a few lights later I see him at the front of the queue in the next lane over from the curb. I pull up next to the car in the curb lane and knock on the passenger-side window.

They do roll it down, a 30-something full of himself guy driving an Audi and his girlfriend. First he goes on how I can't be in the middle of the lane. I try to explain that bicycles are vehicles. Basically he tries to claim that if I can't go the speed limit I need to get over - when its clear there is no safe place to get over - he thinks then that should be off the road. I try to explain that a speed limit is a limit and not a minimum. The red light is too short to have a whole conversation about if I'm really slowing him down how come we are waiting at the same light? (I broke no traffic laws to catch him by the way) And that nobody is going the speed limit after a red light. Or that if vehicles going slower than the speed limit should get off the road, then he should have gotten on the sidewalk between University and Yonge when car-created congestion was slowing me down. We didn't get as far as being able to discuss whether endangering someone's life is ever an acceptable response to any of the offenses he perceived me committing.

So the red light starts up and we go our separate ways, but I have a note of his car type, license plate, and physical description. I think of calling the cops but it seems so commonplace that why are they going to care?

I wonder what can be done to ease this anger. Its quite contagious I know that. I find myself because of the mean streets out there often scowling at other road users. The wrong way cyclist without lights in the dark riding head on towards me. People walking to their cars that don't even look up when you ring your bell that step right in front of you moving at 30 kph. The 5 or 6 other cyclists that all ran the red light I was stopped at this morning (at a T-intersection) without even slowing down to check for legally crossing pedestrians. Most of them got lucky, but the poor terrified woman that kept trying to cross the last few feet to the sidewalk when someone else went whizzing by, was obviously not your fan.

Add to this the number of cyclists I know that have been hit by cars (mostly just minor incidents) this summer, but several of which DID NOT STOP. A critical mass ride where I witnessed the usual madness, where someone becomes so mad about a 2 minute delay that they lose all sense of rationality and try to get out of their car to fist fight cyclists when they are greatly outnumbered. What was different last time? The guy didn't even put his car in park before he jumped out! It was creeping forward out of control (fortunately noone got hit). People yelling things out their window, but fortunately the noise of the traffic muffles it so I cannot hear. But I don't suspect its "Hey sexy biker chick" by the way they accelerate after the garbled comments.

There are tons of cyclists on the road right now - I was happily grinning away sitting at Queen and Bathurst on a sunny September day seeing more cyclists going by than cars. But a majority are not asserting space in the road. They ride in the gutter inviting brush bys by drivers that don't know how much space to leave. I know I'd rather get honked at than hit by the mirror of an ignorant driver, but I just wish for calm. Some respect. I'm not slowing anybody down, and I try to find safe places to let people pass if I am. These cyclists give the perception that its safe and possible to be out of the way in a 9 foot wide lane and its not. I wonder how much motorist anger just stems from ignorance - that they truly don't realize the highway traffic act allows us to use the whole lane in many circumstances.

And God forbid you stop someone from turning right on a red light. The safest place to be at an intersection is in the middle of the lane. On the right side you get right hooked by right turning vehicles, on the left (in line with your destination if there are parked cars) aggressive drivers trying to pass the vehicle to your left will cut across your path from the right at high speed, very dangerous. Several days ago on a rainy night I was at a red light and heard honk. I ignore it. Honk again. A brief glance to ensure its not someone who has lost their marbles. The taxi driver has his window down and is demanding "aren't you going to move over?" gesturing towards the side of the road. It was a very satisfying answer "No I'm not". I think my rational as to why got drowned out somewhere but I think the no was enough.

Here's hoping that tomorrow is a good day when I can remember why I love riding my bike. I started questioning today why I ride if I'm finding rush hour too much. But how else would I get to work? (and indeed I've ridden my bike every day of the 3 months I've been at my new job) It would take an hour to walk. The streetcar gets stuck in traffic congestion and it would take me twice as long to get to work on an overcrowded vehicle where the fares are going up. Oh yeah can I say I'm thrilled about the fare increase, which always seems to drive more people to their cars? If we completely ignore all economic, social and philosophical reasons behind not driving a car - it still comes down to it would be slower and more stressful to drive, and I would be stuck in a big steel box in congestion. No thanks.

And so I keep riding. Maybe a different route is less stressful - bike lanes for instance mean you don't have to fight people wielding deadly weapons for road space. But then there's all the clueless right turning traffic that don't realize you're there. I've tried all the east-west routes I can think of to go home and picked the ones that seemed the best in terms of time, congestion and least road rage. (okay really Adelaide and least road rage cannot be used in the same sentence, drivers treat it like a raceway to the major north-south highway)

I can only dream of my Queen Street - one where the dominant users of the road (streetcar riders, cyclists and pedestrians) become the only users of the road, and its more efficient and calmer for all to travel.

Comment Comebacks

Yesterday morning's commute. On the bridge on Queen Street just before River, approaching a light, middle of the curb lane. HONK. Check the rearview. Must distinguish homicidal honkers from mere irritated honkers. Looks harmless. I shrug. What am I supposed to do? I'm right behind the cars in front of me. The SUV driver changes lanes and winds down her window as she pulls up beside me.

"Do you think you are a car?" she asks.

Hmm what's a good answer to this one:
"Nope. Do you? Because you look like a human to me."
"Nope, my vehicle is not guzzling gas, polluting the city, endangering lives, and taking up an obscene amount of public space and causing gridlock". (perhaps a bit too antagonistic)
"Excellent vehicle identification. Thanks for pointing that out."
"Um yes I think its safest for both of us if I follow the rules of the road and behave predictably like a vehicle"

Lets translate to what she is REALLY thinking.

"WAAAAAAAAAH! What the @#%@#&* are you doing in the middle of MY lane?"

I could point out that I've been on this route hundreds if not thousands of times before. And if I ride over hugging the curb, I'm bound to get nearly sideswiped or cut off by someone turning right at the light I am approaching. The lane is not wide enough to share, and while a car can move over slightly into the next lane to pass if there's a car in the center lane, there is definitely not room for a streetcar + car passing at speed + bicycle. (though some cars seem to think so)

This is too complicated to explain. So I stick with:

"I'm keeping up with the speed of traffic"

Obviously annoyed by this, and with no good comeback she has to change tactics.

"You *really* should wear a helmet, sistah" she says.

(Um so people like you can feel less guilty when you run over a cyclist intentionally out of aggressive road rage?) Instead I mumbled something about how she should wear one too then while driving.

I let her zoom ahead since she obviously wanted to so badly, although wider traffic was in the way in front of her, so zooming ahead was not far at all. Just past the light a minivan driver leans out the window. Uh oh. But he looked helpful rather than angry.

"She's just annoyed she couldn't drive right through you" he commiserates. "Didn't get her anywhere, did it?" he points out.

A couple clicks down the road at University I notice my "sistah" again and I give her a friendly wave as I ride past her. Sadly she didn't get to wave back as she was too busy chatting on her cell phone to notice me. The window was now up, so I couldn't even give her helpful advice like "You *really* should not talk on the cell phone while you're driving, sistah!"

What's your fave comeback to the "you're not a car" comment?

***

On the weekend I was riding along the Humber trail wearing a dress. I realize it probably looked a bit goofy, as this time I was actually wearing the helmet, and I was wearing bike shoes (with dress shoes in my pannier) Plus I was riding my touring bike with aerobars, as I was going to catch a ride later out of town and wanted the bike with me for some nice country riding. A guy on a zippy road bike pulls up to me (like I'm standing still) and asks "Does the dress make you go faster?" Obviously not being speedy enough to prove it, I just stuck with the real answer as to why I was biking in a dress: "I'm going to a funeral". That shut him up, and he took off. And then I wonder why I'm single. I'd love to meet a bikey-crazed boy but of course when I'm biking I'm pretty oblivious to the art of flirting. Oh well!

***

What's the strangest thing someone has said to you while you're riding your bike?

Heating up road rage

The hot, humid and smoggy weather seems to be elevating everyone's level of road rage. I'll admit its not just drivers, I'm feeling a bit cranky myself, but I assure you crankybikerchick is much less harmful to your life expectancy than cranky motor vehicle operators.

So its day 2 of the new commute. Forecast is about 35C, humid, smoggy. While the commute is short enough I should not sweat, this is the kind of weather where sweat happens standing still. Sitting on my back deck sipping my morning coffee and munching a peanut butter bagel, I'm lulled into a sense that its comfortable out by the glorious shade. But I still wear shorts and a tee and pack some work clothes in the pannier. Its going to be hot in the sun, and the minute I stepped out the front door I'm groaning at having to move through this yuckiness.

Yesterday was congestion frustration on Queen. So today I'm looking forward to taking Richmond from Church (where the congestion started yesterday, and roughly the eastern boundary of the "core") which is one block south. No streetcars, 3-4 lanes, one way. Oh yeah a promised land of not being slowed down.

Haha what was I thinking? I turn onto Richmond, and there's more lanes of cars but they have expanded to fill all the space available. So there's still the congestion problem but an added bonus it looks like it will move fast in little bursts to make it feel like a mean street. Staying in the right lane I'm going to go nowhere quickly. The left side looks clearer and I see a cyclist zoom by in the left lane who waves and calls my name. Who the heck was that? I'm rather perplexed but having a blog which other people actually read I am starting to get used to the fact that sometimes people on bikes that I don't actually know know who I am. At any rate I decide I want to actually get somewhere and to cut over through the stopped traffic to the left side, so I figure I'll find out.

Aha. Now it makes sense to me. It was someone I knew online talking about cycling stuff, but had never met in person before. And most excellent I now have a bike buddy to ride with for a few blocks. Bike buddies make for safer commutes. Get yourself one! Riding side by side makes it easy to establish lane ownership. I get the sinking feeling that some aggressive drivers are going to try stupid things taking the lane as a single cyclist on this road.

A driver in lane number 2 slows to talk to us out his window. YOU GUYS CAN'T DO THAT! I CHECKED THE TRAFFIC RULES! YOU'RE HOLDING UP TRAFFIC!! He then speeds off and changes lanes to pass in front of us (which he could have done without slowing at all) so there was no chance to ask for further enlightment at exactly which traffic rule we were breaking. Technically I'm not sure if Ontario allows bicycles to ride on either the left or the right side of multi-laned one ways. Many jurisdictions do, and it makes sense that slower traffic is closer to the edges and faster traffic in the middle of a one way. Was it the two abreast? I don't actually think that is actually prohibited here unless it falls under the category of lane sharing not allowed in which case there are a whole lot of those violations going on! Regardless, surely that is what irked him. But I wanted to point out we were actually being courteous by doing so because the lane was not safe enough to share safely, so we were each allowed to ride in the center of it, so single file we would have taken up more room. Oh and never mind his holding up traffic argument, every light we're caught up again. Maybe it took you (gasp) two seconds longer to turn into a parking lot, and that would have taken how much longer if there were two cars ahead?

The return trip smog soup has heated up and the air just feels like you are sucking on a tailpipe or something. Once again I detour north to College Street to take advantage of the relative rush hour sanity and also to swing by Riverdale Farm farmers market because I've had a craving for some fresh Ontario organic strawberries since strawberry season began and was foiled at the Withrow market by showing up after they were sold out. Strawberries are one of the foods highest in pesticide use, and as you eat them directly (as opposed to fruits/veg you peel) I really want to eat them pesticide free. (sadly not enough sunshine to grow my own)

Now its my turn for the road rage comments. I should have been nicer to my fellow cyclists. But there's a whole line of cyclists ahead of me moving up on a Purolator truck signalling a right hand turn and I'm just waiting to see who is going to do something dumb. Two cyclists hop up on the curb on the sidewalk. Then one decides to go back onto the road ahead of the rear wheel of the truck but behind the front of it in the 8" between the truck and the curb. An obviously attentive driver does not keep turning and smush him but I had to comment are you trying to get killed by a truck or what? I do not understand. I'm also getting edgy at other dumb cyclist behaviour - the woman that keeps sneaking up between me and the metre I'm out from the curb every red light, everybody that keeps passing right-signalling cars on the right effectively blockading them and making things more difficult for me that just wants to pass on the left and let everyone get happily on their way. Instead I should be joyful I get to red lights where there's like gaggles full of cyclists. That is pretty neat. Anyway I'm happier once I have successful strawberry acquisition!

Later on I'm headed to meet my Stitch n Bitch group. Its a short and relaxing bike ride where road rage should never be part of the ride. The odd time there's an aggressive driver, but its always in the same spot (where traffic goes from fast moving to congested pretty much all the time) so I know where to watch out. I'm at a red light in the left side of the curb lane (because there are parked cars ahead of the intersection). I can see in my rearview a car approaching in the curb lane which I'm assuming is going to turn right onto the ugly busy thoroughfare. Instead I hear the constant pressure applied to the horn and if I did not turn out quickly to the right (the car is now trying to pass at high speed and is halfway between the two lanes) I am fairly certain would have been hit.

I hate this kind of intimidation, I know its best to ignore because these people cannot be educated. But dude you're threatening my life! I catch up with the car at the next light, its not hard to do. The window is down. Its not a dude. Woman is driving and there's a presumable boyfriend/husband type beside her. Do you always pass cyclists unsafely? I ask. Perhaps I should have asked something less antagonistic, like I don't know oh hello. What a lovely day it is out. I am just wondering if by some chance you didn't see me or your steering is malfunctioning. I get the answer Do you always drive (I actually think they said drive not ride) in the driving lane? Argh educating these people is hopeless when they don't even think that bikes are allowed to be there to begin with.

But maybe its just the heat. Here's hoping for some cooler weather and cooler heads.