Originally Posted by
canklecat
Cycling is growing in Fort Worth and, judging from social media contacts, doing well elsewhere in Texas….
Fort Worth's Mayor Betsy Price is a fitness buff and very supportive of cycling. She participates in group rides, including the summer Tour de Fort Worth …
It also helps to ignore the usual handful of anti-cycling curmudgeons who infest the comment sections on local media pages...
But it takes that one person.
Almost invariably if that one person leaves the area, becomes incapacitated or experiences life changes that make it impossible to continue participating, the activity declines unless there's a small core group with someone else willing to pick up the slack
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
(from 2011)
One of the big changes in the Boston cycling scene over the past couple years has been the interest that Mayor Menino has taken in bicycling, and he has appointed a bike czar, introduced severa lcycling lanes in those above-mentioned areas in the heart of the city, and instituted a bicycle sharing system, called “Hubway,” particularly centered in the downtown and surrounding neighborhoods...
Originally Posted by
mcours2006
Again,not U.S., but in the Metro Toronto Area I've been hearing politicians talk about a city that is more livable, that is, people can walk and ride their bikes to places, more green space, more pedestrian friendly, more trails, more bike lanes.
The current city administration seems to be quite committed to this initiative, whereas the previous one, not so much. I think because of this,bike use, in particular for commuting, has increased.
Political currents have a huge impact on whether bicycle use is increasing or declining.
I have considered Toronto as a sister city to Boston, and to elaborate on your post, mcours2006:
Originally Posted by Jim from Boston
…Two years ago (in 2013) we visited Toronto and when riding on Yonge St. I realized how valuable were those simply painted bike lanes we have in Boston; Toronto had none.
Later on that visit, I met a cyclist and we exchanged tales of riding in our mutual cities.
He told me about Rob Ford’s vehement anti-cycling stance. Later that year I started a thread on A&S, since moved to P&R,
”Conservative’s New Enemy: Bikes”
Originally Posted by Jim from Boston
… While in Toronto, I met a cycling advocate, and he asked me how Boston compared, and I had to admit urban riding in TO was a lot scarier than in Boston.
In comparing notes, he blamed it on the Mayor, who "drove an SUV," while I praised our mayor for his commitment to cycling, and even hired a former Olympic cyclist as a "Bicycling Czar." It seems our Hubways Bike-Share system is doing well, while your Bixi Bikes is having some difficulty. Nonetheless, I was impressed with the number of cyclists I saw....
Originally Posted by Boston Globe
...But Ford reserves special venom for the menace called the bicycle. He is perhaps the most antibike politician in the world. In 2007,he told the Toronto City Council that roads were designed for only buses, cars,and trucks. If cyclists got killed on roads, “it’s their own fault at the end of the day,” he said.
He compared biking on a city street to swimming withsharks—“sooner or later you’re going to get bitten.” He once summarized his views in City Hall succinctly: “Cyclists are a pain in the ass to the motorists."
In 2015,
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
…For the past two days the family and I have been visiting Toronto, and I’ve rented a bike-share bike [for a few early morning weekend rides], similar to our Hubways. I think if you were to distill the best features of New York and Boston, you would produce Toronto, at least for cycling.
There’s the exciting and interesting environment of cavernous downtown streets, but easy access to pleasant neighborhood cycling. We stayed in a section at the periphery of the downtown called Yorkville, like Back Bay but larger and more elegant. Within about five minutes I was into a pleasant neighborhood of older but well-kept houses similar to Brookline.…
One downside perhaps of Toronto compared to Boston is that it appears at the outskirts to massively sprawl, and I suspect it takes quite a while to get out from the city into pristine country riding, like our Metrowest.
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
…I've never ridden a tandem, nor have I ever read the Tandem Cycling Forum (though I have ridden a quadricyle with a fringe on top in Toronto [Harbor Islands]
Rob Ford died in 2016, at the age of 46.
Last edited by Jim from Boston; 02-13-18 at 11:14 AM.