Electric car enthusiasts do it themselves

By Andrew Serba

With soaring gas prices, a slumping economy and environmental concerns at the front of people’s minds, many commuters cannot wait for a major auto manufacturer to produce an electric car.
Others have just gone ahead and built their own.

Paul Olsen, the owner of Ontario Battery Services, has converted a number of gas-powered cars to run off electricity.

“The technology was around before gasoline cars,” he said. “For me it’s both a business and a hobby. And something I believe in.”

Olsen said that the cost to convert a car can be anywhere from $5,000 to $12,000. A conversion using “standard DC batteries” can do about 40 kilometres of city driving on one charge. While they may not be able to satisfy every driver’s needs in terms of range, Olsen said that conversions make perfect second vehicles, especially in an age when most families own two or more gas-powered cars.

Juergen Weichert, president of the Electric Vehicle Society of Ottawa, is amazed that auto manufacturers have yet to offer an electric car. The technology is simple enough for a hobbyist to install and maintain, he said. He also cited the enthusiastic consumer response to the General Motors’ EV-1, an electric car introduced in limited areas in 1996.

“The problem is you can’t walk into a showroom and buy (an electric car),” he said. “It’s not an issue of demand and not an issue of capability. It’s an issue of supply.”
Olsen, however, is skeptical that North American car culture will accept electric vehicles readily. They’re generally slower than gas-powered cars, and in Olsen’s experience, people’s expectations are beyond what the do-it-yourself technology can provide.

“Most people want to do a 12-foot journey on a 10 foot extension cord,” he said. “They always want a little more than technology will permit.”

Olsen feels that the average city dweller should be able to power daily travels by battery, but “if you need a car that supports your ego, then it starts to look different.”

Howard Hutt, the president and founder of the Electric Vehicle Society of Canada, predicts that within five years electric vehicles will be the main form of transportation. He would like to see auto manufacturers skip hybrid vehicles and make the move to pure electric vehicles. Hybrid cars, he said, are “a smoke screen to keep using gas.”

Even the Chevy Volt, in Hutt’s view, isn’t a “pure electric.” The Volt will use a gas-powered motor to drive a generator, which will recharge the batteries for extended trips. The Volt is expected to have a range of 64 kilometres running solely on its battery. The range can be extended as far as 1,030 kilometres using a full charge and a tank of gas.

In Olsen’s mind what the Volt gains in terms of range it loses in simplicity. For him, one of the beauties of electric technology is that it does not have to be complicated. The Volt uses technology that the average person could not fix. His converted cars, he says, could be accomplished and maintained by anybody who is mechanically inclined.

“An electric vehicle is no more complex than a battery and a motor connected to wheels,” he said.
Olsen said that a person driving a converted car can expect to change the batteries every three to four years. The cost of the traditional DC batteries and the electricity to power them are far cheaper than the gas it would take to travel the same distance, he said.

Keeping the technology simple will also increase the car’s longevity. Apart from having to replace the batteries, Olsen said conversions suffer exceedingly few mechanical failures.

“On these trips that most of us make everyday, an electric car will last forever,” he said. “Very few (gas powered cars) will last more than 150,000 miles before you’re into major repairs on the vehicle.”
When shopping for a car to convert, the existing gas-powered engine is the last of concerns. It will, after all, be the first thing to go. Olsen recommends a car or small pickup truck with a sturdy body and plenty of room for batteries.

“Buy a really good vehicle, because once you spend the money and time to convert it, you want something you’ll be proud of,” he said. “A lot of people will be stopping to ask you about it.”

Sites help cummuters pool their rides

By Andrew Serba

When environmental engineer Kristin Pouw searches the Internet for people who live close to her, are open minded and about her age, it is not love she is after; she already has a boyfriend. She is looking to share a ride to work.

“I can’t justify being the sole commuter in a car,” she said. “It’s environmentally and socially irresponsible.”

Carpooling allows Pouw to save money and the environment while cutting down on the wear and tear of her car. At the same time, she can save time en route to her job in Mississauga. She said taking public transit would cost her an extra hour and 15 minutes at the beginning and end of each day.

While carpooling and ride-sharing websites have gained in popularity, a legal challenge has pointed out that many carpools are technically breaking the law in Ontario. A ruling by the Ontario Transportation Board found that the popular ride-sharing site PickupPal broke the law by facilitating a rideshare across municipal boundaries. PickupPal was ordered to stop its Ontario operations.

It has sent its members an e-mail telling them that for a carpool to be legal in Ontario its members must ride with the same person each day; they must not cross municipal boundaries; they must travel from home to work only without money changing hands more than once a week.

Eric Dewhirst, PickupPal’s co-founder, said that ridesharing means more people can get to where they have to be with significantly less carbon emissions and congestion on the roads. He hopes that a proposed law, called the Countering Distracted Driving and Promoting Green Transportation Act of 2008, will soon remove the legal barriers to its services in Ontario.

“Ontario has been the only place we’ve ran into this problem,” Dewhirst said.

The legal barriers aside, websites make it easier for people who live in the same area and commute along the same routes to meet. The onus of making a carpool or rideshare work, however, still rests with carpoolers themselves.

“It takes more than I thought it would,” Pouw said. “It takes a lot of calling and making sure people will be there.”

Dewhirst agrees that while his site may make it easier, a ride-share’s success ultimately relies on people’s enthusiasm.

“It’s kind of like dating,” he said. “We can match you up with someone, but you have to go through the motions of finding out what they’re like.”

Smart Commute, another Internet-based carpooling site, is a Metrolinx program. It works to eliminate many of the barriers to potential carpoolers. People at Smart Commute work with employers to compensate carpool drivers and set up an Emergency Ride Home program.

Ryan Lanyon, the team leader at Smart Commute, said that the program can provide people with vouchers for a taxi, if they have to work late and miss their carpool home. He said that this makes it easier for people hooked on their cars to make the move to carpooling.

While PickupPal helps people get to a sporting event or a concert, Smart Commute has focused primarily on getting people to work.

Smart Commute’s project manager, George Flint, said that the site is inslowly climbing towards an “optimal” number of 10,000 active users. With about 6,000 current users he said he would like the site to grow.

“It takes time to build a comfort level,” Flint said. “People tell their stories about how they saved time or how they saved money and it starts to get going . . . It’s working.”

Dewhirst said developing the critical mass required was one of the reasons PickupPal chose to focus on ride-shares of all types. But there are other influences.

“Every time the price of gas goes up, our sign-up rate goes up,” he said. “Bad economic news; our sign-up rate goes up.”

In addition, “green minded” carpoolers such as Pouw say carpooling is a “great way to meet new people . . . and other young professionals who are also green minded.”

Far from being a hassle, she sees carpooling as a better way to get around.

“Travelling with company is a lot more exciting than travelling on your own,” she added. “The time goes by much faster.”

Meeting on Bluffs wind farm turns blustery

By Andrew Serba

A public meeting sparked a storm of controversy over a proposed wind study that could result in an offshore wind farm off the Scarborough Bluffs.

Councillor Brian Ashton, representing Scarborough Southwest, thinks that if wind farms are to be truly eco-friendly more thought should be put into their location.

“I think there are people who support environmental sustainability but there are also people who support maintaining the lakefront as a natural reserve,” he said. “I think there are good places for wind farms and I think you have to balance out all the various interests. I’m a NIMBY; I agree – not in Mother Nature’s back yard.”

Toronto Hydro Energy Services plans to install an instrument called an anemometer to measure the speed and direction of the wind about two kilometers off the Scarborough Bluffs. The study is expected to last for two years and will determine the viability of a wind farm in the area.

People who came to discuss the proposal last night packed the auditorium at Wilfred Laurier Collegiate Institute. Originally scheduled for Oct. 27, the meeting had to be postponed due to overcrowding.

Joyce McLean, director of strategic issues for the Toronto Hydro, said there are no concrete plans that go beyond the study phase at the moment. She did, however, say a natural underwater shelf that runs along Bluff’s shoreline would make construction of wind turbines possible.

“The fact that there is an underwater shelf there is really quite critical to where we decided to choose to look,” she said.

The proposed site is about 25 kilometers long and is about two to four kilometers offshore. It stretches about two kilometers from the shoreline at the foot of Woodbine Avenue along the shoreline to Ajax.

Franz Hartmann, the executive director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance, said that if a wind farm is eventually constructed, it will mark a significant environmental milestone for the city.

“(It) will show that Toronto is doing what it can to take serious action to deal with global warming and reducing smog,” he said. “That will be a point of pride that Torontonians from every part of the city can point to.”

Scarborough residents who were against the plan said that wind turbines are an eyesore, a source of noise pollution, negatively impact property values and pose a danger to migratory birds and bats.

Jack Simpson, vice president of generation at the Toronto Hydro Energy Services, stressed that “any wind farm development would be subject to another separate and very comprehensive environmental assessment with a great deal of public consultation and review.”

Vy Hoang, a concerned Scarborough resident with a grassroots group called the Toronto Waterfront Wind Watch, spoke against the study. He is skeptical the energy produced by a wind farm off the Bluffs could offset the costs of installing them or the damage he says will be done to his community and the environment.

He felt that environmental groups co-opted the meeting and drowned out the voices of those residents most impacted by the development.

“Why were bus loads of people brought in and why were people lined up so far back to say ‘yeah, we support this’,” he asked. “They’re not even from the community. This is supposed to be a community meeting. There’s nothing community about it.”

Hartmann, on the other hand, said that the turnout demonstrated the importance of the issue for all people in Toronto.

“(People who) live in Toronto came out today and expressed their opinions,” he said. “That is a healthy, good community where you have people interested in this . . . It shows that Torontonians are very concerned, and very interested . . . this is exactly what we need if we want to deal with global warming.”

**  Originally Published Online @ Toronto Observer **

Catholic school funding issue resurfaces in first Ontario NDP leaders’ debate

(from left) Peter Tabuns, Michael Prue, Andrea Horwath and Gilles Bisson kicked off the Ontario NDP leadership debate series in Toronto.

By Andrew Serba

Most of the candidates for the leadership of the Ontario NDP learned a lesson from Progressive Conservative leader John Tory’s last campaign: Catholic-school funding is a losing issue.

But one candidate thinks that may not be the case.
Michael Prue, the New Democrat representing Beaches-East York at Queen’s Park, says that he’s open to debate the Catholic-funding issue if the party’s membership puts it on the agenda.

“We have to determine if the current system (of school funding) is against the United Nations charter, of which we are a signatory nation,” he said, “and that’s why I’m looking forward to the public debate, and that’s why I encourage our members to put down anything they want. Because, if you can’t debate this issue, what else can’t you debate?”

On Nov. 8, hundreds of NDP supporters filled a hotel boardroom beyond capacity. They spilled out into the halls of Toronto’s Ramada Plaza Hotel to hear four of their MPPs state their cases for the party leadership. The debate was the first of nine scheduled to be held throughout the province.

The need for the Ontario NDP to rebuild membership and deal with a slumping economy were at the top of the agenda during the debate, while funding of Catholic schools emerged as a controversial point that only one of the candidates was willing to broach.

Peter Tabuns, Toronto-Danforth’s MPP, said early in the debate that raising the issue would only derail the party from its main objective: to form the next Ontario government.
“We should move on to those other issues that in the end are going to decide whether we’re government or not government,” he said.

MPPs Andrea Horwath from Hamilton and Gilles Bisson from Timmins, who are also running for party leader, agreed with Tabuns that reopening the Catholic-school issue can only serve to divide voters and the party. Bisson stressed throughout the debate that the party needs to get a hold of its finances and begin to rebuild from the riding associations up.

“There is nothing more that the Liberals would love than for us to get into the (Catholic-school funding) debate so that they could divide the voters of this province against us,” he said.
While all candidates cited the economy as the issue of greatest importance, Tabuns — a former Greenpeace executive director — focused on the need to build a “green” economy while bolstering the manufacturing sector.

“My vision of Ontario is centered around building a new-energy economy,” he said. “We have to go out to Ontarians and say that we can move away from job-killing, climate-killing and air-pollution creating fossil fuels. Not just in the electricity system, but right across the scope of energy.”
Prue cited his municipal experience — including the East York mayoralty — and advocated a more traditional NDP fiscal policy as medicine for Ontario’s economic woes.

“I think that only the New Democrats can offer the help that this economy needs, because we are willing to step into a failing capitalist system and to help to regulate it in a way that will make it work better.”
The candidates also debated First Nations’ issues, issues for people with disabilities, and post-secondary education costs.

The leadership debates will continue through February. The Ontario NDP will select Howard Hampton’s successor at its convention in early March.

** Originally published in the East Toronto Observer **

Rush hour spreads to school zones

By Andrew Serba

Elena Rodriguez spends a good part of her day picking up and dropping off children from three neighbourhood schools. She has run a home daycare for 11 years. While parents who see their own children to school increasingly rely on cars, Rodriguez has always accomplished this daily routine on foot. She said she’s concerned about the number of cars around schools in the morning and afternoon.

“I’ve been doing it for enough years that I’ve got a good regimen and (the kids) listen to me really well,” she said. “I wait until I know that cars are stopped, but I’ve still nearly been hit myself . . . funny enough, it was a mother flying through a red light . . . with a child strapped safely in.”

More often than not, children are chauffeured to school by their parents, who want to see them safely through the school’s doors. In doing so, they have brought the problems associated with the morning commute in the city – congestion, poor air quality, and an environment that invites accidents – directly to the places where they are least wanted: school zones.

Traffic Const. Mig Roberts, of the Toronto Police Service, stressed that safety is the paramount concern around schools.

“If there’s less traffic in a school zone, there is less chance of an accident,” he said. “(Walking) is healthier for the kids; it’s good for the environment. With gas prices the way they are, why not walk?”

That’s a question on the minds of many school board and traffic officials in Toronto. Marko Oinonen, a manager of traffic operations with the city, said that the trend towards driving kids to school has grown since the ‘90s. The response has been to bend the infrastructure around school zones to accommodate parents’ behaviour.

Oinonen said boards change school zones to “mitigate the danger” posed by traffic. Schools add parking lanes so parents can drop their children off right in front. The lane opposite the school is designated a “no stopping zone,” preventing children from being dropped off where they might cross two or more lanes of traffic to reach the front doors.

These sorts of measures are a far cry from school-zone planning in the 1950s and ‘60s, when the proverbial uphill walk to school and home again was more prevalent. Back then, all lanes in front of schools were no stopping zones, said Oinonen.

Sheila Cary-Meagher, the Toronto District School Board Trustee for Beaches-East York, responded to her constituents’ concerns about traffic and safety in front of Glen Ames Sr. Public School by having a school-side parking lane installed. While the measure has made the area safer, Cary-Meagher lamented the need to change school zones when the majority of families live within walking distance.

Oinonen explained that retrofitting older school zones for drop-off lanes is not always possible or desirable. There could be no space for an extra lane, for example, or green space or a playground may have to be removed to make room for one.

Although Glen Ames boasts ample green space and large playground areas, Cary-Meagher was still reluctant to alter the zone to accommodate behaviour she sees as harmful and unwarranted.
“If I could have figured out a different way to do it I would have done it,” she said. “Even if (the parents) live two blocks away they drive their kids to school, leave their cars, and . . . walk their kids right up to the door.”

This school-zone rush hour is a product of a number of concerns. Safety is one. Many parents don’t want their children to walk to school alone. The trend towards families with two breadwinners and very little extra time is another.

Transportation and Safety officer Sheila Dove, who works with both the TDSB and the Toronto Catholic District School Board, said that the traffic is a result of a complex set of factors.

“I don’t know anyone who thinks it’s cool to drive when you live two blocks away from the school, but that’s what’s happening and parents plan it in their day,” she said. “We need to spend more time educating the public. These types of things have to be promoted and maybe we need to promote it more.”

Josh Matlow, a TDSB trustee and member of the Toronto Pedestrian Committee, thinks that once people make walking with their children to school a habit, many of the concerns about safety will disappear.

“The more we all get out of our homes and walk, we have opportunities to meet each other and learn about one another’s lives,” he said. “(This) builds a sense of community.”

Safety officer Dove also said the school-zone rush hour can’t be solved by an investment in infrastructure, or better public transit. More fundamental changes need to take place.

“We spend more time reacting to traffic problems than creating the communities we want to see,” she said. “The neighbourhoods and the schools have divorced each other somehow.”

Matlow noted that initiatives such as “Walking Wednesdays” and “walking school buses” can be the start of a new habit that “supports safety, the environment and community building.” He added that the effort at some schools to make a point of encouraging children to walk on Wednesdays has had a small, but very positive effect.

“People who normally have their morning coffee indoors come outside to wave to all the kids,” he said. “It’s great. It’s like a parade.”

Making walking a safe and popular way to get to school is exactly the change many people want to see. The trick is to extend it beyond a single day of the week, or during times when it is fashionable to be green, according to Dove.

“We need to make it cool to walk to school,” she said. “We’ve somehow managed to get people to buckle up in cars . . . I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility to get people to act in an environmentally friendly and safe manner.”

City pilots ‘cautious approach’ to buying food locally

By Andrew Serba

Freya Field, two, (left) and Salvador Vaughn, four, helped the Toronto Environmental Alliance drum up support for a local food on Monday, Oct. 20 by delivering 2000 locally grown apples to councillors at City Hall.

Next week the city of Toronto will have a chance to become a leader in Ontario when it comes to using local food, even if its lead is a matter of baby steps.

Toronto’s government management committee yesterday recommended that a local food procurement policy be sent to city council for a vote.

Jamie Kirkpatrick, a campaigner for the Toronto Environmental Alliance (TEA), was dismayed that their group’s amendments to the policy were not adopted, but remained hopeful that they will eventually be included.

“It’s the right direction, it’s a very cautious approach, and we’ll be looking for councillors to take up our recommendations and set this policy back on the right track,” he said. “We want to see the city of Toronto emerge as a leader, so we can see what big purchasers can do.”

The local food procurement policy is part of an effort to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases created when food is transported from its source to the dinner table.

It will set in motion an incremental, phase-by-phase plan to increase the proportion of the city’s food budget that is spent on locally-made food.

The first phase will be a $15,000 project run by the Department of Child Services in city daycares. The program will be extended to other departments after city staff report back on the initial pilot project.

TEA recommended two amendments to the policy. One asked for city staff to look into a definition of sustainability and the possibility of including sustainable production methods in the policy. The second asked the committee to adopt 50 per cent of its food budget as a goal for the local food policy to work towards.

Councillor Gord Perks, although not a government management committee member, spoke in support of TEA’s recommendations, neither of which were ultimately successful.

The recommendations would provide the policy with a sense of direction, according to Perks.

“It would give staff some guidance about what kind of work they have to do once we move past the pilot phase,” he said.

Councillor Doug Holyday said he did not feel the city should set up a program that will monitor where food is purchased from, especially given the current economic climate.

“The government can’t interfere in every aspect of everybody’s life, from what strawberries they’re going to eat in the morning or what carrots they’re going to cook on Sunday.”

He proposed an amendment requiring city staff to report back to the committee in a year’s time “so we get a chance here to see how this experiment has worked, what difficulties they’ve encountered, what they were able to accomplish and whether we want to proceed with this; at what cost and at what increase in bureaucracy.”

City council will vote on the policy sometime next week.

**Originally published @ Toronto Observer**

Etobicoke North remains Liberal red

Liberal Kirsty Duncan (left) celebrates with her campaign manager, Ivan Yiu, immediately after receiving the news that Duncan won her bid for Etobicoke North’s federal seat.

By Andrew Serba

When long-time Liberal incumbent Roy Cullen decided not to run for Parliament again, two rookie politicians saw a chance to make their mark on the community they call home.

And while Conservative candidate Bob Saroya may not have won a seat in the House of Commons, he believes his campaign has made significant inroads in the Liberal stronghold of Etobicoke North.

“Our numbers are up … for a rookie guy that’s not bad at all,” he said. “This is a Liberal riding. We are making a difference and by the next time we will make a complete difference.”

With all the polls in, Saroya had just over 30 per cent of the riding’s votes, up from the 22 per cent his predecessor received in the previous election. The riding’s new MP, Liberal Kirsty Duncan, earned 48 per cent of the vote, slipping almost 11 percentage points from her predecessor Roy Cullen.

Cullen held Etobicoke North for the Liberals for 12 years. His decision not to run in this election led Liberal leader Stephane Dion to hand-pick Duncan as Cullen’s successor. This was a nod she was “honoured” to accept, she said.

She credited the Liberal party’s strong stance on immigration, education and her focus on the needs of immigrant families as reasons for her success under the Liberal banner in the ethnically diverse riding.

“Look around this room. Every community in Etobicoke North is represented here tonight,” she told her supporters at her campaign headquarters.

“The Liberals have wonderful policies with immigration,” she said. “We’re going to get rid of Bill C-50, that ugly piece of legislation that gave one person the right to decide who can or cannot come into this country.”

Duncan, who is leaving a post as an associate professor of health studies at the University of Toronto to take her seat in the House, said the first thing she will do is put all her effort into learning her new job as well as she can to live up to her constituents’ expectations.

“It’s such an honour to follow in (Roy Cullen’s) footsteps and, believe me, I know they’re large footsteps I follow in,” she said.

Saroya said he will continue to work hard within his community and he plans to run again in the next election, when he hopes to see more of an improvement.

“We are on the right track,” he said. “Change is always tough…by the next election we will make up the difference.”

**Originally published @ Toronto Observer**

Charmichael focuses on leadership, economy

John Carmichael (right) and Rob Oliphant both hope they will be the one to represent the voters of Don Valley West

By Andrew Serba

Conservative candidate John Carmichael hopes his years of experience in private business will allow him to make a positive impact on his community, should the voters of Don Valley West give him the nod.

“For all that my company and this country have done for me, this is a good opportunity for me to give something back that is very positive,” he said.

Carmichael, a father of three, has long-time ties to his community through his family business in the auto industry. A car dealer for the past 35 years, Carmichael has also served as chairman of the Canadian Auto Dealers Association and was the founding chair of the Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council, a governing body for car dealerships and a consumer protection body, he said. An avid sportsman, he has served on numerous other boards, both public and private, including chairing Rowing Canada. He is also a director with the Canadian Olympic Committee.

Carmichael feels that his experience in the auto industry has prepared him to help with biggest challenge he thinks Toronto is facing: its lack of infrastructure.

“Our transportation system (in Toronto) is not world class,” he said. “We’ve got to spend the money and invest the resources to bring it to the level where it’s something we could all be proud of . . . to make sure that Toronto does achieve world class status as a city, and that’s where I think I could be a big, big help.”

Carmichael identified leadership, the economy, and crime and safety as the three most pressing issues he hears from Canadians.

“Voters are asking the question of looking at the economy, and the uncertain times, and who’s the best qualified,” he said. “I’m convinced that Canadians are telling us the answer is Stephen Harper and a Conservative government.”

He praised the Conservatives’ economic track record and said that paying down the debt and lowering the cost of financing the debt are keys to maintaining a strong economy. He also said a Conservative government would continue “working hard to keep the reigns on a banking system that works.”

“The economic fundamentals (in Canada) – and we’ve heard the prime minister use the term – are sound,” he said.

Crime and safety issues are increasingly important to Canadians, and a Conservative government would get tough on violent crime, Carmichael said.

“The Prime Minister recently announced new changes to the young offender laws and without question lowering the age from 16 to 14 for serious violent crime is a hard measure, but I think it’s long over due and I’ve had people applaud that,” he said.

Carmichael also stated that environmental issues impact Canadians on a daily basis. He cited green house gas emission targets brought in under the Conservatives and the $250 million Automotive Initiative Fund as progress under the Conservative government that he is proud of. He feels that there is a chance for the next government to make positive and long lasting change for the environment.

“I know people are concerned for their family’s well being,” he said. “In my case, I have two grandchildren, one’s two and a half years old, one’s a few months old. I want to make sure that if I have an opportunity to put a stamp on the environment and this country for their future, that I’m doing something that has longevity to it and will make a better world for them.”

** Originally published in the East Toronto Observer as a candidate profile **

Toronto looks to personalize mass transit

Bixi, Montreal's home-grown bike share system, turned some heads during a demo in Toronto

By Andrew Serba

Even diehard cyclist Paulette Plais would, at times, prefer not to pedal at least one way on her trip to work. The Toronto Cycling Advisory Committee (TCAC) member admits that an uphill ride to a business meeting, for example, may not leave a cyclist in the best shape to make a good first impression.

“I had a meeting at Eglinton and Yonge and I live at Bloor and Ossington. To get to my meeting I don’t want to get all sweaty and go up the Eglinton hill,” she said. “I would be very happy to take the subway up there, have my meeting, get a public bike, ride it down hill (and) then lock it at Bloor and Ossington. That would work perfectly for me.”

Blais’ perfect trip could soon become commonplace in Toronto with the adoption of a public bike-sharing program. Councillor Adrian Heaps, chair of TCAC, said that by the end of this he hopes to announce a pilot project that can be rolled out in Toronto in the spring of 2009.

Here’s how it would work: Users pay a monthly fee to borrow a bike from one of many stations located around the city. They are then free to make their trip and drop the bike off at any other station with available space. Stations are fully automated and trips under 30 minutes are free. The user incurs a small fee after the second half-hour and the fee will double each additional hour the trip lasts. This fee structure ensures the bikes will be used for trips between stations, rather than as rental bikes for tourists to sightsee on.

Heaps said that Toronto is in the enviable position of learning from programs already running in major cities. Paris and London have already made bikes a form of personalized mass public transit via bike sharing. Montreal is set to follow with a flashy system designed and implemented by its parking authority.

The Toronto model will reflect “the best of what’s out there,” Heaps said.

In Heaps’s view, the most convincing argument for a bike-share program is the resulting decrease in car trips. The program should also improve the health of its users, ease congestion and reduce pollution, he said.

Herb van den Dool of the Community Bicycle Network said that personalized mass transit with no waiting times, unfettered by the need to follow a set of rails, will also offer commuters new opportunities.

“Once you free people up from just using a bus route or a subway there’s a lot of freedom in that,” he said.

Fred Sztabinski, also a member of TCAC, endorses a bike sharing plan. It can “increase the viability of transit for a lot of people,” he said. “People for who that last mile or that first mile are not great.” Public bikes, he said, can fill in gaps left by other modes of transit. Trips that would otherwise begin or end too far from a bus or subway route can now be completed entirely on public transit – with bikes forming the missing links.

Proponents of the plan agree that critical masses of bikes and stations need to be achieved to make bike sharing convenient enough for people to adopt.
While Blais likes the idea of a public bike program, she does not think that Toronto’s cycling culture or infrastructure can support a massive influx of bikes.

“To be a cyclist in Toronto you have to be a bit of a maverick; you have to be willing to be brave in traffic,” she said. “If we’re talking about people jumping on a bike-share bike and going to a meeting from one downtown office to another, you’re looking at Bay Street, Union Station, University Avenue, King, Queen, all those streets which, now, none of them are that great for cycling.”

Heaps believes that safety is a top priority. He is exploring the possibility of making bike helmets available to the program’s users, he said. He added that putting the right infrastructure in place is also high on the agenda.

Sztabinski thinks it “would be very symbolic for the city to invest in this and it would show a commitment (to cycling).” He thinks the program could raise the profile of cycling as transit and change the cycling culture in Toronto. He also noted that with more bikes on the road cyclists would find safety in numbers. As the number of cyclists using a city’s roads increases, the rate of collisions and serious injuries tends to drop, he said.

On the other hand, Blais said that a safe biking environment and a culture accepting of bikes should precede a bike-share program. She described Montreal as a city “ripe” for public bike sharing. With excellent east-west corridors through the city and bike paths that are often separated from car traffic by physical barriers, she described Montreal as a city with critical masses of infrastructure and bike users. This increases the likelihood of a public bike program’s success, in Blais’ view.

“Montreal has an incredibly high rate of bike usage,” she said. “You can easily be on a bike path with 10 or 12 bikes at any time of the day or night. People (in Montreal) just use bikes so much.”

According to van den Dool, infrastructure is an important but separate issue. More and better bike paths would make cycling feel safer, more convenient and faster, but he thinks people will still embrace a public bike program.

Heaps said that if a pilot program were brought out in 2009, it would probably focus on the downtown core to secure “the best and most immediate chance of success.” He suggested that downtown parking lots could be the initial sites for bike stations and said that the program would expand as payment and maintenance issues are improved and demand for public bikes grows.

Layton focuses on affordable housing, environment

NDP Leader Jack Layton addresses his supporters at a ralley in Toronto Sept. 13, 2008.

By Andrew Serba
Toronto-Danforth incumbent MP and NDP Leader Jack Layton says he’s running again to bring Canadians’ “kitchen table” issues to the front and centre of the House of Commons on a daily basis.

“I think Canadians in the middle class are feeling very squeezed right now,” he said. “They don’t feel that the concerns of their families for education, environment, healthcare and their future employment are being adequately represented.”

He said his service in federal politics has allowed him to continue, on a national basis, much of the work he started as a city councillor, and as head of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. He said the need for a national housing policy and environmental concerns are two such issues.

Building more affordable housing is a “key area for federal investment,” according to Layton.
He also praised his constituents as leaders on environmental issues, citing the Riverdale Initiative for Solar Energy as the type of project his party would like to foster.

“The folks in the east end have always been very concerned about how energy is produced and the pollution from it,” he said. “We’re trying to encourage policies that would facilitate that kind of renewable energy.”

Canada’s environmental and economic well-being are intertwined, in Layton’s view. He has promised to spend $8 billion over four years to create “green collar jobs.”

“I think the way to secure a more stable economic future has to do with investing in a kind of business development that takes us towards a reduced environmental impact and a 21st century energy economy,” he said.

Layton said working closely with his constituents in his community has been a rewarding experience.
“There’s a long list of issues that come up and that you work away on,” he said. “They don’t all hit the headlines, but I just haul out the bike and head down the Danforth and, believe me, my constituents are not at all shy about coming and raising the issues with me.”
Layton said Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cuts to the arts and the film sector have hurt Toronto-Danforth, which has a high concentration of film industry workers. He pledged “not only to restore that funding, but to make [further investments] in supporting that sector.”
“We want those studios buzzing with activity,” he added.
An NDP government would also spend $1 billion over five years to train more doctors and nurses, in addition to creating incentives for recently graduated doctors to practice as family physicians. These measures would address the need for more family doctors and reduce hospital wait times — two issues that Layton described as pressing priorities, “especially for our seniors.”
Good-quality, affordable transit is another need faced by Canada’s cities, Layton added. He said he would set aside one cent per litre of the federal gas tax, plus revenue from his proposed cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions, to provide “a major infusion of guaranteed cash” for municipal transit systems. Toronto would see roughly $800 million in the first four years.
Layton said it has been his pleasure to serve as MP for Toronto-Danforth and that he would be “thrilled and honoured to have the opportunity to serve once again if the voters of the community are willing to support me.”

**Originally Published in the East York Observer as a candidate profile**