Bill C-10 has the potential of censoring anything he deems misinformation. Sieg Heil.Speaking of thee but not me, it is really quite amazing how out of touch he is. Even his handlers can't get him to stop saying stupid things. Almost everything that comes out of his mouth is disinformation and now he is making a speech that that is a threat to democracy.
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"Disinformation campaigns and extremism are a serious threat to global economies and democracy, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a speech to Dutch parliamentarians in The Hague Friday."
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Hack
Well-known member
daught
Well-known member
Right now very few people can actually ride their bike to work. This is a generational problem. Adopting public transit and cycling will take a while. Bikes can be a very good option for getting to the rapid transit station and from union to the office. Suburban busses are slow and inconvenient to the rapid transit station. A bike can be a very good alternative. Right now everyone dismisses public transportation and bikes as a viable alternative because their use is low. It will take many years before it's adopted but realistically it's the only way to support the detached house with a garage Canadian lifestyle. DVP/404/427/401 will not get wider in the GTA. Put a train to the middle of nowhere and build bike friendly subdivisions and in 20 years it will be a success. Dunno about Amsterdam but I spend some time in Copenhagen. Their trains have lots of bike stalls, and they allow them at rush hour. Lots of people use them for getting from the train and to the office. Toronto is not that cold. Winter commuting is possible with a bit of planning and proper gear. Since they started plowing bicycle lanes I see lots of people commuting in the winter by bicycle. E-bikes should also make it easier.
@draught, much as I despise what the Ebikes have done to our image of cycling, I am seriously considering on of the new Trek style upright e bikes for booting over to the grocer or down to the harbour. Yes they are 4K , but no ins. no plates and if $1.40L becomes the norm I can see me on one.
Yes I have pedal bikes, and yes I can ride that distance easily , however when its +32d C , I dont wanna .
Yes I have pedal bikes, and yes I can ride that distance easily , however when its +32d C , I dont wanna .
Mad Mike
Well-known member
I don't see this as a generational problem. Bicycles are a viable option if you live close to your workplace AND have an alternative for inclement weather - there's no difference whether you are a millennial, X or boomer. Perhaps the X/Boomer crowd have more resources and have and can afford more options in both transportation and accommodations.
I'm personally not interested in a tiny space inside Toronto -- I'm happy with suburban space, quietness, and safety. I have liked all those since I left my city apartment and bicycle a long time ago.
A proper pedelec does extend your reasonable bicycle commuting range. It keeps you at close to 32 km/h average speed instead of something a little more than half that if you have a ways to go and/or lots of hills. At rush hour, from your house to downtown is probably faster on a pedelec than a car. You have access to bike paths (not legally when using power but since they don't go after DUI mobiles, they probably won't touch a pedelec) and filtering on the pedelec.
Mad Mike
Well-known member
I'm of mixed opinion on ebikes. I bought my kids one of those Daymak e-scooters 10 years ago, they used it to death as high schoolers so overall it was a reasonable purchase. I will ride a regular bicycle for errands in the neighbourhood, and I keep foldup on my boat that serves as a grocery and liquor getter when I'm traveling.
I took one of those battery skateboard scooters for a rip last week -- if I'm in the mood to not pedal, one of those is more to my liking.
daught
Well-known member
Let me re-clarify. Ontario is big. Put high speed trains(300KM/h+) with bike stands. Built big mansions with large lots around such a train line and people can take a bike to the train station, load the bike on the train then get around the downtown core with the bike.
RE gas prices and gas guzzlers. Many countries have taxes based on engine size. As engine size increases so should the sticker renewal. $200 up 2L and $2000 above 4L...
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High speed rail only works if you have a very long distance between stations. You can't just ride to the nearest track, you need to get to the nearest station. Stations are somewhere between 40 and 180 km apart. Putting the stations closer together completely eliminates any advantage of high speed rail as you spend so much of your time stopped and a bunch accelerating/decelerating. Even at 40 km between stations, train is at 300 for ~five minutes.
Mad Mike
Well-known member
I like the idea of high-speed trains and think a route that went Windsor-London-Toronto-Kingston-Montreal-Quebec-Halifax would be great. I'd also love to see a high-speed loop. Wouldn't make a hill of beans difference to one's daily back and forth to work.
I'd also love to see a loop that went Toronto-Barrie-Sudbury, North Bay-Ottawa-Montreal.
D
Deleted member 50930
Guest
Yes please
I thought cycling was stupid. I got curious because my wife was into it for a bit.
I have 2 kids, had to get them (by bike) to daycare and then school bus stop in the mornings and then go to the office by bicycle (otherwise it was motorcycle or public transit) while wifey took the car to the train station and took the train to work downtown.
I was an overweight dude, who hadn't ridden a bicycle in probably 10-15 years. Yes i was relatively active (i'd do a spartan race once or twice a year and did nothing the rest of the year) so I started step by step, but at first riding from sauga to downtown was quite the trek. 23km each way.
Eventually it got easier, and eventually i actually started enjoying it. Until the pandemic that is.
I met some people at my work who did the same from Oakville and even Burlington. Gotta be honest, they were fitter than me though. The reason people aren't doing it more is partly because it's VERY intimidating to ride next to cars and roads are currently the most efficent/short way to get to places on a bicycle. My motorcycle experience made it a walk in the park to be "naked" in the middle of traffic, but for the common mortal, it sounds like a madman's journey. If you put good intuitive infrastructure in (emphasis on good & intuitive), people will use it. Not half assed infrastructure that dumps you in the middle of nowhere and where have to fend for yourself/figure out your way in the middle of rush hour traffic. I mean you want something that would be comfortable enough for an 12 y-old to take without being scared for their life.
I completely agree that a bunch of people cannot realistically take their bicycle whether it be due to work requirements or schedules. But there's a ******** of people who could do it and that's who we need to focus on. Make it viable for the people who can; not an extreme sport that feels like you're endangering your life every time. Amsterdam was, at one point a very car-centric society in the 70s if i remember well and they decided to make drastic changes. Montreal has made major changes recently to have some "bicycle highways". It's not that it's not possible, it's that it's not a priority.
In winter i take public transportation because i don't own a bike that can do the winter commute and besides, the infrastructure is not in place for that to be done easily from where i live to where i work. But there are places that make it a priority with real winters unlike what we have in Toronto. As traffic gets worse year afteryear, those concessions (whether it be for public transit or cycling) are the only things that will keep traffic moving. Better act now before it gets worse.
Those stops are reasonably spaced. Again, you need to solve the last mile issues to get people from housing in London to a single train station.
Honestly I can't see high speed rail in Ontario anything other than a boondoggle. Contracts are far too much money per km here and ridership will suck. How many people from windsor are going to train to QC? Flying is faster and probably cheaper. Politicians also f up every rail project and will want a stop every place a donor lives and that will make the whole system completely useless.
If someone wanted to make a high speed rail link work, something like walkerton or tilsonburg to Toronto would be interesting. A developer(or developers) buys a few hundred square km in the region and then a high speed rail link is put in to explode property values. Part of the DC's go to rail construction. Maybe part of your property tax pays for rail operation? If everyone in the commuter community has a "free" pass, they are more likely to use it. Housing would be more affordable than the already well-connected communities like KW, London, etc. If they stop commuting, they may move out of the community to a place with lower taxes (as other municipalities aren't including mandatory train payments). This keeps dwellings turning over so population using the train stays high. People can move somewhere with less connections to save some money when they stop working.
Mad Mike
Well-known member
I don't think intimidation is a big factor. Kids are willing to ride bikes anywhere, I know lots of cyclists that are intimidated behind the wheel of a car, and many more that could never mount a motorcycle.
I think it's simpler -- people are fond of convenience and a sedentary lifestyle - neither fit with cycling.
And that's why the idea you were mentioning above of high speed trains would have a bigger "voluntary" adoption. One big problem with the trains though, once you get to the station, is that you're often left to fend for yourself with an expensive taxi or maybe even an uber if they have any. But too often, there isn't any great transit options (or the options in place are too scarce to make it a a convenient option for travelers).
The easiest way we can get people out of the convenient and sedentary lifestyle we all love would be to have the convenient method become a lot less convenient than the alternatives offered to them. When traffic becomes horrible enough that it's not practicable by car, people will turn to other alternatives but by the time this happens and they ask for it, it's less than ideal/costlier to try to build infrastructure for these alternatives (whether it be rapid transit, cycling, carpooling lanes, etc)
We have, in south mississauga, 2 huge developments coming in the next 5-6 years, brightwater, with 2500 condos and 400 townhomes and then lakeview village, with an anticipated 20k residents, this is all right next to lakeshore which already gets quite backed up with traffic and both within 5km of each other. Great for my house value but horrible for getting around, and i don't think that the north-south LRT being built will make much of a difference with that volume. This is one of those scenarios where i can see people being pushed to use alternate methods of transportation to get to the go train or the like as roads will not be passable once you add that car volume on existing infrastructure.
Whether we agree on it or not, riding 15-30km/h on a bicycle with cars passing you within 1m at 50-70km/h is not for everyone.
Mad Mike
Well-known member
I think you get people to the trains using conventional means -- just make the train stations central, and have easy air-rail links.
Boondoggle? Possibly - but what gov't project isn't?. I think the corridors we have for highways could be shared with trains. Trains need little more than their width, stealing 11' from the highway allowance, and Southern Ontario has very little grade change to deal with. If the rails could be shared with freight trains, we could efficiently move trucks to the corridor centers, then use small tractors for the last mile.
Perhaps we could move remote workers further from the GTA and solve a bit of the housing cost issue. My wife is a remote worker, she's not interested in moving to London, Sudbury or Kingston if they are a 3 hours drive from civilization. If she could get to the city center inside 2 hours by train we have a maybe. I'm sure there are lots of people with the same view.
Mad Mike
Well-known member
I think we can agree on this, I only know 1 person that rides as far as 15km to work and he's a cop. When someone offends him, he's able to deal a ticket on the spot.
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