Returning home to Toronto after a year in Cambridge has been both a delight and a shock. Delightful: kids, pets, friends, garden, lake. Shocking: bright lights, big city, traffic, road rage. I find myself squinting in the glare of speeding cars and reckless drivers. The anti-cyclist (and anti-pedestrian) mentality and movement have grown even as--perhaps because--the city itself takes gradual steps toward bike and pedestrian-friendliness...ie to get to where Cambridge already is.
When our family first landed in Toronto 13 years ago the friendliness and kindliness of the denizens impressed us. People stopped to offer help when we looked confused, they chatted pleasantly in shops. "They're so nice!" we marveled. Then we discovered the exception: Torontonians on wheels. Any wheels: riders as well as drivers ("Beware Canucks on Wheels" (2015)). Just yesterday, walking with husband and daughter, I had to dodge a cyclist on the sidewalk heading toward us, at night, no lights. "What are you doing? There's a bike lane right there," I pointed.
"Kiss my ass," said the man as he shot past.
"No, thank you," husband responded.
The aggro amongst street users has definitely ratcheted up. I read the odd snippet of Toronto transit news while in England. Now evidence of my own eyes confirms these reports. Toronto has, bless it, laid on more bike lanes (still not enough), installed more cycling and pedestrian infrastructure (still not enough), and funded more enforcement against bike-lane blockage (never enough). There's a new mayor in office, Olivia Chow, who rides her bike to City Hall. Things are trending in the right direction for cycling...at the mild expense of driver convenience and speed.
Good, say I. And yes I say that even when I am a driver. City driving should NOT be convenient or speedy. It should not be fun. It should be a thing one does as a last resort.
Others disagree and disagree strongly. People in Toronto (and in its suburbs) really like their cars. They like them large and bulky and prominent and they want to use them to go fast. They're furious. I found this out twice last week.
Son injured his ankle and needed medical advice so, our doctor being away, I drove him to a walk-in clinic. I nosed most of the way in to a tight space right in front of the building and put on my flashers. Husband helped son hop into the building while I stayed with the car until we knew whether he could be seen. A minute later, behind me, a driver honked, her front bumper near my rear one. I wasn't sure why, as there was plenty of room to maneuver around me in the road. Eventually the driver pulled up next to me, blocking traffic, and rolled down the passenger window of her SUV.
"I want to park there," she informed me.
"Well, I'm waiting for someone."
"But I want to park. You haven't paid yet."
I stared at her. This young woman was ordering me to move so she could put her car where mine was.
"I'll be another few minutes," I repeated.
"Then you should pay," she snapped, as though expecting me to drop coins directly into her palm.
"There's a grace period," I told her. "Ten minutes."
"I never heard that."
"Check the website," I said. (I am pretty sure I'm right. In any case, with luck the annoying woman will waste at least ten minutes googling it.)
"And you're idling," she accused.
"You're right." I turned off the motor and switched on the radio. "There you go." She drove away. I could practically see the huff in her exhaust.
Honestly. I cannot imagine a Canadian not in a car marching up to me and saying "I want your place in line. Move." But put them on wheels, and you get a different story.
A little later the same day I met a friend for lunch at a nearby café. As we walked along a small street in my neighborhood, she and I watched an enormous blood-red pick-up truck reverse from the road into a driveway. As my friend and I edged along the strip of sidewalk left us by the driver, he started pulling forward, toward us. I lifted my hand to make us visible-- the truck's hood was about as high as my head--and craned my neck to make eye contact. The man rolled down his window to shout at me as we crossed to safety. "Hey! You don't always have the right of way! This is Canada!"
'This is Canada'? What? My friend and I looked at each other and laughed in disbelief.
The driver of the scarlet truck was of course right. It is true; this is Canada. Also it is true that I personally do not always have the right of way. But right then, right there, walking north on the sidewalk of Major Street, I, along with my friend--plus another woman walking south-- most certainly did have both the right of way and extreme vulnerability. What the driver had was a bloody big pick-up and a Y chromosome.
Again, he might be a perfectly nice man when parted from his vehicle.
Or possibly not. Several months ago I read about a group of people deliberately blocking a bike lane newly installed on an iconic north-south Toronto thoroughfare, Yonge Street. Grown men and women had actually taken time out of their day to stand in an active bike lane in a city, forcing cyclists into traffic, in an effort to make cycling less safe and thus less popular.
This is Canada?
Scotty, beam me up. Or perhaps just beam me back to Cambridge.
Who knows what comes next. My belief is that bike-riding will help save the world and that personally-owned cars will soon go the way of the dodo. The fact that the luddites amongst us are reacting so strongly against this change is perhaps an indicator of its eventual success. But the divisiveness in the meantime is scary and unpleasant and, I believe, profoundly un-Canadian.
There are also signs of hope (the new cycling mayor of Toronto for instance) and, even more powerful, signs of humor:
This too is Canada.
Maybe it will help.
And maybe the dodo will come back.
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