So what’s to prevent people from just biking in normal lanes in groups and slowing traffic down?
Don’t know about Toronto specifically but my guess is car ownership in Canada is probably pretty high.
If you want to send a message to drivers who vote, then everyone go single occupancy motor vehicle and drive like a granny. Are they going to road rage lines of trucks carrying bikes on a rack?
All switch to quadricycles to take up space in the driving lanes? These days there are even some nice covered electric assist cycles.
Car drivers here, as anywhere, truly will do ANYTHING but actually demand better, varied infrastructure. You could make driving a car complete hell(it does it itself, most of the time) but most of the country would still fight any improvement.
I always like to point put that I own a sportscar and still prefer the metro and bus. They’re just better for nearly everything. Unfortunately, I came to that conclusion by using my brain and that’s not something most Canadians have a fully-functioning example of.
My guess is the fear to being mowed down by an SUV.
Also, “normal” people (i.e. not activists) are more afraid of taking a bike if there’s not bike path. So they end up clogging traffic even more by going by car.
This is me (US, not Canada, but same situation)
I’d cycle more if there were bike lanes but there’s not more bike lanes and there are a lot of people driving who are oblivious, assholes, or both
Sounds like a suitable protest, everyone drives and parks their car. Now nobody moves.
That’s just traffic with extra steps
We do. But for day to day commuting, it’s not practical. So we take the lane when we need to and deal angry and dangerous drivers on the daily.
It’s technically not legal to ride two abreast if you impede traffic in Ontario, but for the most part group rides are begrudgingly tolerated.
Non-violent protests showing how useless they are once again 😂🤣
oh ya ! keep shouting at the pigs! I bet itll work THIS time 🤭😏
Im in toronto and the only thing that ahouting at a police officer has gotten me was alook of disgust. But he probably looked at me with disgust cause Im Black and as we all know Canadians are allergic to people who they deem to be TooDark©®™ 🤭😏
I’ve always thought about this being the best time to do other crimes in another area. This many police in one location. Other areas have to be lacking. I just don’t see it as a smart move on the city. Beyond the removal of the bike lanes.
That’s actually where distributed protest actions actually have a better effect than a large scale one. Because there are more of us than them it’s hard for them to be everywhere at once. The problem in this case is the bike lane is in a fixed location.
I can assure you those cops are doing nothing to prevent crimes.
I’ve always thought about this being the best time to do other crimes in another area.
I mean, this is a very glib attitude to have towards “doing crime”, but it really neglects the nature of the acts you’re contemplating. The idea that random local civilians are just predisposed to acts of violence and destruction is half the reason we have these bloated police forces to begin with. When police are so heavily distracted by some insane mayor’s campaign against bicycles, you’d like to think it would be worth noting how little crime happens in their absense.
Because who seriously thinks to themselves, “Oh boy, I can’t wait to cause my neighbors deep lasting harm for my own short-term benefit now that the agency loosely associated with preventing that from happening is brutalizing some street protesters invested in a functioning bike lane system”? Like, does this person exist in any appreciable number?
Even as flights of fancy go, it’s cringe. The least you could do is have some Rambo-esque insurgent delusion of using this is an opportunity to ransack Doug Ford’s house or vandalize Rob Ford’s grave. Instead, it’s just dreaming up an excuse to kick in some random person’s window and steal their TV?
This should be a textbook case of why we need to defund the fucking cops. No moment could be more clarifying when you want to make the argument that they don’t actually prevent or ameliorate crime.
There are probably people who consider stealing from corporations as not really hurting their neighbors, as a counterpoint.
I submit this song by Sublime into evidence: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e1dPKfxRhk
Lyrics: https://genius.com/Sublime-april-29-1992-miami-lyrics
Extraordinarily well said.
It’s a sign of the times that the most insightful comment comes from someone called “UnderpantsWeevil”
I can think of worse…
I suppose I misspoke. I don’t really have an interest in committing crimes. But I can assure you that people who do want to commit crimes, petty to serious, would not only share these intrusive thoughts, but also possess the ability and desire to act upon them. The point I was trying to make is that these police are being pulled from their usual duties to intimidate. Some cases, might be preferable. If they’re standing there bored, then they can’t be running around doing the litany of other things the police have become so prolific for doing.
If anything it’s a good time to clean up some of the flock cameras littered around.
I wondered this locally when we had about 100 police from multiple other counties turning up to deal with a far right protest with protestors coming in from all over the place and protesting against the disruption caused by a bus and a lifeboat.
So, Canada… Are you looking to position yourself in opposition to the conservative ghouls in the US? Or are you not. Because riot police arresting people committed to protecting their city through direct action feels very United States to me.
I’m not sure I’m getting what you are saying? Are you implying it’s unusual for canadian police to abuse protesters?
I made a post a while back about the 2010 G-20 protest in Toronto with my own boring photos, but Reuters has a lot of bangers here.
Montreal cops are also notably shit, even among the entire class of bastards:
Further information has come to light concerning the Montreal Police Department’s use of agent-provocateurs disguised as “Black Bloc” protestors at a December 18 demonstration against police violence and the anti-austerity policies of the Quebec Liberal government.
More recently: Police brutality against anti-AI protesters in Montreal shows their true colours
And let’s not forget the Kanesatake Resistance (Oka Crisis):
The Kanesatake Resistance, also known as the Oka Crisis or the Mohawk Resistance at Kanesatake, was a 78-day standoff (11 July–26 September 1990) between Kanyen’kehà:ka (Mohawk) protesters, Quebec police, the RCMP and the Canadian Army.
Well yeah, they’re French. That’s enough said about why Montreal cops suck.
I’m busting their balls for calling the kettle black, I know how awful Canadian cops are but do appreciate the informative PSA.
Yeah Canada has no intent to do that and I’m not sure where you got that idea. Cops have been killing indigenous people on their territories around here since literally the beginning and causing grievous violence towards those that try to defend them or their lands. The RCMP was literally created to control people who were just trying to live on, not even protesting, on their own land.
I think they got the idea from the relentless bitch crying from Canadians about America while their own country is just as shit in every way.
Woah there, bud. You can cool it on the misogyny. America’s garbage fire impacts us too, so I think it’s pretty reasonable to voice our displeasure. If you want to be included in the discussions about decolonizing kkklanada, you can follow the canada specific coms.
Cars <—> Fascism
This pig is Doug Ford, one of the most powerful politician in Canada.
He publically said he doesn’t give a shit about cyclists. He wants bike lanes gone.
He is a also a former drug dealer.
Somehow, it didn’t prevent him from being elected
I haven’t seen a smile that insincere since Mr Beast.
I thought Rob Ford would have sunk him, but. No.
Well it prevented Doug from being elected mayor of Toronto so now he does whatever he can to hurt the city. It sometimes feels like this is his main objective as premier of Ontario.
If it’s anything like Atlanta’s relationship with the rest of Georgia, that was probably his main selling point for rural and suburban voters.
So basically “I’ll fuck over those snobs in the city to please the rural folk”?
That’s the USA Way…let the dumb fuck ignorant church racists dictate the future.
Literally.
It’s insanely ironic because amalgamation being forced on the city by the province is why his father’s political career got cut short. Amalgamation of Toronto. Which is where he lives, and where he has been elected to represent an MPP of Etobicoke North.
Sure it was Etobicoke pre amalgamation, so maybe he’s still treating it as not Toronto? But those bike lanes in the OP are in Etobicoke.
Here is an article from when he was in the running for party leadership:
Ford made this anti-elite announcement, ironically, in the basement of his mother’s sprawling house in Etobicoke, source of the Ford political dynasty which includes his late father (Doug Ford Senior, an MPP from 1995-1999), late brother (Rob Ford, city councilor and then Toronto mayor from 2010-2014), and nephew (Michael Ford, former trustee and currently a councilor in Rob Ford’s former ward of Etobicoke North). Doug himself served and ran unsuccessfully for Mayor in 2014 against John Tory.
In terms of political dynasties, read, elites, the Fords really don’t have much competition in the GTA, or even in Ontario. But that’s not how Ford will depict it. Despite their wealth and influence, the Fords have a family tradition of communing with the common man, and connecting with voters far less fortunate than they.
I suppose this is just a case of them “hurting the right people”. And so everything else is fine.
See also: that famous Christian love.
Are you trying to make him look cool?
US much?
canada really isn’t that different.
america’s hat
Friggin sucks.
Bicycles, it turns out, have always been leftist. Cheaper than cars or horses, they gave the commoners mobility they never had before.
They also supercharged feminism, allowing women to travel without male escorts, and justifying wearing pants, giving them a great push along the autonomy pipeline.
Rebecca Watson and Climate Town both recently released videos. I’m on mobile right now but will try to add links later.
you don’t know how to copy/paste links on mobile?
Ah, men of the people
We all know what side the cops are on.
Hamburg, Germany, the same. Officially it’s a bicycle city - unofficially police, especially older staff, see cyclists as inferior beings and a nuisance to the real and only owners of the streets.
Conservatism is cancer and needs to be dealt with as such. Don’t let conservatives know about walking or they will take the sidewalks next.
Conservatism (regressivism) is antithetical to human progress.
Red states already have refused sidewalks in a substantial amount of their states. They don’t wanna risk a minority walking in front of their house.
So they are saying they want to have bikes in all the lanes, everyday? Seems like traffic is going to get a lot worse in Toronto.
Their weapons always point at the working class. ACAB.
They rally 'round the family
With a pocket full of shells
Bulls on parade
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes
Not need, just feed the warBulls on Parade
Oh my god that used to be part of my bike commute when I lived in Toronto.
I absolutely hated biking on that stretch of Bloor, but this was before the bike lanes. From what I saw in photos and videos, the lanes made a real difference at some of the common conflict points. The area is undergoing intensification, bike lakes are an important part of urban mobility.
Doug Ford is a timbit. I’ll bet he’s thinking about timbits right now.
