It’s not a War on the Car, it’s a war by cars on everyone else | #TOpoli #TOcouncil #bikeTO

So #TOCouncil votes to screw cyclists. No big surprise there. 

I’ve been struggling, for weeks, to think of a way to reach out and engage with people we don’t agree with in a way that doesn’t come across as arrogant or condescending or elitist or anything, and while I don’t want to give up on that, at the moment I’m stymied.

What’s just happened at City Council makes it abundantly clear that the rights and safety of cyclists (and pretty much anyone who doesn’t drive a car) don’t matter to Team Ford. No big surprise there either.

Some activists have been talking about a campaign of civil disobedience. Some, on the other hand, have been talking about something less drastic, and entirely within the law: just obey every traffic law and safety regulation to the letter, and exercise every single right to which you’re entitled under the law. If you feel you need to take the entire curb lane in order to feel safe, then do it. Motorists behind you getting impatient? Fuck ‘em. We’re citizens. We’re taxpayers. We’re users of the public roads. We’re here, we’re on our bikes, and we’re not going away. We can do this individually, or as a handful of people at a time, or as a full-on Critical Mass.

It was Justin Beach who suggested, recently, that all we need to do in order to bring car traffic to a standstill is to stop being so nice and accommodating. That moment is upon us.

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