Welcome to Cyclometer, a monthly newsletter to keep cyclists informed about cycling issues and programs in the City of Toronto.
CONTENTS:
1) Bike Month poster contest results!
On Thursday, 10 January the winner of the Bike Month (yes, that's right Bike MONTH) poster contest was chosen at Metro Hall's Rotunda, following a week of entries on display. The winner was chosen by popular demand via ballot boxes placed in the Rotunda all week.
This year's winner, and the first-ever Bike Month poster chosen by ballot with over 160 ballots counted is... Gabriella Sarlay!
The most popular choice was a photo of a multi-coloured cruiser locked to a post and ring with a streetcar in the background, followed by a colour photo of an orange Kronen city bike parked outside a coffee shop. Gabriella snagged the 1st, 2nd and shared 3rd in a tie with Kevin Sylvester. Many thanks to all who participated. There were over twenty different submissions.
2) Coldest Day of the Year Ride - January 30!
For the first time ever the City of Toronto will have a 'Coldest Day of the Year Ride' on the 30th of January at noon, starting in Nathan Phillips Square and ending with hot chocolate at Metro Hall. Be there and then you can say you did it - don't hide inside, go for a ride. This one will have a police escort.
3) 2007 Toronto Bike Lanes report
7.7 km of new bike on-street lanes were installed in 2007, including contra-flow lanes as well as 41.4 km of shared roadway routes, (included in that total are the sharrow markings on Lansdowne Avenue and Dundas Street East).
Downtown/East York
- 2.1km on Greenwood Ave (Queen St.E - Danforth)
- 1.2 km on Christie (St Clair W. to Dupont)
- 100m Chester Hill (contra-flow from Broadview to Cambridge)
- 200m Knox (contra-flow Queen St E. to Eastern)
Etobicoke
- 1.5 km The Queensway (Windermere - Claude)
North York
- .7 km Roselawn (Marleee - Salinas)
- 1.7 km Sentinel (Finch - Dovehouse)
4) Martin Goodman Trail reduction notification
There is a temporary reduction in the width of the Martin Goodman Trail of no less than 3.5m at the corner of 90 Stadium Rd.- The Tip Top Tailor's condominium site (between Coronation Park and Stadium Rd. Park) due to construction hoarding. The hoarding will remain in the park until construction is complete (up to 2 years).
5) Electric bikes: good or bad?
Cyclists will have noticed a new breed of two-wheeled vehicle on the roads in the last year or more, and a new breed of retail shop selling them. Electric bicycles and scooters have become legal to use due to a pilot program of the Ontario Ministry of Transportation. The new bikes have been subject to some controversy amongst cyclists unaccustomed to sharing road space with electric two-wheelers.
Since August, 2006 electric bicycles have been legal on Ontario roads. Some look like Vespa scooters while proper electric bikes feature a manual pedal drivetrain augmented by a lead-acid, nickel-metal hydride, or lithium battery with the option of simply 'driving'. Pedalling an ebike helps re-charge a battery while en route.
Wayne McMahon owns a Vespa-style Mountaineer electric scooter and can't say enough good things about his ride. He commutes daily as long as it is not snowing or raining, and has been doing it since June, 2007 on his Mountaineer. McMahon chose the biggest model available for its size and power output (500 watts), as he wanted a full-size machine for his 6'3", 200 lbs frame.
"I only wish I'd had one sooner. Every light I stop at, people give me positive comments, asking if its electric, telling me how nice looking it is. I think it looks better than a Vespa. You get more respect from motorists too, because it is bigger than a bicycle and more visible, I think. I feel safer on it than (when I commute) on a bicycle and its totally quiet."
McMahon commutes about from Parkdale to the Rogers building on Bloor Street East, about 8-9 km each way and says his scooter can handle a trip from his Parkdale home to Downsview and back again without a problem, with good power on hills. His model cost $1800 at the Queen street store Blue Avenue. From a full drain on the battery that his Downsview trip made, the re-charge took five hours. McMahon liked the scooter (which weighs about what a motor scooter might) so much that he bought a smaller one for his daughter to commute to work with as well. He says it has been virtually maintenance free in the six months he's been using it.
Everett Collerin is another satisfied Blue Avenue customer who can ride his pedal-assisted electric bicycle all the way to the Scarborough Bluffs and back to downtown without a problem, though some steep hills mean he must get off and walk his 150 pound bike. He tells Cyclometer that the only thing he doesn't like is other ebike users who don't obey traffic laws. Collerin also reports some trail conflict with manual cyclists who don't understand the legality of ebikes on trails.
"When the test period is over after 2009, the government is going to look at these people who rode on sidewalks, double rode, or didn't wear helmets, and they're going to make ebikes licenced, insured and regulated (just like other motor vehicules)."
Collerin's bike has a hub motor that won't work properly in wet weather, but as a fairweather cyclist he isn't bothered. The battery will operate to -10C. He describes the pedaling action of his ebike as twice as fast as a normal bike because the rotation is twice as small, and so prefers to 'drive'.
Whether a scooter or conventional bike design, electric cycles feature silent motors. Ontario law demands only that the rider be at least 16 years of age and wear a helmet. No vehicle insurance or driver's licence is required. Maximum speed is 32 km/hr from a battery that is limited to a 500 watt maximum output.
Depending on the size of the battery and the terrain and conditions, electric bikes can 'drive' for 40 km, or in optimal conditions with pedaling 90 km. An older style (but still standard) lead-acid battery is good for 600 charges from half-dead or 300 from competely dead, and a more advanced lithium battery can last for 1000 charges, according to Alistair Russell, CEO of Airstream Group, a Canadian distributor of a range of "personal electric transporters", all of which are power-assisted bikes. A lead-acid battery takes four to five hours to re-charge completely and weighs 25 lbs. A much lighter lithium (seven lbs) battery can re-charge in under two hours, says Russell, whereas a full lead-acid re-charging takes about three times longer. An unused ebike sitting in a garage throughout the winter needs to be re-charged once a month to preserve the battery's life. Batteries are usually either lead-acid, Nickel-Cadmium, Nickel-metal hydride, or Lithium-ion. Lithium-ion polymer batteries are lighter and more expensive, but lose 20% of their capacity each year irrespective of use, according to one source.
In terms of versatility, e-bikes perform best in ideal conditions, just like manual bicycles. Wintry conditions impair the battery's performance, though Russell says the batteries (which are installed on the top tube area) are sealed and his machines are designed to work in 4-5 inches of water. He estimates there are 15,000 to 18,000 electric bikes on the road in Canada. British Columbia was the first province to legalize ebikes in 2001, and since then Alberta, Nova Scotia, and Quebec have followed suit. Russell intends to sell "about 1000" e-bikes in 2008 in and around the Greater Toronto Area, mostly to older people. Some of his customers do use the bikes for commuting, but Russell believes they are used mainly as recreational vehicles in good weather.
An potential drawback to electric bikes is their weight - 50 lbs at the lightest, with many far heavier. A fifty pound conventional bike feels like a tank; most commuting cyclists prefer a bike about two-thirds to half of that weight. An obvious advantage for an office worker like Wayne Macmahon is the absence of sweaty effort involved in a morning commute, even if that commute were 45 minutes long, with the flipside being the risk of battery failure in difficult conditions and the added minor effort of recharging the battery alongside the usual bike maintenance.
The ebikes famously consume very little electricity, adding no more than a few cents to a monthly energy bill. "There's a role for electric bikes in Toronto, but it depends on how the electricity is made", says Franz Hartmann, Executive Director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance.
"If the electricity comes from a wind turbine or a solar panel then great. If it comes from a coal-fired power plant, then I don't know, it's probably better than a car. But best way forward for those who can do it is human-powered cycling." For people for whom vigorous exercise is too difficult, electric bikes are a good alternative Hartmann says.
What Hartmann may not be well aware of is this: there are an estimated forty million electric bikes on the roads in China, where most are made. In many ebikes is a lead acid battery (just like a car has), which creates three kilograms of emitted lead in its fabrication. This enormous lead pollution by-product is not accounted for by proponents of the ebike as a viable, sustainable alternative. And electric bike production is on the increase in China. According to Alastair Russell, electric bicycle production is set to outpace manual bicycle production in China for the first time (with perhaps 35 million new ebikes to be made in 2008). In addition, there is the issue of disposal of all those batteries (be they lead-acid or lithium or some other) after they stop re-charging. From this perspective, the electric bicycle's environmental impact is only negligible when held against that of a fossil fuel-powered vehicle.
The legal requirements for an ebike in Ontario include the following:
- has steering handlebars and is equipped with pedals
- is designed to be propelled primarily by muscular power and to travel on two or three wheels
- has an electric motor with a maximum power of 500 watts and a maximum speed of 32 km/h
- bears a label that is permanently affixed by the manufacturer in a conspicuous location stating, in French and English, that the vehicle is a power-assisted bicycle and meets federal Motor Vehicle Safety regulations
Electric scooters without steering handlebars and pedals are not permitted in bicycle lanes.
6) Bikes continue to outsell cars in Australia
An interesting story from Cyclingnews.com
Australian lobby groups are calling for more government funding for cycling infrastructure, after the release of new figures showing the industry sold more bikes than the car industry did vehicles for the eighth consecutive year in 2007. The nation sold a record 1.47 million bicycles in 2007, compared to 1.04 million cars, while the government is believed to spend $7.5 billion on road related expenditure compared to the $100 million spent on cycling infrastructure.
"Soaring petrol prices, concern over climate change, crippling traffic congestion and the desire to lead healthier lifestyles all contributed to the record breaking year" said Elliot Fishman, policy advisor at the Cycling Promotion Fund. "Not only are Australians buying more bicycles, they are using them in increasing numbers. Cycling has become the fourth most popular physical activity with more than 1.6 million Australian adults cycling in 2006, an increase of 17 percent from 2001."
"Recently released Census figures show that many Australians have rediscovered the bicycle as a great way to commute, with cycling trips to work growing at an average 22 percent across Australian capital cities; with Melbourne soaring 42 percent between 2001 and 2006," added Fishman.
The Cycling Promotion Fund, together with other national cycling organisations and over 60 councils across the country, have called on the Federal Government to adopt its Healthy and Active Transport (HEAT) proposal on the back of the figures. The HEAT programme involves a Commonwealth contribution of $50 million per annum direct to local government for walking and cycling infrastructure projects.
"Australians want to become more active and are looking for practical ways to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions," Rosemarie Speidel, the programme director of the Cycling Promotion Fund said. "Cycling offers an accessible and popular way for people to not only look after their body but also the planet and it is terrific to see so many Australians taking up cycling".
"The challenge is now for all level of Governments to significantly increase funding to improve bicycle infrastructure to make it easier for Australians to make healthy and sustainable choices" concluded Fishman.
7) Ahead in the Bike Lane:
- Coldest Day of the Year Ride - January 30 noon, City Hall, Nathan Phillips Square
The City has a vision for cycling in Toronto and wants you involved in making it happen. Cyclometer is a subscription service of the City of Toronto.
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