Protesters vs. Police PR

The Media offered us the standard coverage to statements from the world leadership that recently assembled for the enormously costly and disruptive Toronto G20 Summit proceedings in Toronto.  Sadly, the events surrounding these closed meetings have largely overshadowed the positive spin attached to any such hollow pronouncements, and have actually done far more to damage our social fabric than any amount of new fiscal policy could ever repair.

Even after the fallout from those widely broadcasted and curiously unattended police car fires has settled back to the ground where nothing now remains but the street-stains, it’s become increasingly clear that only certain segments of the mainstream media can be expected to question the status quo, and remark that the Police actually did the most damage to our mild-mannered city not only by failing to keep the peace and apprehending a very conspicuous minority of vandals during their detestably destructive crime spree, but more importantly in visibly perpetrating almost all of the  the actual physical violence against our primarily peaceful assemblies of unarmed and passive Citizenry.  While thugs appeared to have free reign of the streets,

Photo by Michael Talbot, CityNews.ca

Why Rack It and Rocket ?

Even though the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) was glad to announce that 91% of its buses will now be equipped with bike racks for this Summer, anybody on the streets can tell you that even the existing racks really aren’t being used much at all as it is, and any new racks will likely be seen the same way by the Public. Unfortunately the adoption rate for this service hasn’t been as quick nor high as proponents might have hoped for in this first year, and the Media and PR efforts to promote the service have been politely neutral…at best. To make things worse, this well intentioned initiative has even been getting some rather negative publicity as we’ve recently seen, where certain members of the Press Corps would rather persecute the plan during it’s tricky adoption phase, rather than proactively promoting and encouraging the more widespread understanding and use of the racks as they become a permanent feature right across the entire system. This effectively leaves most people to find their own reasons for adopting this service.

So let’s have a go at it here…

Bikes on Buses are a PR Bust

Just recently, the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) was glad to announce that 91% of its buses will soon be equipped with bike racks for this Summer, and despite how little they may actually be getting used, during this ongoing and surprisingly slow adoption phase, the TTC remains upbeat on the service. At just over $2 million for the upgrade, most Cyclists and Mass Transit proponents consider this a pretty economical way to encourage new ‘multi-modal’ Ridership for years to come. Yet even the most positive pundits would likely have presumed that this initiative had already shown sufficient feasibility to proceed to this level of service though, so many people are wondering why the TTC has installed these racks right across their entire fleet before showing some early success on key routes.  Most people didn’t even realize that Toronto had bike racks until they started seeing them for themselves. The resulting question then, is why has the adoption rate for this service been so sluggish to during this period? Is this simply a mishandled piece of Public Relations?

Obviously, the hardcore Cycling Commuters aren’t going to trade in their winter tires for metropasses, and all the existing TTC Riders probably won’t suddenly swayed into taking a bike along with them on their regular daily commute just for kicks. Yet surely there are all sorts of new possibilities and benefits that this service opens up for consideration, even though we’re left to find these for ourselves. At the very least, these Bike Racks would appear to be a simple and (relatively) economical way to either draw more Riders into the transit fold, or benefit current users with the option to cycle in or away from their first or last stop, all while laying some basic groundwork for the future of grass-roots growth in Transit ridership overall….So what’s the holdup in moving ahead with it?

Is there an issue with Public Perceptions?
Or does the problem start down at the source of most Mainstream Media Content nowadays ?

A Pedestrian’s Prerogatives?

In a Perfect World ?!?

From the very outset, let’s be perfectly clear… Pedestrians on our city streets are assured the inalienable and basic human right to safe and secure access to our public spaces…Except when this access encroaches upon the open roadways, and contrary to traffic laws of course. The key issue here is the assurance of the Personal Responsibility required from all road users in assuring the protection of each other and ourselves. So if everyone is keeping public safety first in mind, then many other issues can more easily fall into place by default…Especially if we could evolve some of our traffic flow protocols along the way, once we can assure that the basics are being properly respected!

So what we’d like to consider here are not ways to limit the free reign that Pedestrians enjoy at Green lights (and sometimes abuse, just like any others on the road), but rather how Pedestrians can be more aware and participative in contributing to the smooth flow of traffic when things get abit tricky. Thus making our streets safer for everyone.

Of course we’ll be looking at this from the Cyclists point of view, and focusing on the one tool that we have to communicate danger to Pedestrians by learning to use our bike bells in a way that Pedestrians can appreciate, and respond more positively to…Perhaps from there maybe even considering a few basic signals as well

Ringing Around the World

Forever Bicycles, Ai Weiwei – Nuit Blanche 2013

Bike bells are almost as universal as car horns, but there are still some rather peculiar differences in how they’re both used and perceived all around the world. Considering how useless they are amidst heavy automotive traffic, it seems that bells are really only useful (at least marginally) for alerting Pedestrians according to what we discovered under Bike Bell Protocols. Not surprisingly, there are differences in these protocols around the world, and they aren’t limited to just how bells are used, but also in how people react to being dinged by a bell…So let’s take a quick world tour, and see what lessons we can bring back.

Protocols: Bike Bells

Personally, I quite like the sound of those tinkly little bell’s on kids bikes, but if we’re talking about cycling through urban road traffic, bike bells are pretty damned-well near useless when it comes to getting the attention of a hermetically sealed Motorist. They do however serve a (somewhat flawed) purpose with other Cyclists and Pedestrians, but since the results and reactions are so unpredictable, perhaps we could all benefit from a better shared understanding of what we can realistically expect from the use of bike bells, and how they can still serve to raise awareness, despite the risks of just adding to the overall confusion…

Car Commandments

As we discussed previously ( “Us and Them” ), there are many factions in Politics and the Press who’d prefer to dwell on the ‘differences’ between people, and try to inflate, leverage, and exploit any of the contentious issues that arise in order to further their own immediate agendas. In an effort to try and close the various rifts that can form between Motorists and Cyclists, perhaps we could all take a wider perspective, and look for the common values that will benefit all Commuters and Travelers alike, regardless of their chosen mode of transport.

In terms of how we use our roadways, we could all stand to learn and apply better protocols, and learn to appreciate traffic flow from a more socially functional  point of view. In an effort to develop values that can be applied evenly across the road, and thus help smooth out traffic flow patterns and problems for everyone, let’s look at some cultures that have embraced both Cycling and Automobiles.  Not surprisingly, we can look to European culture for examples of this duality, and although the French, British, and of course the Germans have all been instrumental in the development of both 4 and  two-wheeled transport, it’s clear that Italian automotive history and bicycle technology have played an undeniable role in forming a worldwide Culture that has advanced both of these pursuits to an Artform, with their panache, passion, and an undeniable sense of style…