HERE’S ANOTHER POLITICIAN ‘WITH HIS HEAD IN THE SAND’

When the mayor says cycling is ‘the future,’ he should wake up,

Even before Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne announced her ridiculous subsidy increase for electric cars, Toronto Mayor John Tory joined in the transportation lunacy, being quoted as saying that cycling is “. . . the way of the future’’ for Toronto.

We have to find a way to get our politicians out of the back seats of their chauffeured limousines and into the real world that you and I drive in. Cycling? The “way of the future?” Not a cyclist’s chance in a Formula One race.

If Mayor Tory would maybe drive the Gardiner or the 401during “rush hour,” which these days is pretty much any time between midnight and 11:59 p.m., he would see approximately zero bicycles.

According to a recent article in the Telegraph of London, Eng., Hwy. 401 is currently the busiest highway in the world. In. The. WORLD. Not a bicycle to be seen. OK, so maybe we shouldn’t have built our city the way we did. But we did. Sure, we should have built more subways and rapid transit lines. But we didn’t. And we should build more — even if now we can barely afford the cost.

But to think that bicycles are ever going to be anything but a minuscule percentage of our daily vehicular traffic is to live in a Lewis Carroll Alice in Wonderland fantasy.

Sure, we have had a milder winter than usual. Still, how many cyclists did you see pedalling up the Avenue Rd. hill toward St. Clair Ave. the day after Valentine’s Day, when the temperature was about minus 30 on the wind-chill scale? Exactly.

I do not hate bicycles. I do not hate cyclists. I used to ride my bike through Rosedale from my house in Leaside when I taught summer school at Ryerson back in the day.

But given Toronto’s weather, its landscape — we are a city of ravines — and its spread-out nature, cycling will never, ever, be an option for the vast majority of commuters.

Cycling advocates say Montreal is even colder but has a better bicycle infrastructure than we do. Maybe so. But Mount Royal notwithstanding, Montreal is a lot flatter. And the city is more concentrated.

That said, check out any of the major arteries in that city during rush hour. Wall-to-wall cars.

Cycling might be an option for the lucky handful who live in Liberty Village and work 10 minutes away. But for the 99 per cent? Not a chance.

Even those “lucky” 1-per-centres have to hope they don’t get smucked by a vehicle. True, such smucking is likely not to be the cyclist’s fault.

But that always reminds me of an epitaph I learned from my Grade 10 history teacher. Ernie Brown:

Here lies the body of Jonathan Wray,

Who died defending his right of way.

He was right, dead right, as he cycled along,

But he’s just as dead as if he’d been wrong.

We still kill more pedestrians and motorists on Toronto roads than we do cyclists. But any interaction between a cyclist and, well, anything else (car, telephone pole, curb) is much more likely to end in tears than, say, a vehicle-to-vehicle interaction.

I really don’t have all that much against building a better cycling infrastructure for the valiant handful who want to ride their bikes.

Other than that it is probably a gross misappropriation of scarce taxpayer dollars dedicated to a tiny — if, admittedly — very vocal minority.

But please Your Worship, keep some perspective on this.

Cycling is not — I repeat, not — and never will be — I repeat, never will be — “the way of the future” for the city of Toronto. Full stop. (Hopefully, not against the back of a bus . . . ) Freelance writer Jim Kenzie is Chief Auto Reviewer for Toronto Star Wheels. To reach him, email wheels@thestar.ca and put his name in the subject line.