“You’re nervous when there’s no bike lanes. At least I was. We have to do everything we can to make sure three’s never a death in the city. One death is way too many when it comes to bicycle riders.

•        Doug Ford TVO, 2017

  
  

Fast forward to September 2024, and Premier Ford has launched an us vs them campaign against people on bikes across the province, particularly aimed at his perceived fiefdom Etobicoke/Bloor West. What’s changed? Aside from conditions supporting the need for more bike lanes; namely a climate emergency, high cost of living, congestion, etc., growing each day, maybe it’s a government tired of being bit by corruption scandal after corruption scandal. A government without real ideas to combat ER wait times, a faltering education system and of course wild gridlock across the GTHA.

Culture War

We submit that instead of addressing real provincial concerns, the Premier and his team (who are incredibly adept at deflection and speaking to his perceived bases of support) are using bike lanes to divide road users and hit home talking points that they know play with suburban voters they are trying to pry away from Bonnie Crombie. It’s easier to rile those folks up about a hot topic (but comparable non-issue) than address the crippling congestion those same voters face on the 401. Of course, beyond offering them a tunnel (which as soon as the media allure ran out around that Ford was back to bashing bike lanes).

Despite Ford’s repeated anti-bike lane rants, CBC and others have done a fantastic job fact checking the Premier and his cronies’ claims against bike lanes:

• EMS vehicles are not delayed by bike lanes in getting folks to emergency rooms as confirmed by the City of Toronto’s EMS leads.

• There is not a petition of 50,000 people against the bike lanes on Bloor. It’s more like 13,000 who’ve signed over several years now and Cycle Toronto’s petition in support of bike lanes is approaching that number in just weeks.

• Bike lanes are good for business! They boost sales in areas they are installed, attract higher spending clientele, can increase property values, and even attract talented work forces. 

• Bike lanes do not increase congestion, they move people around more efficiently, create safer driving routes (less collisions, less congestion), and get people out of single occupancy motor vehicle, which actually are the cause of congestion.

• Side streets are not the answer. Unconnected segments of bike lanes that force cyclists to take circuitous routes on various side streets will not encourage people to get out of their cars and onto bikes;

  
  

Though facts should prevail, as lawyers for injured cyclists across Ontario, we are deeply concerned about the Premier and Ontario PC government’s floated plans to attack people on bikes through legislation halting bike lane development.

As people on bikes this year have been killed in staggering numbers, it seems odd and we suspect painful for the loved ones of those lost, to hear of plans to decrease cyclist safety rather than plans from the government to increase penalties for those that kill and maim on our roads [Vulnerable Road User Legislation].

In just one month’s time, we have seen cyclists killed in Belleville, Toronto, Guelph, Elora area, and Niagara. This is to say nothing of the many pedestrians and motorist killed and injured across the province each week.

Why then attack bike lanes and the Ontarians that use them? The Premier himself when on a bicycle confirmed how much safer he felt in a bike lane [TVO Blind Date segment w Jagmeet Singh].

Sadly, it’s not just the Premier, his Ministers of Transportation and Sport have begun attacking bike lanes for political gain too.

In September, on Rowan’s Law Day, a day to raise awareness of concussions, Minister of Sport Neil Lumsden when asked whether he should for the sake of preventing head injuries tell his government to build more bike lanes, said rather that cyclists should use helmets and common sense (as reported by Émilie Gougeon-Pelletier).

Reporter: Wouldn’t you agree barriers around bike lanes prevent brain injuries?

Minister of Sport: That’s an assumption.

Reporter: If there aren’t no bike lane barriers brain injuries won’t go up?

Minister of Sport: I haven’t got the science to back that statement up.

Minister Lumsden had the audacity to say this in front of his co-presenter Eric Lindros, who’s remarkable hockey career was cut short due to concussions he sustained, while being a helmeted hockey player.

As lawyers for a terrifying number of cyclists with head injuries, including concussions, we know that bike helmets are not designed for impacts with motor vehicles.

Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria wrote a piddling opinion piece in the Toronto Star about congestion and how his government’s grand solution was opposing bike lanes.

Minister Sarkaria admitted in his “opinion piece” that he gets in his (single occupancy) car in Brampton and then faces traffic all the way to Queen’s Park. Instead of addressing the congestion along the 2-3 400 series highways he takes into work, he goes after bike lane development on Avenue Road…where 3 cyclists have been killed due in part to the lack of safe infrastructure on that major throughway for Torontonians.

Minister Sarkaria doesn’t say why he chooses to drive instead of taking the GO and TTC. Perhaps most poignantly put by Greg Lehman on X:

Dude from Brampton wants to tell Torontonians how to create our streets. He doesn’t contribute to our municipal tax base. Not sure why he gets a say. He is the traffic problem.

Ontarians must see these bike lane attacks for what they are. A tool to distract us from the real problems pressing this province. Congestion is a very real and very costly concern for the GTHA, but not permitting a bike lane on the 401 isn’t going to ease the flow of traffic there. Even in Toronto, most will recognize that it is the sheer number of cars on the roads, ok, and maybe the baffling number of construction projects, that are actually creating gridlock.

In many of our cases, incidents of serious collision and injury, even death, could have been avoided with safe protected infrastructure. There can be no reasonable, factual, or statistical justification for impeding the provision of safe infrastructure. There are no studies to show bike lanes cause traffic. There are studies that show they keep people safe, and alive.

We do know that safe infrastructure, like bike lanes, is critical to remove conflict and collision points between road users.

Just like health care, education, housing and the environment, and now road safety (yes we are in a road safety crisis), we recognize it is easier to use divisive issues like bike lanes to wedge people apart. It is easier to distract voters from government corruption allegations and investigations. It is easier to distract than to take bold steps to address issues of great concern and profound impact on our society.

However, we must demand more from our elected officials and hold them to account when they fail to address the many pressing issues of concern for Ontarians.

Join your local cycling advocacy group and encourage your municipal leaders in towns and cities across Ontario to oppose Doug Ford’s upcoming legislation.

Sign the Cycle Toronto petition in support of bike lanes province wide.

Strength in numbers, so please raise your voice friends.

#thebikinglawyer #thecyclinglawyer #cyclinglaw #cyclinglawyer #bikelawyer not a #bikeaccident #bikecrash #carcrash #ontario #hamilton #toronto #london #ottawa  #kitchener #windsor #waterloo #guelph #backonthebike #backontrack #insurance #bikeinsurance #ridesafe #rulesoftheroad #safestreets #ridetogether bike accident lawyer

Carpentopod is a walking coffee table, designed and built by Netherlands-based game developer Giliam de Carpentier. Inspired to improve upon Theo Jansen's Strandbeests, Carpentier wrote software to generate leg linkage mechanisms, then have them virtually compete against each other. Through evolution, the end result was a leg design optimized for smoothness of gait, walking speed and material usage.

That was back in 2008. In the years since, Carpentier has picked up physical building skills as well as a CNC machine. He decided to combine his interests and create a practical piece of furniture that could walk.

The resultant twelve-legged design is made from laminated bamboo plywood, steel shafts, ball bearings and two aluminum crankshafts. The motive force is provided by two brushless motors designed to drive automated curtains. An Arduino board ties everything together, and the table is driven remotely by joystick.

After the project went live on his website this month, people starting asking Carpentier if they could purchase his linkages. Rather than produce them himself, he's made their design open-source:

Here it is in action:

It moves a lot smoother than I'd thought it would!

Enlarge / Ticketmaster advertisements in the United States v. South Africa women's soccer match at Soldier Field on September 24, 2023 in Chicago, Illinois. (credit: Getty Images | Daniel Bartel/ISI Photos/USSF)

The US government today sued Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary in a complaint that seeks a breakup of the company that dominates the live music and events market.

The US Department of Justice is seeking "structural relief," including a breakup, "to stop the anticompetitive conduct arising from Live Nation's monopoly power." The DOJ complaint asked a federal court to "order the divestiture of, at minimum, Ticketmaster, along with any additional relief as needed to cure any anticompetitive harm."

The District of Columbia and 29 states joined the DOJ in the lawsuit filed in US District Court for the Southern District of New York. "One monopolist serves as the gatekeeper for the delivery of nearly all live music in America today: Live Nation, including its wholly owned subsidiary Ticketmaster," the complaint said.

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One of the most beloved trilogies of all time is coming back to Canadian cinemas.

On Wednesday, Cineplex revealed that the Extended Editions of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King will all play in its theatres starting June 7th. As the name suggests, these versions of the Peter Jackson-directed films will have significantly more footage.

Check below for the links for showtimes for each movie. Note that they're playing in different theatres on different days.

• The Fellowship of the Ring (June 7th, 12th, 13th and 22nd)
• The Two Towers (June 9th, 15th and 23rd)
• The Return of the King (June 11th, 16th and 24th)

This comes after Warner Bros. announced last month that the Extended Edition trilogy would return to U.S. theatres in June. It also follows the re-release of a variety of classic films this year, including Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, The Mummy (starring Toronto's Brendan Fraser) and Ridley Scott's original Alien.

Image credit: Warner Bros.

Source: Cineplex

Etienne Constable of Seaside, California is a boat owner. It's parked on a trailer in his driveway, in plain view. The city government informed Constable that this was illegal; the boat would need to be visually concealed behind a six-foot visual barrier.

Constable complied and had a six-foot gate built. Then he hired a local muralist, Hanif Panni, to adorn it:

Constable is now technically in compliance with local codes.

Images of the mural went viral, and according to KSBW News, "Panni says other Seaside residents have already asked for him to create murals for their boat fences."

This is the strangest invention story I've ever heard.

In May 1930, a young couple from Carmel, California vanished during their honeymoon. William H. Albee, a 23-year-old geologist and his 20-year-old bride Ruth, had decided to hike from Vancouver, Canada, to Fairbanks, Alaska on foot. They each had a backpack full of provisions and a rifle, and brought a dog that also carried provisions. They were cautioned against the endeavor by both local police and trappers, but Albee, a capable outdoorsman, disregarded the warnings.

Image: UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections, CC. 4.0

By June the Canadian police had organized search parties, and various newspapers began following the story. Headlines ranged from "Newlywed Carmel Pair Feared Lost in Canada" to the eventual "Honeymooners Perish," after the police searches turned up nothing. Though no bodies were found, the Dawson Daily News reported the Albees "were believed to have perished in an isolated area from cold or starvation."

Image: Dubuque Telegraph Herald And Times Journal, June 26, 1930, p 4

By October, it was revealed the Albees were alive--and still trekking. A letter from William reached his parents, explaining that they'd gotten lost and run out of provisions after five weeks, but had survived for the past month by eating meat from moose that they'd hunted. The adventure was still on.

By 1932 the Albees were living in Fairbanks, where they gave birth to a son. Before long, they resumed trekking.

Eventually they hiked all the way to an Inuit settlement on the Bering Strait. Settling down in the Inuit community, the Albees found employment as teachers, and had a second child.

While hanging with the Inuits, William witnessed some of their indigenous ingenuity:

He watched a fishing party reach shore with a boat loaded up with an estimated 4 tons of catch. Rather than unloading the fish, the Inuits produced a number  of bladders made of sealskin—essentially giant blubbery balloons. They lashed these to the bottom of the boat, pulled it ashore, and were able to drag the heavy boat up a rocky slope, as it essentially floated across the terrain on the tough bladders.

By 1935, the Albees, now with two kids, returned to California. In 1937 the couple co-wrote a book about their five-year adventure, titled "Alaska Challenge." It was published in 1940.

William subsequently began working on an invention based on the sealskin bladders he'd seen. By the early 1950s, he'd produced what he called the Rolligon. It was a gigantic bag-like tire, made not of sealskin, but rubber and fabric. The invention attracted military interest, and William had a fabricator in Stockton, California fit out a Dodge Power Wagon with Rolligon wheels. They were low-pressure, inflated with just 2 to 6 p.s.i., and were soft enough to run over a human being. Both William (and I assume Ruth, in the color photo, see below) were happy to demonstrate this.

Running people over without crushing them aside, the real value of the invention was its ability to easily cross difficult terrain. Here's the Army testing a Rolligon-equipped vehicle in 1953:

Same video but with narration:

The Army found the concept promising enough to try it on a jeep:

Image: Popular Science, June 1953

The vehicle modifications were expensive to produce, and with the Korean War winding down, the Army didn't have a huge need. Albee managed to keep his Rolligon company going until 1960, but eventually sold it.

Today the Rolligon trademark is owned by National Oilwell Varco, a Texas-based company that produces machinery for the oil and gas industry. The special tire is well-suited for heavy vehicles that travel the tundra.

While the original Inuit sealskin invention was used to haul fish in a zero-emissions way, today the Rolligon tire is used to transport oil- and gas-harvesting vehicles across Arctic terrain. Kind of a tragic twist.

Image: Nick Bonzey, CC BY-SA 2.0