EDITOR’S NOTE: Spacing Votes — our dedicated 2010 election blog — will feature regular posts form our contributors that examine campaign promises and platforms that focus on Toronto’s urban landscape. Here’s our round-up of posts from the last seven days. • In an exclusive interview with Spacing, George Smitherman sat down to discuss cycling. (Ford’s team has declined to interview at present time on transit in general, until they announce their transportation platform). In the interview, Smitherman notes that cycling is rightfully a hot topic on the campaign trail as Toronto continues to be “more challenging to get around.” Smitherman didn’t note any concrete plans for cyclists, but implied that transportation (and by virtue, bike lanes) needs to be thought about deeply before action is taken. For Smitherman, it’s a “pursuit of quality over quantity.” • It’s been a busy week for Rob Ford. His name has littered headlines and even trended for the majority of yesterday on Twitter. Last weekend, before the now-notorious comment on immigration in Toronto, a Ford video went viral. Captured in 2007 in city hall, Ford opined on bike lanes in the city. His take: “What I compare bike lanes to is swimming with the sharks. Sooner or later you’re going to get bitten.” He then went on to say that Toronto’s streets aren’t for bikes, they’re for motor vehicles. And in the case of a cyclist casualty, Ford remarked: “It’s their own faults at the end of the day.”

Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues. • A report released Monday by the New York City Department of Transportation paints a fascinating picture of pedestrian safety. The study examined over 7000 crashes between 2002 and 2006 resulting in death or serious injury and yields some startling statistics. "Jaywalkers were involved in fewer collisions than their law-abiding counterparts who waited for the “walk” sign, though they were likelier to be killed or seriously hurt by the collision." "80 percent of city accidents that resulted in a pedestrian’s death or serious injury, a male driver was behind the wheel." "[L]eft-hand turns were three times as likely to cause a deadly crash as right-hand turns." "[T]hree-quarters of the crashes occurred [at intersections". As the New York Times reports, the study is providing a quantitative basis for the city to continue its program of re-engineering the street grid. • Portland, Oregon is the proud owner of new and improved bike wayfinding signs. The green signs feature distances and directions and travel times to popular destinations. Residents can thank a $1 million federal stimulus grant for the improvement, says Bikeportland.org

EDITOR’S NOTE: Spacing Votes — our dedicated 2010 election blog — will feature regular posts form our contributors that examine campaign promises and platforms that focus on Toronto’s urban landscape. Here’s our round-up of posts from the last seven days. • In our continuing look at each candidate's take on transit, we turn the glaring spotlight on Rocco Rossi. He's the man championing the expensive, yet possibly quite convenient Presto cards. They are the same cards that are piloting with GO Transit and other regional transit operations. And Rossi is pushing hard for the smartcards, which, he argues, will reduce fraud and save the TTC millions in revenue collection savings. • The bike vs. cars debate continues onward. As the Jarvis Street bike lanes are now officially open to cyclists, mayoral candidates are still voicing their distaste for the street's transformation. This would namely be Rocco Rossi and George Smitherman. The latter who told Spacing Votes: "I kind of regret how the whole thing has played out" concerning the bike lanes. If Rossi is elected mayor, he has vowed that he will strip the freshly-laid bike lane paint and change things back to as they were.

It’s not often that candidates for City Council are given the opportunity to run without an incumbent in the ward. This year there are eight wards with seats ripe for the picking. This post is the first in a series on the candidates in these contested wards, and the key issues in the neighbourhoods they seek to represent. Ward 19 – Trinity / Spadina From Dupont to the lake, Dovercourt to Christie above Bloor, and Dovercourt to Bathurst below Bloor, this ward covers the Christie Dovercourt, Grace Dovercourt, Liberty Village, Little Italy, Niagara, Fort York, Palmerston, Queen West and Trinity Bellwoods neighbourhoods, and was home to almost 50,000 people in 2006 according to the latest Census. The Candidates: With Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone running for mayor, his seat at City Council is up for grabs; enticing quite a diverse group of candidates to show interest in doing a better job. Mike Layton, the candidate endorsed by Pantalone, aims to follow his father into city politics — in the ward represented federally by his step-mother, Olivia Chow. But Layton, who has a BA in political science and masters in environmental studies with a focus on urban planning, says that it’s not his familial relations that will win him the election. “It’s going to be me meeting people and creating a relationship with them and building trust,” he told Spacing. “It’s not going to be my name, it’s going to be the relationship that I’m going to grow within the next 80 days.” Running against this political offspring is Sean McCormick. He’s known to sports fans as the host of SportsNet’s Connected, a job which he left to campaign for council full-time. McCormick says that he was so tired of complaining about the way tax money was being spent and decisions were being made that he felt he needed to do something about it. He says that he wants to be a part of the change that Toronto needs. Also running is Karen Sun, the executive director of the Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto Chapter for the last four years. With over 10 years experience in environmental organizations, she promises to endorse sustainability and the enhancement of public parks and spaces.

• There is a tradition amongst cycling advocates around the world to attach a "ghost bike" — every part of it painted solid white — to a light pole or bike rack in order to memorialize the death of a cyclist near that location. New York City is considering a law that would allow the city to remove these bikes. • The Guardian reports, "Much has been written about a war between cyclists and drivers, as if the two groups were such polar opposites that they could never cross in a Venn diagram. But according to new research, people who cycle the most are likely to own at least two cars." • High-speed rail is a hot topic south of the border, especially along the densely populated east coast. The Philadelphia Inquirer has compiled a handful of their articles on the topic into one easy-to-read section. • "The controversial Cincinnati streetcar plan may have made its final political stop at City Hall on Wednesday, when City Council authorized moving ahead with $108 million in grants and bonds for a project that has dominated civic debate for the past three years. In a series of 5-3 votes mirroring the action of council's budget committee earlier this week, council gave city administrators approval to proceed with $44 million in grants and $64 million in bonds that will finance most of the Downtown-to-Uptown streetcar line's $128 million first phase."

If you're like me, you're now imagining how cool it would be to have a personal Asimo to ride doubles with, or at the least, a scrolling, handlebar-mounted red light with the voice of William Daniels. It doesn't look like Apple's ready to go that far yet, but on August 5th, Apple filed a patent for what is being called the first "smart bike". The smart bike system seems to be the cycling version of Nike + iPod. Pretty much what anyone outside of the hype-0-sphere calls a "bike computer". But we all know Apple won't just put out some lame John Hodgman bike computer that only tells you how you're going too fast or aren't exercising enough. Think 'Mac Bike Pro'.

Toronto bike riders can celebrate a "first" today: the City has converted two car parking spots into parking for a minimum of 16 bikes. Here is a little background on how it happened. Last year after I returned from a month-long trip to Scandinavia — where I witnessed a variety of amazing bike infrastructure projects —  I was determined to see if any of them could be implemented here in Toronto. One of the easiest things, I figured, was the conversion of a few car parking spots into bike parking. Montreal had done it a few years back and I saw other examples in cities like Vancouver, New York and Portland. A year ago, there were six ring-and-post bike racks in front of Spacing's office on Spadina that could hold up to 12 bikes, yet a survey conducted by our landlord, the Centre For Social Innovation, determined that 75% of tenants rode their bike to our building in the summer. That meant there was a demand for 150 bike parking spots near our building. While the landlord provided bike parking in our building for about 30 bikes, there was still a significant shortage of spots available on the sidewalk for a few blocks. Cyclists were parking to stop signs, support wires for light poles, the pipes of water mains, the scaffolding attached to our building for much of the summer, and any other thing you could fit a lock through.

CHECK OUT TODAY'S SUMMER SHORTS ON SPACING RADIO Lights? Check. Pumped tires? Check. Helmet? Check. Okay, so many of us don't need to literally make a checklist every time we head off on our bicycles, but knowing how to dress appropriately, how to select a two-wheeler, as well as, some fun facts about the history of cycling can be key to a successful ride. And the younger we are when we learn these lessons the better. Reporter Andrew Walsh met up with author Laura ...

A couple of floors above the sidewalk but avoiding the summit. Street Scene will appear each week showcasing the illustrations of local artist Jerry Waese.

This new, regular feature will offer up an idea for how to improve Toronto's public spaces. Some of the concepts discussed will have implementation examples from elsewhere in the world, and others will be as yet untested. Each post will conclude with a question to lead off what we hope will be a lively discussion in the comments section about the idea. Bike lanes continue to be a controversial topic in Toronto. Mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi has vowed to relegate bike lanes to side streets and back alleys, while fellow candidate George Smitherman is blowing the whistle on the issue and calling for a "time out" on Toronto’s bike lane plans. Jarvis Street has become the proxy war zone for the city’s bike lane battle, where car lovers and bike lovers alike can throw in their two cents about the issue. Not to mention the Paula Fletcher voting debacle at City Council, which cost the city a much-needed dedicated bike lane on University Avenue. But as the battle over bike lanes goes on, it’s time to look for some tangible ways of improving cyclist safety in Toronto. Portland, Oregon installed blue bike lanes at intersections over a decade ago in an effort to improve cyclist safety (see signage above). The coloured bike lanes span intersections where there are conflicts between cyclist and motorist rights-of-way. A 2003 City of Toronto study reported that the majority of bike-car collisions in Toronto occur at intersections where the motorist is performing a turning maneuver. The Portland blue bike lanes project has shown that cyclists feel 50% safer biking on the coloured anes. Further results show there has been a 20% increase in motorists yielding for cyclists due to visibility and awareness. A similar study conducted in Denmark found that coloured bike lanes reduced bike-car collisions by 38% and reduced fatalities and serious injuries by 71%.