CITY VIEWS: Let's reflect on interaction between drivers and cyclists

Michael Bryant won't stand trial for crimes that could put him in jail for decades. Let us all agree, as we get ready to talk about the need for good cycling infrastructure and better interaction between all users of the road, that this is welcome news. Let us all agree troubled bike courier Darcy Allan Sheppard's death, hanging off of Bryant's car last Aug. 31, was a horrific tragedy.

Let us not spend time painting Sheppard as an angry and dangerous thug who stepped into the front lines of the War on the Car and brought on his own death. Let us not make insinuations that Bryant, a former attorney general, was granted improperly special treatment by the Ontario legal system that spared him a trial and possible jail time.

At the same time - let's not avoid thinking about the night Sheppard lost his life, and Bryant's life collapsed, as we talk about how bikes and cars can best interact. That would be dishonest. Because honestly, what happened over 28 seconds that night on Bloor Street is really a nightmare scenario for cyclists and motorists alike.

If there is any purpose to painting bike lanes and sharrows on busy streets - surely it has to be to keep cars and bikes far enough apart to keep things safe for drivers and cyclists. Perhaps not safer for cyclists like Sheppard, who appeared to have been battling demons more personal than insufficient space in a curb lane.

But for the rest of us, just trying to get along - to find space to pedal, and space to use the gas pedal, those lanes create a great deal more comfort.

And there are a lot of people just trying to get along on Toronto roads. On Monday, a bunch of those people will be kicking off Bike Month with an all-points convergence on Nathan Phillips Square.

I'm willing to bet downtown streets at least, will only be a little bit more crowded with bicycles than on a typical spring workday. The two-wheeled commute may not be for everyone, but it is for a growing number of Torontonians. According to a 2009 study by the City of Toronto, 54 per cent of Toronto adults identify themselves as cyclists - up six per cent from 1999, the last time the city studied bikes. And 29 per cent of adult cyclists in Toronto bike for utilitarian purposes like commuting - up nine per cent from 1999. And while most cyclists are, unsurprisingly, from the downtown core, the biggest growth in utilitarian cyclists came from Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough.

Those are significant numbers; any mayor with 54 per cent of the vote on election day is going into office with a strong mandate, and 29 per cent will get you through the door in a balkanized mayor's race like the one we're having now.

This is another reason why we need to think about what happened between Bryant and Sheppard in a very careful way. Because over the past year, rhetoric against this simple transportation mode has so infected the mayor's race the provision of safe cycling infrastructure will likely become a relic of the David Miller era after the fall election. Of all the mayoralty candidates, only two - Sarah Thomson and Joe Pantalone - unabashedly support continued expansion of Toronto's bike lane network.

Indeed, the prevailing mood seems to be bikes and cars simply can't mix. And when we say that, we clearly don't mean bikes should have their own separated lane on the road; the messy defeat of the pilot project to build temporary separated bike lanes for a few blocks on University Avenue demonstrates that very clearly. Bikes should be off useful commuting routes entirely, and those should be given over to cars, transit and pedestrians.

Does the Bryant and Sheppard case bolster that mood? It shouldn't, but you'd be naive to think that it doesn't. Because we can agree all we want, in this column space, not to let this awful event divide us into camps and make us fearful as we talk about safe transportation. But as we head off in our different directions - it's a different matter.