Relief from grid-lock not just about tolls
71% of people in the GTA are dependent on the automobile. This is one of the highest rates of automobile dependency in the OECD; this grid-lock costs our economy up to $3 billion annually.
Spacing.ca summarized articles on a report from the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in their Nov 11 wire. Perhaps led by newspaper headlines, Spacing.ca took a one-dimensional view of this massive problem, offering only information surrounding toll roads. Toll Roads, being just one of many solutions, was even the section title.
We should not miss the point here. There are many, many solutions to traffic grid-lock, not the least of which includes proper investment in public transit and bicycle lanes.
Hopefully the study will lead to implementation of bold and creative solutions. In the meantime, each of us should make daily decisions to ensure our own personal productivity by choosing bicycle commuting, public transit, time-shifting and telecommuting.
Emission Economy: “Ontario will love new emission controls”
A thought provoking article in Now magazine on climate change and economic prosperity.
Thanks to TD Bank Financial Group for providing funding for this project.
The report is available here.
Please share this with others.
Air Canada – you’re not quite getting it
It’s time to reconsider your policy, just like Jet Blue as reported by BikePortland.
The corporation is just too big to apply common sense, to properly communicate within, and is indifferent to what travellers really think. It’s not the issue that bicycles are green transport and as such, should be encouraged and welcomed. Air Canada is missing the key point here. They have a policy, appropriate for conventional bicycles that requires the passenger to pay a $50 fee to cover the cost of handling that unwieldly bicycle. When it comes to bikes which fold up smaller than a snowboard, that do not require any special handling, the fee should simply not apply. Indeed, it often does not.
I have traveled on Air Canada with my Strida folding bike many times. Customarily I pay no fee, drop my Strida’s carry bag on the belt and pick it off the carousel on the other end, much like I do for many other items. Occasionally, when I have been told there is a charge for bicycles, I have had a discussion with the ticket agent in which I compare the Strida folding bike to many other items Air Canada accepts from me and thousands of others every day without a fee. Each time so far, I have not had to pay the fee.
A few weeks ago Yvonne Bambrick, Executive Director of the Toronto Cyclist’s Union, took a Strida folding bike to San Francisco on Air Canada. There was no fee requested on the flight down, but the $50 fee was insisted upon on the return flight.
Read some of the details of Toronto writer Lloyd Alter’s experience with, and impression of Air Canada’s policy in this Financial Post article. Lloyd Alter has stitched together a summary of the saga.
Interestingly while typing this post, I received two email messages from Air Canada offering me 15,000 bonus miles as part of a current marketing campaign to keep us all flying with them.
