|
T.O.'s
two-wheeled historian
|
Steve Brearton used to think our bike lanes were crowded. Then he
started researching the history of cycling in the city and discovered
how bad it once was
By OLIVER MOORE
Globe and Mail, May 27, 2006
During a typical Toronto rush hour, cyclists and cars can seem like
natural adversaries. But go back to before the Model T, right back to
the reign of Queen Victoria, and you'd still have found squabbles on
the city's streets.
Local cyclists complained then of being crowded out by horse-drawn
coaches (the taxis of the day), pedestrians claimed their lives were in
danger and some riders took over the "devil strip" of paved road
between downtown streetcar tracks.
They faced "some of the same issues [as today]," says Steve Brearton, a
cycling enthusiast and the driving force behind an exhibition on the
history of bicycles in Toronto that launched this week at the Market
Gallery in St. Lawrence Market. "It seems, in many ways, the more
things change, the more they stay the same."
As Mr. Brearton discovered while researching the show, bicycles were
seen as symbols of progress and modernity in the late 19th century.
They were luxury items, but became so popular that it was a golden age
of sorts for riders in this city. People living near major
thoroughfares described the loud humming of tires as massed riders
headed for High Park, where up to 5,000 might congregate on nice
weekends.
At the time, Toronto had a population of less than 200,000.
"As far back as the 1880s, cyclists were fighting for more space on
city streets. . . . It led to complaints on the road, and I think it
was for the most part with pedestrians," says Mr. Brearton, a
40-year-old Cabbagetown resident who has ridden in this city for nearly
two decades.
The exhibition, which includes a mix of vintage bicycles, posters,
memorabilia and ephemera that illustrate what Mr. Brearton calls the
"larger issues" facing cyclists then and now, shows that there's
nothing new about battles over proper use of the streets.
In the late 19th century, there were rancorous disputes on the road,
Mr. Brearton notes. Early bike thieves were operating and Torontonians
were already exhibiting threatening behaviour that will seem
depressingly familiar to some modern riders.
The exhibition records squabbles in 1881 between cyclists and the
"hackmen" who drove coaches, the latter accused of wielding their
horse-drawn vehicles like weapons, "driving bicyclists onto the rough
parts of the road."
For their part, some 19th-century pedestrians deplored cyclists as a
menace to life and limb. But because bicycles cost several months'
wages for a skilled worker, they were associated with the moneyed set:
cyclists counted among their ranks the upper-middle class of society,
the people who wrote the laws of the day. And for women, they
represented a form of emancipation.
"Certainly there was a very successful lobby on behalf of cyclists,"
Mr. Brearton says. "But there was also this belief that the bicycle was
completely linked to progress and prosperity, so city fathers were keen
to foster that . . . [the bicycle] was going to enable progress, drive
industry and help society."
By 1899, an estimated one-quarter of workers in the business core were
commuting by bicycle. Prices had come way down and the influence of the
bicycle revolution was being widely felt. It was because of the
burgeoning number of cyclists that many streets were paved, roadside
signs were improved (or installed) and the Highway Traffic Act created,
Mr. Brearton says.
That influence has not been seen since, he adds, in part because the
bicycle came to be seen as a toy for children during the mid-20th
century, automatically replaced with a car when the magic age of 16 was
reached. It hasn't helped that "cycling is essentially a solitary
pursuit" and that riders haven't been able to mobilize effectively.
"The reality is that there's a million different kinds of cyclists in
this city," he says. "It's not an effective lobby group, it's not a
group that politicians either fear or believe can deliver a lot of
votes come election time."
Discouraging words from a veteran cycle commuter who has worked with
the activist group Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists and sat on the
board of the Community Bicycle Network. But he acknowledges that there
have been improvements.
The early green movement of the 1960s and 70s, coupled with oil shocks,
helped focus attention on alternative methods of transport.
Fast-forward a generation and, Mr. Brearton argues, similar factors
have placed the pre-eminence of the automobile in an increasingly
precarious situation. And the legitimacy of cycling has grown even as
the city's cycling infrastructure gradually improved.
"When John Sewell became a councillor, he got a lot of criticism for
riding his bicycle to work, people said it was disrespectful and so
on," he notes.
"When you were riding a bike 15 years ago in the city, I wouldn't say
it was lonely, but there weren't many people out there. Now, there
[are] a lot of bikes on the road, and it's not just university students
who can't afford a car. It's people who make a conscious effort to ride
a bike in the Toronto core."
Mr. Brearton is one of them, having cycled for transportation since
relocating from Ottawa in 1987. He doesn't have a driver's licence, but
does have seven bicycles and plans to tow his two young sons around in
a trailer. And while he is happy to talk about the practical, economic,
health and environmentally conscious reasons to cycle, he also believes
that adults react viscerally to the feel of the wind on their face.
They start to pedal and remember fondly the freedom they felt after
learning to ride as children.
"My real belief is that people just rediscovered the joy of riding
their own bike," he says. "What it comes down to is the sheer
unadulterated joy of riding a bike. It's one of the best memories of
being a kid. You remember pulling away from your dad and leaving him
behind."
|
|
