Biking in Toronto: The Much Better Way

A few weeks ago, I started commuting by bike to work on a semi-regular basis. And every time I leave the bike to squeeze myself onto the TTC, I regret it. On my bike, I bike with danger. Cars hate me, pedestrians are indifferent to my presence, and I know so little about my bike I rode three times on an open quick release. The only thing between me and an early death is a charmingly awkward helmet which makes me look I have encephalitis. 

And yet - I love it. Here I am, riding down the hill near Dupont and Bathurst. Riding? I meant flying. I am a flying mushroom in my giant grey helmet, look at me go. And yes, there I am lurching off my bike to walk it up a hill, because my legs stubbornly refuse to do that thing where you stand up and ride for extra power. I don't care. Because there I am not: getting a purse to a face on the streetcar, waiting for a bus that will never come, or peeling myself out of somebody's armpit to disembark at St. Andrew station. I support public transit in the same theoretical way I support open relationships and vegan diets. It's a good thing. But it is also a terribly annoying, smelly good thing, at least as implemented in Toronto. 

That Toronto's public transit is craptacular is not an original thought. And yet, an entire industry of TTC-themed swag exists. T-shirts with streetcars on them! Button pins of the subway walls!! Art with more streetcars on it!!! Bus-themed... well, buses get no love because they're buses. And yet, I'm sure I've spoken too soon, and somewhere someone is crocheting a TTC bus to stuff and sell. I refuse to remind myself of what is often the worst part of my day, and so I am left button-less. Though I also don't buy any of the bike-themed tchotchkes either, because I don't feel like I've earned it yet. I'll get the cruiser-printed skirt when I know how to pump air into my own tires.

I guess that makes me a cyclist, though I'll never change in some ways. A few weeks ago an Audi (of course: it's always an Audi or an Acura) really crowded me on Bathurst. When I caught them at a red light, I did not hit their car with my bike lock, or yell, or do anything except tap politely on their window and say - once the driver had rolled it down: "Um, you kind of really crowded me back there, so if you could give cyclists more space next time, that would be nice. Yeah..." And then I biked away, into the day, the mushroom-headed cycling avenger.