Activist Profile: Gil Penalosa

Gil Penalosa runs the not-for-profit Walk and Bike for Life in Port Credit, Ontario and is one of the world’s leading bicycle infrastructure consultants. He’s also an excellent public speaker and recently gave the keynote address to an active audience at the Carfree Portland conference, this summer. You can listen to it here.

He also gained his experience working as the Commission for Parks and Recreation in Bogota, Colombia, which with the help of his brother and mayor, Enrique, became a very bicycle-friendly city, and launched the the Cyclovia which has been copied in Ottawa, New York, Australia and many other cities.

When asked in an interview with BicyclingCulture.com if he thought part of what makes cities bikeable is bike culture he said:

Part of it is with culture, but it not the culture that was their 200 years ago. It’s part of the culture that has been created. In Copenhagen, the last 30 years. The first pedestrian street was closed in Copenhagen 35 years ago, it wasn’t 200 years ago. It was a very car-oriented city. Then, they took the cars out of one street and the retail were very upset. And then they created a pedestrian street and they were very successful. And then they did another and another and another. So they created a cultural change. So it is a change of cultures, but it’s not because it’s in their genes, or because they were born different, or because they eat something different for breakfast.

Places like Portland, have become very walkable, and 20 years ago it was a very car-oriented city. Vancouver is very good for pedestrians, but it’s not because people in Vancouver are different from people in Toronto. So I think it is about a cultural change, but it’s not because the Danish or the Dutch or the people in Portland, or the people in Vancouver are different.

…

We have to have a lot of social marketing. There has to be a campaign, where in the short term we do what we call petunias, so things that are easy to do, low risk, low cost but high visibility and that will gain momentum to do things that are more difficult more risky. And then, we gotta get leaders, and communicate the ideas and engage politicians, and engage the communities and elect people that have guts. All of this.

Bicycle Culture Goes Mainstream in Canada

At least this is the premise of a recent column by Karen von Hahn in the Saturday, July 19, 2008 issue of the Globe and Mail (permanent link). As a driver, Hahn finds it hard to love her fellow cyclists who she finds, “empowered by their environmentally correctness that they have begun to proclaim their own (naturally superior and far more fashionable) bike ‘culture.’

The optimist would say, “Yipee! Bike culture has gone mainstream, we can now all relax as the bike lanes pave themselves and all people rejoice in human-powered joy!” But let’s get real. The only thing mainstream about bike culture is that it is summer. Just because gas prices are through the roof doesn’t mean we can cheer our unique brand of North American bike culture.

Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate Hahn’s bringing the bike culture idea to the attention of her and thousands of Canadian readers, but newspapers, and especially “style” critics have a tendency to write about what’s current as opposed to ongoing trends or lasting effects. What Hahn is listing with her references to Critical Mass, the Bicycle Film Festival, urbanvelo.com, “Ghost” bikes and the like a great primer for people to get involved in a growing bike culture.

I just find it hard to believe in the “mainstream” celebration of bike culture on Saturday, when on Tuesday the same newspaper’s editorial cartoon is making fun of the Leader of the Official Opposition for riding a bike, or the “Bat Cycle” and being “Cheep!”

but we must not forget that we are up against a much more dominant culture of automobiles, adds selling the sexy factor of cars and endless, traffic-free highways without sidewalks or bike lanes.

We have a long way to go.

Toronto Bicycle Artist Profile: Nicole Torok

Ask Nicole Torok why she loves bike riding and she’ll tell you, “It’s because I’m propelling myself. Riding a bike never stops me from where I want to be.” Other than commuting to and from her busy job as a 2nd Camera Assistant in the film and TV industry, and repairing and selling old bikes, you will find her in her studio working on bicycle-inspired art.

Torok’s major works at the La Carrera Cycles exhibit, are glistening oil tableaus that mix the cool blues, greens and dark greys and blacks of an abstracted city skyline, with recognizable bicycle-parts stenciled over top. There is no attempt at a story, other than, perhaps one of a growing bike culture within a towering downtown Toronto. They beg the eye into a streetscape demonstrate the play of geometry, movement, and subtle glowing light.

The large 5-foot by 7-foot unstretched, raw canvases called “Buildings and Gears” and “Buildings and Wheels,” reflect her respect for both the built environment’s straight lines and the detailed two-dimensional expression of stencil graffiti artists like Toronto’s Janet “Bike Girl” Attard.

The other pieces are ink-on-paper representations of bike couriers. Without pretension, Torok explains, “I like their style of dress, and I like their bikes.”

Although she never worked for a courier company, Torok did deliveries as part of her behind-the-scenes film and TV career. “They discovered I could ride fast,” she says modestly.

Being immersed in bike culture, Torok finds ways to stay busy when the film season slows. She fixes bikes — as she has since she took the training wheels off her own first bike — and sells them as a side project. When she has time, Torok volunteers at Bike Pirates, a do-it-yourself bike shop on Bathurst south of College, and the venue for an undated Summer exhibit.

She is inspired both by her friends in Toronto’s indie music and drama scene, and her physical environment. “If you are creative, then you are drawn to other people who are creative,” says Torok about the artistic community she belongs to that she calls a family. But being “a very visual person” her art also reflects a street-wise downtown culture.

After returning from a recent trip to Berlin, Torok has another culture to compare with Toronto’s in terms of bike- and art-friendliness. It’s obvious that Berlin’s drivers are more aware of cyclists, she says, “They give you space. There’s more awareness: separated bike lanes, made of different colour cobblestones between the parked cars, a line of trees and pedestrians.” But Torok has as much to say about how Berlin plays host to the artistic expressions of graffiti artists. “They welcome graffiti there. They don’t try and cover it up. It’s a part of the city. They almost encourage it to let out people’s frustrations.”

Don’t expect a political message from her art, though. She admits, we as a society need more awareness of bikes on the road, and of our own consumer culture, but Torok would rather see individuals and communities make the effort for a bike culture to thrive.

“I believe that everyone can make the switch to bikes with a little effort. And if each person who rode a bike paved one cobblestone in the road, we would have bike lanes.”

Upcoming Shows:

Summer: Bike Pirates, 457 Bathurst St., open Saturdays and Thursdays 12-5 <http://bikepirates.com>.

Fall: “Not Just A One Trick Pony” a juried exhibition of artwork made by members of the IATSE 667 camera union, September 11-21 at the Mango Lounge, 1402 Queen Street East

Bicycles are Poetic

Singer-songwriter Leslie Feist, internationally acclaimed indy-pop singer thinks bicycles are poetic. At her concert on 13 May 2008 at the Sony Centre in Toronto, she tried to divide the crowd to help her sing a song using those who rode a bicycle as their “primary source of transportation.” Unfortunately, not enough people cheered, likely as it was still early in the cycling season.

Feist laughed it off, and used Toronto’s area codes of 416, 647, and 905 saying that she would have preferred to use something, “more poetic” like bicycles.

Could the global bicycling culture benefit from a statement like this, or perhaps a song from a musical celebrity? If there is any doubt that celebrities love riding bikes, just look to Queen Latifah. In an interview with People Magazine she said, “When you’re on a bike, 80 miles an hour, no protection between you and the concrete, it can be a very spiritual place. I have four motorcycles, a scooter and, like, eight bicycles.

Celebrities on bikes are beautiful, approachable and environmentally sensitive.