Category: canada

Office building installs bike racks, tickets cyclists who use them

The Vancouver Sun & Province Building aka Granville Square in Vancouver, BC, installed bike racks outside of their building. You’d think the bike racks are for parking bikes, right?

Molly Millar, the fashion editor for Momentum Magazine, rode her bike to her day job as a researcher at this Class A office building. At the end of the day, she was surprised to see a parking ticket on her bike!

bicycle parking ticket

The nonplussed Millar wrote the building management company, Cadillac Fairview about the ticket. Their response:

Hi Molly, We do like to encourage cycling to work and our tenants to think about being ‘green’ … but we also need to maintain the professional image of the building. We don’t want to encourage all day parking of bikes throughout our plaza, which would deter from this [professional image].



Granville Square Vancouver BC

It turns out the bike racks are for couriers only, with a 15 minute time limit for parking.

Cadillac Fairview highlights their green initiatives, including their “Green At Work” program for their Vancouver waterfront properties, on their website.

At Cadillac Fairview, we take pride in being industry leaders and adopting progressive environmental standards and practices that demonstrate our commitment to corporate social responsibility. The sucessful execution of company-wide green initiatives is being achieved through a detailed, measurable, and long-term program called GREEN AT WORK™. This program is national in scope; implemented at all properties, it has set operational benchmarks to reduce energy consumption and waste, improve environmental protection, and encourage sustainable procurement and ongoing communication with key stakeholders. GREEN AT WORK™ supports Cadillac Fairview’s ongoing commitment to corporate social responsibility with the belief that by working with our tenants, employees, suppliers, and customers we are “building sustainability together™”.

Update: After publication of this post, other people who work in that building pointed out to me that long term bike parking is available out of the way in the parking garage, with bike lockers for everyday bike commuters. The lockers are apparently assigned to individuals for a nominal annual fee. These outside racks frequently fill up, which makes it difficult for the couriers who depend on these racks for their jobs. It’s unclear to me what’s available on an ad hoc basis for occasional commuters and visitors who need to stay longer than 15 minutes.

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Toronto Fixer rides a bicycle

Jack Lakey is “The Fixer,” a Toronto newspaper columnist who uses his bully pulpit to get things done. After he lectured Toronto cyclists to follow the rules of the road last summer, “cyclists unleashed a firestorm of fury in emails and comments posted to our online columns” writes Lakey.

When bike activist James Schwartz invited the Toronoto Star columnist to ride with him, Lakey accepted and, to his surprise and delight, enjoyed the ride.

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Helmet cams are cool

Lots of people talking about this video of cyclist Luke Rae in St. Johns, Newfoundland. He uses a helmet cam to show his encounters with scofflaw, law breaking motorists. When motorists can learn to obey the rules of the road, I’ll recognize their privilege to use those roads.



So yeah, there are the occasional idiots who fail to recognize my right of way. The same things happen while I drive, but when I’m on bike I tend to remember it because I’m just a little more vulnerable. I watched a motorist run a red light Wednesday evening in Palo Alto and come that close to hitting a pedestrian in the crosswalk. She slammed her brakes on just in time — the pedestrian was sweating bullets, while the driver smiled apologetically and waved at the pedestrian.

To the motorist, these close calls are nothing — just part of the driving experience, and nothing to think about, nothing to remember, and it’s certainly not an opportunity to learn. Maybe helmet cam videos like this will help remind all of us to be a little more watchful while we drive.

In other news, perhaps Citizen Rider should carry a camera with him.