Submitted by yvonne on 12 May, 2010 - 22:34

Well folks, that was an extraordinarily dissapointing finale to today's extended session of city council.  The Good news - the 2010 Bikeway Network Improvements were voted in today with a huge majority of 26-2.

However, the EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING dissapointment is that the University Ave. pilot project was taken out of list of projects with a vote of 15-13 because it seems that Councillor Paula Fletcher was not paying attention during the vote and mistakenly voted FOR the removal of University Ave. 

Although misvotes like this were taken a second time at least twice in council earlier today, a revote was not possible in this case because of a rule that says no revote can take place if it will affect the outcome. Had Fletcher voted as she'd intended AGAINST the removal of the University Ave. pilot project - we'd have had a 14-14 tie and Councillor Susan Hall's motion to remove the pilot project would have been defeated. A sad day indeed given how close we got, in particular when you consider that there was barely quorum with only 28 of 44 councillors actually present by the time this vote happened at around 9:45pm.  Results of the vote can be viewed here.

If you consider both cycling items together, there is more to be happy about than not.  We got the support of council to move ahead with the Public Bikes Program in the Spring of 2011, and we had a large majority show support for the rest of the proposed bike infrastructure.  But to lose an innovative project like University Ave. because of a tiny technical mistake is such a letdown... Maybe next year, eh? 

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Voting and Revoting in Council
There were only 28 of 44 councillors present at 9:45pm when the vote for the 2010 Bikeway Network Improvements took place on May 12th. This is due to an earlier vote at 6pm: they had voted not to extend council past 8pm, and would continue the session the following day. This is why so many councillors were missing, including Mayor Miller and bike union ED Yvonne Bambrick, based on the assumption that the session would end at 8pm. However, council rules state that, as long as there is quorum, decisions to extend a council session can be voted on anytime, negating the earlier vote at 6pm. The rules also state that a revote can only take place if the outcome of the vote will not be affected.

Bike union ED Yvonne Bambrick returned to council when she received a call from Councillor Vaughan at approximately 9:15pm that the bike lanes discussion had begun.

What about Paula?
Councillor Paula Fletcher feels terrible about the mixup. She phoned Yvonne of the bike union to personally apologize, as well as City transportation staff. But there are a couple important things that we need to keep in mind:

1)    People make mistakes, and there was confusion about what the vote was about. This happened to several other councillors earlier in the day, it was at the end of a long day and was the last item on the agenda (not to mention distractions from the HABS hockey game playing in the members lounge). Due to many circumstances, Councillor Fletcher thought they were voting for the entire Bikeway Network, not for removing University Avenue from the deal, hence why she voted FOR, rather than against. Despite trying to correct the error in time, she was unable to. The rules dictate that there is no revote in this circumstance - whether we like it or not.

2)    The bottom line is that we don't know what would have happened to the big vote on the whole bikeway network package if the University lanes had been included. We may have lost ALL of it!

We have A LOT to celebrate!
We won the public bikeshare system for role out in Spring 2011! We won the majority of the 2010 Bikeway Network improvements! We earned lots of media coverage and conversation on cycling
in the city. And we always have next year. Your bike union isn’t going anywhere.

Some of what we won:

•    Bay St., from Queens Quay W. to Front St. W. and from Dundas St. W.
to College St.
•    partially segregated lanes for a portion of Bay St. near Lake Shore
Blvd. W., by the Air Canada Centre
•    Lansdowne Ave., from Bloor St. W. to Dupont St.
•    Rathburn Rd., from Mimico Creek to Kipling Ave.
•    Spadina Cres., from Spadina Ave. S. to Spadina Ave. N.
•    York Mills Rd., from Scarsdale Rd. to Lesmill Rd.
•    Westhumber Blvd., from Martin Grove Rd. to Kipling Ave.
•    Ellis Ave., from Morningside Ave. to The Queensway