The city is plowing the Martin Goodman path on a priority basis. It's a spirit lifter

CHRISTOPHER SHULGAN

January 31, 2009

One recent Sunday morning, I headed out for a run. Because
of the 10-centimetre snowfall the previous evening, the first kilometre
happened over pitted frozen single-track. Also on the sidewalk were a few
early-morning pedestrians - churchgoers, mostly. I came up behind one of them
and slowed until I was running in place. Frustration mounting, I tried to get
past and lurched into a knee-high snowbank. I stumbled, caught myself, nearly
stumbled again, moved on.

Winter running tends to be full of such moments. It's bad
enough that the activity forces men to wear tights. When these are paired with
the bright hues that grace the jackets manufactured by Nike and New Balance,
even the most masculine runner resembles a medieval harlequin - whose feet
slide out from under him at icy corners, whose shoes get soaked in frozen
puddles.

And yet I persist, because this year an athlete's paradise exists a
kilometre from my house. The Martin Goodman Trail is the multi-use path that
lines roughly 20 kilometres of the city's lakeshore. On the Sunday in question,
I arrived before 9 a.m. Despite the early hour, despite the fact that flakes
continued to fall, the trail was pristine - a slice of black asphalt that
stretched, snow-free, from Bathurst all the way to the Humber River.

In past years, the snowfall would have rendered the Goodman trail as
impassable as any other sidewalk. But this winter is the first in a pilot
project that sees the city clearing snow on a priority basis from Coxwell to
Lower Sherbourne in the east end and the Humber River to Bathurst in the west,
each a stretch of just over five kilometres.

It sounds like a small thing - a trail length of 11 kilometres compared with
the thousands of kilometres of roads the city clears every snowfall. But the decision
to clear the Goodman may indicate that the city bureaucracy is growing to
understand the needs of cyclists and pedestrians. And initial reports show the
newly cleared trail is having a transformative effect on the lives of the
winter athletes.

How did this happen? City hall has grown accustomed to hearing the
suggestion that it clear snow from various paths around the city. The previous
time that municipal government examined clearing snow from the trail, in 2004,
the proposal was rejected because the city said it didn't have the money.

Then came last winter's near-record snowfalls. The city began a wide-ranging
review of its snow-clearing practices. And an increasingly effective cycling
lobby began pushing, via the Toronto Cycling Committee, for a snow-free Martin
Goodman Trail.

For example, Tammy Thorne, a bulldog on the cycling committee and the editor
of the cycling-lifestyle magazine Dandyhorse, buttonholed Mayor David Miller at
last summer's Jane Jacobs Awards and gave her own pitch for clearing snow from
the lakeshore trail. "He appeared in favour of it," she said.

At some point, Mr. Miller turned to Gary Welsh, general manager of
transportation services, the department that handles snow-clearing, and
challenged him to clear snow from at least one of the city's major east-west
bike paths.

After a few missteps, including one proposal that would have seen the
western portion of the snow-clearing proceeding into the city via the Queensway
and King Street, transportation services received the last of its necessary
approvals in November. Peter Noehammer, the transportation director who
co-wrote a key off-season snow-clearing report, credits Mr. Welsh and Mr.
Miller with pushing to have the western segment follow the Martin Goodman Trail
rather than the Queensway. "It all comes from a slow sea change toward
favouring sustainable transportation," Mr. Noehammer says. "We're
becoming more in tune with cyclists than we used to be."

Cycling lobbyists concur with the
transportation department. "Rather than talking about taking cycling
seriously, the city actually is taking cycling seriously," says Yvonne
Bambrick, spokeswoman for the Toronto Cyclists Union.

Not much of a cold-weather cyclist myself, I discovered the new Martin
Goodman for the first time after the holidays. I set out on a post-holiday run
expecting the usual dimpled ankle-breaker, and instead found gloriously flat
asphalt. These days, I can't help but experience a sensation of liberation each
time I reach the Goodman.

While other sidewalks the city over are a slushy mess, here is a cleared
track that allows me to run as fast as I'd like. No traffic lights, no
snowbanks, no puddles of slush. With downtown having received more than 127 cm
of snow already, we're on track to beat the previous winter's near-record
accumulation.

So far this winter, clearing the Goodman has cost the city in the
mid-to-high five figures. With this year on pace to be one of Toronto's
snowiest ever, "city staff estimate the total expense for clearing the
Goodman's 11 kms of trail should be no higher than $200,000," says Mr.
Noehammer.

So, for the first time in my life, I'm enjoying winter running. A clear
Goodman has affected more than my athleticism. Even my conception of the year's
coldest season has changed. In the past, during the darkness of January and
February, I used to fall into a slump, which I blamed on my absence of physical
activity. Sure, I should have done something else - swam, lifted weights. But
indoor sports come with claustrophobia.

My spirits are better now that I'm getting outside more, as are those of
many other cyclists and runners like myself. "It's awesome," says
Stuart Campbell, a locations manager for the film industry out using the trail
one recent and relatively balmy Friday afternoon. "It makes an
inaccessible part of the city accessible. We get to use the waterfront."

"I actually don't mind winter so much now that I'm able to ride my
bike," says Mr. Campbell's companion, cinematographer Maya Bankovic.

"It makes me feel a little better about the city, in terms of their
support for cycling," says Patrick Mooney, who uses his bike to get
downtown, where he works as a media librarian. "Often, when I'm riding on
normal roads, the snow is just shoved into the bike lane. It's annoying. The
first time I came down here, I was pretty amazed to see they had actually done
it."

"I'm not a winter person," says Tanya Flemming, an aspiring
mountain-bike coach. "I don't ski. I ride my bike and I run. So when
winter comes and there's too much snow, I have to stay inside on a trainer.
Which I don't really enjoy. Now that the lakeshore trail's clear, I can take my
bike or go running."

I ask her if there is anything she wants to say to the people who clear it.

"Thank you," she says immediately. "Thank you for doing
it."

My sentiments exactly.