A recent BBC podcast is worth checking out. Public Places, Private Lives is a series of portraits of well known places that reveal the lives and stories of those people who come to a famous spot not to gaze as tourists, but for work or for their own private reasons.

This episode is about Times Square in New York City and among the voices of irrepressible New Yorkers we hear Tim Tompkins of the Times Square Alliance talking about what happened when they put out the lawnchairs in the pedestrian zone. It will make you want to hop on the train for Penn Station.

According to a popular Danish blog, the City of Copenhagen is currently planning to expand the existing, extensive network of bike lanes to extend farther out into the suburbs. A network of 13 high-class routes - 'bicycle superhighways' - are dedicated to bicycle commuters and aimed at encouraging more to cycle to work. Currently 55% of the citizens in central Copenhagen ride a bicycle daily and the number is 37% for Greater Copenhagen.

According to Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone, the proposed Strachan Avenue super-bridge we told you about in a recent TCAT News has been averted. While the details of what the new structure will look like are still not fully worked out, Metrolinx's new proposed plans promises to address the issue of creating a cycling and pedestrian friendly corridor between the Waterfront and the surrounding neighbourhoods.

As reported previously in TCAT news,
the City recently held a public meeting to present their plans for
improvements to Jarvis Street. TCAT was represented at the meeting and

In last week's TCAT News,
we reported that 5 kilometres of the Martin Goodman Trail are being
cleared of snow. Thanks to Daniel Egan in Transportation Services for
letting us know that there are actually two sections being cleared as
follows:

5.6 km from Northern Dancer (east of Coxwell) to Sherbourne Street; and
6.3 km from Windermere to Stadium Road.

Also, between Stadium and Spadina and between Sherbourne and Yonge
there are on-street bicycle lanes which are being cleared of snow as
well.

Ireland has joined the ever-expanding list of federal governments
making announcements about ambitious plans and committing big dollars
to sustainable transportation. By 2020 Ireland hopes to have moved
500,000 people out of their cars and is committing €4.5bn
(approximately $7.1 billion CDN) to make it happen. In a country with a
population of only about 4.4 million, those targets and that level of
investment is quite significant. Read more here.

Building on the success of Bike Summit 2008,
which attracted over 180 attendees, TCAT is very pleased to announce
Bike Summit 2009 to take place in Toronto on May 28, 2009. With initial
sponsorship provided by the Bicycle Trade Association of Canada, the
Clean Air Partnership and the City of Toronto, TCAT will once again
take the lead planning and coordinating this event.

The Bike Summit is a one-day international policy conference to share
best practices for making communities great cycling environments.

Last week, Toronto City Council approved the following motions,
putting us one step closer to a people-friendly rail crossing at
Strachan Avenue:

"1. City Council strongly supports the Grade Separation Option which
lowers the Georgetown/Milton rail corridor, allowing Strachan Avenue to
pass over the rail lines, and

Spacing plays a key role as champion for pedestrian issues at City Hall. Most recently, Dylan Reid documents
how the new transit shelters do not meet the City of Toronto's
accessibility standards for the amount of clear space required for
unhindered pedestrian passage. The only thing missing from this
excellent investigative article is a photo of Dylan out there on the
street with his measuring tape!