Littering incident sparks debate between road users
It was the toss heard round the world. Leah Hollinsworth, a bike courier, was walking her bike around Kensington market when she spotted someone throwing a half-eaten meat patty onto the ground. She picked it up and threw it back into the driver’s car. The driver got out and threw two cups of coffee at Hollinsworth, and in her words:
“... grabbed me by my helmet and tried to toss me around a bit. It was at that point that my bike lock key scratched his car ... a 1.2 cm mark in the clearcoat only... with some “encouraging” from some helpful bystanders he got in his car and drove away...or so I thought! ... just as I was getting on my bike to ride home he came running back and that’s when the photos start.”
Passersby tried to pull the man off, with some success. Adam Krawesky, a Toronto photoblogger, witnessed the event and started shooting photos. In the end, the driver drove off before finally turning himself in to police. In retrospect, it could have been far worse. No one was hurt seriously. The encounter probably lasted less than two to three minutes, and both parties decided not to press charges.
But a couple of strange things happened. Krawesky put up his photos on Citynoise.org, and within hours, thousands converged on the site. Soon, the photos were posted on a number of other city blogs. Within days, major newspapers picked up on the story and devoted dozens of column inches on it. Krawesky had sparked a media maelstrom that revealed to the entire city the fault lines between cyclists and motorists on Toronto’s increasingly busy streets.
Citynoise.org became ground zero of the controversy, and it was here that the ideological battle lines were drawn. For some the incident became a battle between Kensington locals and suburbanite interlopers. “They flow into the city in waves, driving us nuts by starting fights on our peaceful streets, peeing in our alleyways, tagging our stuff, and leaving meat patties all over the place,” one post said.
The debate that inflamed the most passions was the one that painted the incident as a visible front in the long-running conflict between drivers and cyclists on Toronto’s streets.
“As a bicycle commuter myself and someone who has had their share of run-ins with moron drivers, I say the cyclist probably has enough pent up anger against just about anyone in a car to justify what she did in her mind. It’s a war out there on the streets…” posted Kevin on Citynoise.org. This was how most people saw the fracas in Kensington, and this was also how the mainstream media saw it. The Globe and Mail, almost a week after the altercation, had two of their more prominent writers go head to head. The editors put avid cyclist Michael Valpy up against staunch SUV-defender Margaret Wente, who revealed certain misconceptions held about cyclists in this city.
“Scratch a cyclist, and you’ll usually find someone who is deeply anti-automobile. Toronto is full of such people. They invariably belong to a small class of privileged elites who don’t need a car to make a living, but sometimes keep one around so they can commute to their cottage at the lake,” Wente writes.
Valpy counters this with cold, hard numbers and a little zinger of his own. “Roughly eight per cent of core-Toronto residents now use bicycles as their main means of travel to work (that’s a lot of privileged elites, Peggy). On the central city portions of Bloor Street West and Queen Street, bike traffic accounts for 14 per cent and 17 per cent respectively of all vehicles (even higher percentages of privileged elites)…. I know you’re going to be bothered by those statistics. I know you’re going to feel your journalistic anger rising at another statistic: that only one per cent of Toronto’s 5,000 kilometres of streets have bike lanes. In fact, I know you’re saying to yourself right now, ‘Boy, if I’d had this information, I would never have got into this debate.’”
That day the Globe ran another story that eloquently sums up North America’s “militant bike culture.” For a brief moment, groups like Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists, events like Critical Mass, and urban cycling culture in general got mainstream attention.
But for Krawesky, Hollinsworth and the driver (who chose to remain anonymous) this media attention became unwelcome and even got out of hand. Krawesky, one of this city’s better known photobloggers, worried whether the attention would make his hobby harder. Would people pay attention to a guy snapping photos? Hollinsworth, who very bravely came forward and spoke to the media, received praise, strong support and love from the cycling community, but at times received death threats and extremely hateful comments. And what about the driver? Well, he stayed quiet, and this was probably for the best. His actions didn’t endear him to many, and yes, he too has been receiving threats of violence.
In the end, I can’t help but agree with Margaret Wente about one thing: the incident has
“nothing to do with motorist vs. cyclist hostility. It’s a dispute over littering between two people (the skirmish was sparked by the driver throwing a sandwich out his window), one of whom appears to get off on hitting women and both of whom would benefit from anger-management therapy.”
The fact that Hollinsworth was a courier and had her bike with her at the time was a coincidence – one that, for better or for worse, raised the profile of Toronto’s cycling community and probably made clear to some just how bad it can get out there.
My question is, why have we stopped being civil to one another?
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