A bill of rights for cyclists and motorists

Make room in that taxicab for the rest of us road users.

Is everyone who’s making their way to work these days just a little angrier than they used to be?

Depending on your mode of transportation, you may be venting about the worst commute times in North America, or Doug Ford’s weirdly specific war on bike lanes, or comically interminable transit construction delays.

But if there’s a solution to our commuter crisis, it involves making the streets work better for everyone and turning the temperature down, not up, on the rhetoric.

Whatever mode you choose, you’re taking your life in your hands.

Despite years of Vision Zero efforts, it remains a distant vision with zero chance of success. As of Oct. 9, there were 35 fatalities and 159 seriously injured so far in 2024. Not a great year.

But we all have to get along on these mean streets somehow, so to fend off commuter civil war, let’s try instead for some civility.

The time has come, fellow commuters, for a collective bill of rights. Why should taxi and airline passengers be the only ones to get that civic recognition, but not the cyclists, transit riders, pedestrians and, yes, motorists who risk their lives and dignity every day navigating our treacherous thoroughfares?

We begin today with cyclists and motorists, two groups who are supposed to be polar opposites in this war on wheels, but who tend to have the same goal: to get where they’re going safely and efficiently. As both a cyclist and a driver, I feel the aggravation of both sides.

As a cyclist, you have the right to:

1. Get to your destination without death or injury.

2. Whine about streetcar tracks.

3. Shout obscenities at headwinds.

4. Slow down but not necessarily stop at stop signs.

5. Block traffic if necessary. Because you are traffic.

6. Safety measures that go beyond those useless drawings of bicycles on the road.

7. A contiguous network of unobstructed, separated bike lanes that don’t end abruptly at terrifying intersections.¹

8. Bike racks that weren’t designed by some jackass who obviously hates bikes.

9. Leave your bike locked up with a reasonable expectation that most of it will still be there when you return.

10. Gaze upon motorists with righteous pity.

As a cyclist, you are expected to:

1. Give pedestrians the right of way.

2. Actually stop at red lights.

3. Get off the sidewalk.

4. Make yourself visible at night.

5. Apologize when you cut someone off.²

6. Stay out of a car’s blind spot.

7. Use your damn bell.

8. Slow down a bit and enjoy the commute.

As a motorist, you have the right to:

1. Get to your destination without death or injury.

2. Get there sooner than you would if you walked.

3. The mythical freedom of the open road you’ve heard about, but that you can only seem to find at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday.

4. Parking that costs less than whatever it is you’re driving to do.

5. Intelligible road signs that aren’t designed to turn you into traffic cop bait.

6. Pedestrians and cyclists that don’t veer erratically into your path.

7. Whine about suburban planning that includes overpriced toll roads and bike lanes that no one uses.

8. a rush hour that doesn’t end at midnight.

9. Complain about everyone’s driving except your own.

As a motorist, you are expected to:

1. Get to your destination without causing death or injury.

2. Hit the brakes when the light is about to turn red. Even if it’s the opposite of what everyone else seems to do.

3. Give pedestrians and cyclists the right of way, even when they don’t deserve it.

4. Lean on the horn, but avoid other ways of getting out your aggression.

5. Put down the phone.

6. Acknowledge the privilege of traveling in your own cozy, safe, roving piece of private property, while the rest of us are dodging, sweating, and breathing on one another on the sidewalks, roads and public transit.

1. I’m looking at you, Dufferin and Queen!

2. Seriously, could it hurt you to say sorry now and then?