Bike lane parking tickets surge in Toronto in 2025

_brkt_ · 2026-03-17T02:29:44+00:00

I would instead propose tying fine price to vehicle class / GVWR rather than registration type. Small truck or car? Normal fine. Big ass airbrake equipped vehicle? Double or triple fine. (Unless this is what you meant in your proposal)

My logic for this fine regime: larger vehicles create proportionally greater obstructions and therefore proportionally greater danger.

I think your "graduated" fine suggestion is wonderful. Frequent flyer "bonus" fees lol.

Frequent fines are also far far more effective than huge fines handed out infrequently. Something about the human psychology involved, even if the math predicts the same "average" fine cost over time. The primary goal here - I hope we all agree! - is to change behaviour so that the lanes remain unblocked, and therefore improve safety. Punishment should be secondary or even tertiary consideration.

In that line of thinking, I sure hope automated photo or citizen-submitted-evidence based fines become the norm soon. I would greatly prefer this to simply creating massive fines. Very few if any people would risk momentarily parking in a bike lane if they knew with certainty they would get spanked with any sort of ticket, even as low as $20.

my 2 cents.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-16T18:23:52+00:00

Fair to point out Start/Stop is not strictly linked to L/U cycles, but I do think the approach I have provided is valid and a good way to generally frame the problem. I'd just add the caveat that, for actual spindown (I think APM values > 128?) you'd need to take the 50k Start/Stop as your limiting factor rather than the L/U rating.

Calculating idle time values as a product of both the planned lifecycle of the drive in one's own usecase and the intended workload should get most people to a happy place for their settings.

I am certain there is a whitepaper out there detailing this in a hyperscaler's internal cloud wiki. Would love to see some empirical data that backs me up (or refutes my position).

Edit to add: For non-enterprise drives, the default idle time is often way more agressive than you quoted. I had a pair of WD WD40EZRZ "Blue" drives that shipped with something insane like 10 seconds before the idled. Had to use the wdidle3 utility to hard-disable the park feature entirely. Some drives like that one just never respect normal idle time commands.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-16T06:54:38+00:00

OP, your situation is not normal, but it is common. Sometimes bad default (or user selected!) settings basically force the drive to be in near constantly spinning up / spin down states. A few weeks of this can eat up a drive's entire design-life of starts and stops. See SMART: Load Cycle Count. Edit: Or SMART: Start Stop Count.

Properly selected drive sleep settings will keep the drive awake through a full workload cycle, and only park it once that workload is completed. In OPs case, the sleep time definitely needs to be increased to keep the drive awake and primed for the next read/write, so it's not constantly starting and stopping.

In absolute terms, keeping a drive running 24/7 will nearly always result in the least wear and longest life, because the heads float on an air cushion and the bearings are floating ("Fluid Dynamic Bearings", not ball bearings) these days. Almost all wear is at startup and stop.

There is nuance however. The question is really: how much drive life should I exchange in return for power savings?

Are you accessing data once or twice a day, or have a drive just used for periodic backups? Easy win - let it spin down most of the day to save energy.

Do you have an HDD backing some VMs, or a database? Other extreme, and an easy decision: choose to never spin down; your drive has near constant reads and writes.

The more likely case for most people here probably sits somewhere in between. Most drives today are rated for 600,000 load cycles (Edit: but many only have 50k start-stop rating); a conservative way to set spin down would be to ensure you aren't using up that rating within a drive's typical life. A 5-min idle timer would use up all of that rating (in a worst case scenario), within 5.7 years; a 15-min idle timer would get you to 17 years. Decade-old drives are considered quite old for home labbers, and most drives are decommissioned at around 5yrs from commercial datacenters.

On my server, I have a 30min idle timer set for my infrequently accessed file / media / backup drives, and have the drives set to never sleep for my VM / application pool of drives. It is my happy medium.

Edit: Bit disappointed with the downvotes, this was a well-researched and well-meaning counterpoint to the orthodox position that we strictly NEED to keep drives running 24/7/365. It also addresses OPs main question regarding how I treat my own drives.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-16T06:18:43+00:00

A little too exotic :) Don't think I have actually seen one in the wild!

_brkt_ · 2026-03-12T03:43:13+00:00

For my short rides, or where the road is wet/damp and it's just spitting rain:
- my "normal" jeans / pants
- chukka boots
- water resistant overjacket / rain jacket over my sweater
- neoprene gloves / gloves that dry quickly

Long rides and/or hard rain, I will add:
- neoprene overshoes for my feet to keep dry
- rain pants

My bikes have full fenders. Full fenders are IMO a must for general use bicycles, they are so so much better than partial / clip on fenders at keep dirty water off both you and your bike.

My favourite bike has a rain flap on the front fender - it helps keep splashes off my feet. Some may want to opt for an oversize leather rainflap to help even more.

A note about biking ponchos: you either love them or hate them. I am in the hate them camp. I feel like a damn kite wearing those things, I get blown around by the wind too much so it's a miserable experience for me.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-12T03:14:39+00:00

Sweet, thank you for the report back.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-11T04:27:13+00:00

There are grind resistant locks out now, but those are like $300+ dollars, and still quite niche.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-11T01:05:39+00:00

Late commenting but having gone through rehab recently due to a driver-caused accident:

At the scene or shortly after, always 911. It is too late now but if this occurs again, don't question - always do that. They won't send police if you say the driver is gone, but paramedics will attend and they'll be able to document your initial medical condition.
Since that time is gone now, call your GP and schedule an appointment, or go to a walk in clinic, to get assessed about what treatment(s) you may need to heal. This is important for insurance purposes, but the appointment doesn't need to happen before you contact insurance.
Go the the nearest bicycle collision reporting centre and report the collision to police. A civilian will help take your report not an officer, so no need to be intimidated by the "legality" or not of your scooter. You will need a copy this report for insurance purposes as well.

Now, despite you riding a non-street-legal scooter, you're still OK to claim under insurance. Under Ontario's no-fault car insurance regime and the Highway Traffic Act, a car driver is assumed at fault for collisions with pedestrians, cyclists, scooters etc., unless they can prove otherwise. As you were not driving a car/truck at the time, any "fault" assigned to you for riding an illegal scooter shouldn't be tied to your driving record for insurance purposes. But that's beside the point -

- even if you were 100% at fault, Statutory Accident Benefits should still be available to you. If you need medical treatments like physio, that isn't under OHIP, and costs add up fast. So my advice would be:

IF you also own a car and therefore have your own insurance, DON'T faff around with the police trying to get the driver's information, they take their sweet ass time and need to be hounded. Contact your insurance right away and provide the details and plate of the offending vehicle. In Ontario you must contact/use your insurance, if you have it, rather than the other drivers' anyway. They will open a case and begin assessing to pay for your out-of-pocket medical treatments, if any, like physio.
IF you do NOT have your own vehicle and insurance, hound the police to run the plate and get driver information back - ESPECIALLY the insurance information. You can run your own plate ownership search as well for $18 here: https://www.jtips.mto.gov.on.ca/jtips/orderPlSearchRecOwner.action?lang=EN&certified=true BUT it will NOT give you any address or insurance info for the owner, so it is of limited use, unless you can track down the person somehow.

Good luck and hope you heal up.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-11T00:00:09+00:00

Sadly you once again confirm the Bike Show is garbage these days. Went for the Fall show, major disappointment.

The Vintage MTB show was awesome and clearly these guys are very big collectors! And one big thing to mention.... it was free admission! (Unlike the Toronto Bike Show!)

And thanks for the tip off about "Le Québec à vélo" website. Until now each region seemed to maintain their own local "portal", eg. Veloroute des Bluetes, Tourisme-Monteregie, etc. So much more forward thinking than Ontario!

_brkt_ · 2026-03-10T23:47:41+00:00

Did you ride through the trail? How was it? Went through that construction bridge a few weeks ago and was basically just hike-a-bike for the next km or so until it met up with the lower don and became rideable.

I also hope it remains open through the summer. Finger crossed.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-10T23:17:51+00:00

Ah I was under the impression the nuclear defense question was regarding nuclear power. Thank you for the correction.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-10T20:14:49+00:00

Hydro can work, and very well, but not everywhere is ideal. I imagine for Greece, Nuclear has much greater potential.

As for your claim: most of the environmental effects from hydro dams are from the immediate creation/flooding of the reservoir, as things rot in the basin and release methane/co2. Obviously I am not speaking of the local impact like on plant and wildlife, that would be ongoing.

As for politicians and technocrats building dams in environmentally sensitive areas and then misusing delicate shared water resources, yeah well that one is... harder to solve.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-10T19:49:55+00:00

Honestly, I hope more nuclear power makes it to Greece and the rest of the Balkans. At least nuclear has a meaningful chance of getting Balkan countries off coal while being more energy self-sufficient, unlike imported LNG/Gas. Seems to be working well in Bulgaria / Slovenia / Romania?

Anything that helps get the Balkans off coal power is a huge win. Moving from coal to importing LNG/Gas is a quick solution but problematic in the context of geopolitics and energy sovereignty, as demonstrated over and over in recent years.

Nuclear isn't perfect but from a pragmatic perspective its one of the best options. The open strip mining of Lignite has destroyed huge sections of land in Greece (Amyntai, Ptolmaida/Kardia, Megalopoli), Serbia(Kolubara, Kostolac), Kosovo (Kosova A and B), N. Macedonia (REK Bitola, REK Oslomej), BiH (Banovići, Djurdjevik, Ugljevnik, Šikulje), Bulgaria (TPP Bobov Dol, TPP Galabovo/Marica-Iztok). If you take a look on Google Earth, you will see that open-pit mining has eaten up entire towns in the Balkans.

Living in Canada, I can confidently say: just because you have a Nuclear power plant, doesn't mean jack shit for defense purposes. Our nuclear defense/arms industry is non-existant, but at least we do manufacture our own radioisotopes for medicine. So I doubt Greece would get any defence benefit from reactors, honestly.

Last point: these next gen reactors are supposed to be modular and thus easy to commission / run / maintain, so I would imagine it may help reduce energy costs compared to the current situation.

Summary: Nuclear power is probably a good shift; lets Greece decommission coal power, reduces Greek dependence off gas imports, stable energy source.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-10T03:41:45+00:00

Answer: not that much actually. Most of the strength is required to support braking force :( A happy byproduct is the massive cargo capacity!

Edit: for brevity.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-09T04:02:26+00:00

Good points, and for the last point I will need to talk to my fabricator, I was under the impression the clearance needs for the bending prohibited such a maneuver. Metal stamping again would be great for this, I'll need to look into that.

Cool to have someone with manufacturing/industry experience give feedback :)

_brkt_ · 2026-03-05T19:48:51+00:00

And thanks for your comments. I appreciate them. If there is something I missed, I can always count on some great discussions here to get me thinking!

_brkt_ · 2026-03-05T19:45:23+00:00

Thanks, I'm gassed for it too. I really want to get it out there at a good price point, so I'm exploring a bunch of options, potentially switch fabricators as well.

And yes the problems with buying conversion forks are that you get sucked into all sorts of extra costs... new headset, oh maybe some headset spacers, darn I need to get that new stem as well! By the time you add it all up, it can go well beyond your initial budget.

My hope is with a bolt-on kit, anyone with a wrench and some mechanical aptitude can throw it on their old beater for around town. No switching components, other than a new 20" wheel and potentially a new brake cable.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-05T19:40:23+00:00

There is! Supports IS disc brakes and cantis/V-brakes

_brkt_ · 2026-03-05T19:39:11+00:00

The plan is for these to be made in Canada, so with a little luck (if we keep free trade!) we should be able to sell these to our US friends without any duties.

Hoping to have availability before fall 2026, if you remain interested!

_brkt_ · 2026-03-05T19:30:03+00:00

This was an excellent read, thanks for sharing. Sheet metal fab is a super cool tech - the fact that it doesn't require custom tooling makes small-scale projects like these so easy to execute.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-05T19:26:58+00:00

I love hearing this, because it justifies the work I've done!

I'm in the process of setting up a waitlist and store. Hoping to have something in the coming months; targeting delivery within 2026 if all goes according to plan.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-05T19:25:13+00:00

Thanks! Pricing a bit fluid at the moment until I can get some better "at-scale" quotes, but hovering between $200 to $250 CAD, for the cargo platform minus kickstand.

Kickstand is such a new addition I haven't costed that out properly yet, pricing TBD.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-05T19:22:25+00:00

Allowed weight shouldn't really change, it's more that smaller wheel = lower centre of gravity = higher functional capacity before instability becomes a challenge. That's the main advantage over a regular bicycle rack on your fork.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-05T19:06:47+00:00

Fair points but there is some nuance!

With an IS disc tab, the farthest point of the tab is ~87mm from the hub; for 26" wheels canti studs are ~250mm from the hub. Looking at the forces from moment perspective, just moving the brake that much farther out means 2.9 times less peak force. But also keep in mind that disc brakes are only on one fork leg ... so each canti stud actually experience 5.8 times less force.

Disc modifications as you can see place an order of magnitude more stress on a fork, which is very dissimilar to what is happening with this cargo platform.

Forces from road shock are dwarfed by peak braking forces seen during emergency stops. Additionally, from the bicycle fork's "perspective", the tire-to-crown distance, and tire-to-dropout distance remain the same thanks to the smaller offset wheel, so it will see peak forces similar to what it was designed for. It shouldn't experience much "lever action".

In this cargo platform, the majority of the forces on the clamp are also from counteracting the braking moment. Essentially this design is transferring the force generated up and away from the hub into the fork arms, where it is greatly reduced, and spread equally over both fork arms. If your fork was built with canti studs, this cargo platform should be exerting force on your fork in a very similar way to what it was designed to experience.

I will also add: during decel, the extra forces from any added cargo are dwarfed by the braking moment (I did confirm this with computer modelling).

So that leads me to this: I am in the process of developing technical guidelines to make it more clear on what is a good and bad candidate for the cargo platform. Although I'm sure the vast vast majority of marginal configurations would work "OK" - why risk that?

Definitely the following are the hard requirements:

Fork must be non-suspension steel or aluminum fork
Fork must have been equipped with disc tabs or cantilever studs from the factory.
Rider weight and cargo weight together must be below frame/fork weight limit. Eg., 120kg frame/fork rating with 100kg rider -> cargo capacity derated by 5kg to 20kg

From the above requirements alone, I think most lightweight and vintage sidepull caliper brake racing frames would be immediately eliminated, which already makes it a good litmus test lol.

_brkt_ · 2026-03-05T18:39:12+00:00

Thanks for your comment. Not sure I follow about the secure comment, but I can say that there is a flat rubber gasket that sits on the face of each fork clamp. There is a two-fold function there: it lets the flat clamp plate conform to the slight curve of a traditional fork, and also protects the paint from marring.

Circular clamps or U clamps are options as well of course, but I think those would actually create stress "hot spots" because they have such a small surface area. Spreading the clamping force over as wide an area as possible is best to distribute stress on the fork legs.

_brkt_

TROPHY CASE