vic.gedris.org Never mind the blogs, here's the website.

The festival, which runs from Oct. 22 to 26, is made up of more than 100 films and videos focused on the environment.

Hahn, director of Tales of a Yellow Bike, decided to focus her film on the importance of bicycles as the main mode of transportation after learning about Toronto's BikeShare program, which ran from 2000 to 2006.

The bicycle lending program, in which hundreds of members could rent yellow bikes at 16 hubs in the city, shut down due to insufficient funding.

"I wanted to do a film about bike sharing programs across the world," Hahn said. "Our first days of shooting happened when BikeShare shut down in November 2006."

Tales of a Yellow Bike tells the story of bike share programs in Europe, North America, Columbia and China and the perception of bicycles in various countries.

"In Amsterdam they have so many bikes they don't know what to do with them all," Hahn said. "In China they have 470 million bicycles. In China, bikes used to be the only mode of transportation. In Bogota, Columbia there are hundreds of kilometers of bike lanes."

So why is Toronto so slow at jumping on the bicycle wagon?

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Bixi, Montreal's new massive public bike sharing system, will be visiting Toronto to show us a demo. They'll allow us to try out the system to get a glimpse of what is possible in Toronto after we multiply it by 1000.

Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation, Community Bicycle Network, and Toronto Cyclists Union will be hosting the event.

Bixi memberships cost $80 per year. A user can take a bike out from any of the 300 stations throughout the core - a station is always only 200 metres away. The first half hour of your travel is free with prices rising quickly after that. Most people will only need the bike for a half hour at most before locking it up at any available station. You can see more of how Bixi works at bixi.ca

Is this something you'd like for Toronto?

Location: Southeast corner of Bloor and Spadina

For more info:
Phone: 416.392.0290
Email: info@torontocat.ca

Since Bikeshare's demise, we've been exploring ways to promote bikesharing on a wider scale. The City has committed to bring bikesharing back to Toronto and we helped to keep the conversation alive with the Bikes as a Public Good: what is the future of public bikesharing in Toronto? Forum which took place September 18 at Innis Town Hall.

One hundred people came out to hear three speakers talk about different bikesharing programs with an eye to the possibilities for Toronto. The speakers were David Boyce from Veolia Transportation, Herb van den Dool of the Community Bicycle Network, and Alain Ayotte from Stationnement de Montreal (the organization that will be running Montreal's Bixi public bike system).

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If you are thinking of coming by CBN on a Friday evening, double-check your calendar first to make sure that it isn't the last Friday of the month.

If it is, think of joining us for Critical Mass instead, as we'll be closing at 6pm on those Fridays! (If you can't join us for Critical Mass, then at least be aware that we won't be here to help you with your bike on those evenings after 6pm!)

If you ride a bike in Toronto, chances are good that you've had a bike (or several!) stolen, or at very least have had friends whose bikes have gone missing. The police can only crack down on bike theft if we all work together to track stolen bicycles.

Click here to register your bike now, in case anything happens later.

And remember: your best insurance is a good lock! It is cheaper to buy a good lock now than to keep buying replacement bikes.

If you are unable to complete the Police registration form online, please download the Bicycle Registration Pamphlet and take it to your nearest police station or mail it to:

Toronto Police Service Headquarters
40 College St.
Toronto, ON M5G 2J3