Bike war or class war?
I’ve lost friends as “collateral damage” in a war that badly needs peace
By Andrew Cash
I didn’t know Darcy Allan Sheppard, but our household has mourned the death of two close friends in the last few years who were killed riding their bikes – one a gifted photographer, the other a budding musician, both unwitting “collateral damage” in a war that badly needs some peace.
But this war isn’t really just about competing modes of transportation. It’s a contest between top-down and bottom-up power, one that, as in the altercation between Sheppard and former provincial attorney general Michael Bryant, sometimes ends in tragedy.
The car is quintessentially top-down: it’s about status, speed, steel, ego, privacy, convenience, the individual and entitlement to space and resources. Not to mention it’s a brilliant example of human ingenuity.
Grassroots power has no better symbol than the humble two-wheeler, which is simple, accessible, communal, public, physical and a light touch on dwindling resources.
In the wake of Sheppard’s death, the debate has raged about whether the two can get along on the road. But what’s really at stake are competing visions of the future of cities and democracy itself.
Thus, I’m not surprised to hear a lot of anger when I join hundreds of cyclists on Bloor for a vigil at the spot where Sheppard was run over. Anger, we’re told, is one stage of grief, but this is also the anger of the wronged. Though you wouldn’t know it hanging out at high-end Bloor and Bay, there is a lot of suffering out there.
Half a million more are unemployed this year than last (Sheppard was one of them); a shrinking middle class; single parents who can barely afford housing. The list goes on, including cyclists who take their life in their hands most times they ride in this town.
As I’m thinking all this, standing there, my mind wanders to Bryant and another high-profile flame-out: Brian Mulroney. It isn’t so much that Bryant has engaged the same public relations firm that the former Tory PM hired to smooth over last spring’s inquiry into his dealings with German lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber.
It’s more the way big power breeds the kind of cynicism I’m feeling right now. Although Mulroney accepted large sums of cash from Schreiber, some while he was an MP, he declared none of it to Revenue Canada for six years.
And when he finally did, Rev Can told him he only needed to pay tax on half the money. Sweet! There were no demos at the time, but people notice this stuff and feel bitterness – the kind many expressed when it was reported that Bryant had hired spin doctors so quickly and contracted his own private investigation team.
(Wow, if the former attorney general has so little faith in the justice system he once ran that he needs his own parallel probe, god help the rest of us.)
Add the fact that he was able to avoid a bail hearing, addressing the media after a night in the slammer in a pressed suit and tie, and it all feeds into the sense that there are rules for the Bryants and Mulroneys of this world and then there are rules for the rest of us.
Look, I’m not judging the tragic events that led to Sheppard’s death. We don’t really know what happened on Bloor August 31 – we leave that to the justice system – but in the court of public opinion this isn’t going to be a fair fight, just as it wasn’t that night on the street.
There are few sign of detente between these world views. Car culture is voracious in its appetite: oil, roads, parking lots, police intervention, court resources, health care for broken bodies, bailouts. It’s relentless and will stop at nothing, not even a little bike lane on Bloor.
As I said, I didn’t know Sheppard, but I mourn him along with my lost friends – and democracy, equality, sustainability, humility and the common good.
news@nowtoronto.com
NOW | September 9-16, 2009 | VOL 29 NO 2
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