A Bit More Detail

• Architectuul shares photos from a bike tour of Berlin.


• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait reports on new evidence that exocomets are raining on star Beta Pictoris.


• Larry Klaes at Centauri Dreams reviews the two late 1970s SF films Alien and Star Trek I, products of the same era.


• D-Brief reports on Hubble studies of the star clusters of the Large Magellanic Cloud.


• Bruce Dorminey shares Gemini telescope images of interstellar comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov).


• The Dragon's Tales shares video of Space X's Starhopper test flight.


• Far Outliers notes the import of the 13th century Norman king of England calling himself Edward after an Anglo-Saxon king.


• Gizmodo notes that not only can rats learn to play hide and seek, they seem to enjoy it.


• io9 notes the fantastic high camp of Mister Sinister in the new Jonathan Hickman X-Men run, borrowing a note from Kieron Gillen's portrayal of the character.


• Joe. My. God. notes that Guiliani's soon-to-be ex-wife says he has descended from 911 hero to a liar.


• Language Log looks at the recent ridiculous suggestion that English, among other languages, descends from Chinese.


• The LRB Blog looks at the brief history of commemorating the V2 attacks on London.


• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the practice in Saskatchewan of sterilizing First Nations women against their consent.


• Marginal Revolution suggests that farmers in Brazil might be getting a partly unfair treatment. (Partly.)


• The Planetary Society Blog explains why C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) matters.


• Window on Eurasia notes that, for the first time, immigrants from Turkmenistan in Belarus outnumber immigrants from Ukraine.

• CityLab notes that talk about the rent in Montréal being uniquely affordable is somewhat exaggerated.


• CityLab notes that, in New York City, the growing numbers of electric bikes are posing a major problem for traffic planners.


• Despite high levels of crime, tourism in Tijuana is thriving, VICE reports.


• CityLab has a nice photo essay looking at a "market on wheels" in Mexico City.


• Honolulu and wider Oahu are trying to regulate the construction of "monster homes" on the island, houses that occupy much too much of their lots and might not be a good response to the island's housing crisis. CityLab reports.

• Toronto Guardian recommends three activities that erstwhile CNE visitors can engage in to support the workers' strike.


• Urban Toronto highlights some of the new features being added to E Condos at Yonge and Eglinton as construction there finishes.


• NOW Toronto notes the extension of bike share programs up to Yonge and Eglinton, further north from the downtown.


• Nowhere in Toronto, May Warren reports at the Toronto Star, are rents particularly affordable, not even in the suburbs.


• CBC Toronto reports that, according to the secret city solicitor's report, there are only a limited number of ways Toronto can fight the Ontario government in court over the reduction in city council's size, with little hope of an easy victory.

• That New York City is the safest big city in the United States, as Henry Goldman reports for Bloomberg, does not surprise me. When I was there last month, it felt safe, throughout, even at 11 o'clock at night in the middle of Brooklyn.


• This brief article about the effects of the world-record high crime in Caracas terrifies me, and makes me feel very sorry for Venezuelans.


• Cape Town may be facing water shortages, Craig Welch writes at National Geographic, but it is not alone. Los Angeles and São Paulo are also on this unhappy shortlist.


• Tracey Lindeman argues at Motherboard that bike-sharing programs in cities like Dallas, where there has been no planning to make the city bike-friendly, are doomed to fail unless the work is put in.


• Diana Karliner at Open Democracy takes a look at the plight of workers in Russia's car industry, in its heartland of the city of Tolyatti.

• blogTO notes that a massive condo tower, 64 stories high, is slated for the northwest corner of Church and Wellesley.


• VICE reports on how a string of suspicious disappearances, dead people, and outright murders is worrying people in Church and Wellesley.


• Ben Spurr notes that the Ontario government has given Toronto more than $C 25 million to improve cycling infrastructure, over at the Toronto Star.


• David Rider notes a push to investigate the idea of burying the western end of the Eglinton LRT line, over at the Toronto Star.


• Oliver Moore notes the recommendation of outgoing TTC chief Andy Byford that the one-stop Scarborough subway extension be cancelled if the cost is projected to be more than $C 3 billion, over at The Globe and Mail.

• Transit Toronto reports on how King, from Bathurst through to Jarvis, has been made a street where transit--streetcars, particularly--has priority.


• CBC notes that, by the standards of other peers, Toronto lags behind in the implementation of bike lanes.


• The venerable old ferries which link Toronto to the Toronto Islands are set to be retired. Farewell, noble boats. CBC reports.


• I quite like the idea of seeking out plans to make the Toronto Coach Terminal new again. It might be overlooked these days, but it does have lovely bones. The Toronto Star reports.

• In The Globe and Mail, Marcus Gee looks at how the new high-rise CityPlace district, on the waterfront, is becoming a neighbourhood.


• Steve Munro celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Spadina streetcar, here and here.


• Justin Ling at Vice reports on the new disappearances of queer men in Toronto that have left the community on edge.


• At the Toronto Star, Ben Spurr notes that the bike route at Bathurst and Adelaide, overcrowded, is going to be improved.


• Aeryn Pfaff describes at Torontoist the historic and continuing important of Hanlan's beach for the queer community of Toronto.


• Tenzin Nawang Tekan describes the importance of the mono for Tibetans and Tibetan-Canadians, starting in Parkdale.

With fewer than seven hours of sunlight a day at this time of year, Oulu is an unlikely leader in winter cycling. Timo Perälä discovered that his hometown’s approach was unique while doing research into winter maintenance of cycling routes for his thesis more than 15 years ago.

Since that time, Oulu has gained an international reputation for its efforts to facilitate active transportation in the winter. Today, 27 per cent of the population are active cyclists all year long, while Perälä has become the founder and president of the Winter Cycling Federation.

So what’s the secret to ensuring that people choose to bike regardless of the weather?

First, Oulu has an enviable cycling network that extends 613 kilometers to connect a population of 200,000. For comparison, Toronto has 579.4 kilometers of on-street cycling infrastructure for a population more than 10 times as large.

Oulu’s bike lanes are the result of decades of municipal leadership. The city’s first cycling plan was developed in 1969. In an email, Perälä explains: “It was understood early that walking and cycling [have] to be treated as equal modes of transportation.”

In a Jan, 23 letter to City Councillor Pam McConnell, the Cabbagetown Heritage Conservation District Committee expressed disappointment that a Bike Share station was installed last summer within the Cabbagetown North Heritage Conservation District (HCD) without “any regard for the truly unique character” the area presents and asked it be removed.

An HCD protects an entire neighbourhood, not just a historic building. Bike Share, Toronto’s municipal bike lending program, installed a station with 14 bikes in the northwest corner of Riverdale Park, near the Winchester and Sumach Sts. intersection. The committee says the bikes interfere with the “character, rhythm and overall setting” of Cabbagetown and mentioned three listed heritage properties nearby, including the Toronto Necropolis chapel, that the bikes compromised.

Back in November, the Cabbagetown Residents Association conducted an online survey after two residents launched the first historic petards at the bikes, with complaints that stated, in part, “the park should not be dumping grounds for the latest trend from city hall.” Of the 739 who responded to the survey, 721 were in favour of the current location, with only 16 wanting the bike station removed, and two people choosing somewhere else entirely. Undaunted by the survey results, the heritage committee, made up of Cabbagetown residents, launched another volley.

Should the committee be successful in removing the Bike Share station from the park, can we expect them to then work on removing the on-street parking found throughout historic Cabbagetown? While the Bike Share station took up just one small pocket, the entire park and necropolis are surrounded by Hondas, Volkswagens and Volvos, many of them closer to the heritage properties than the bike share is.