Update on Move365

The riding season is in full swing and while Cycle Toronto is in the midst of rolling out exciting programs for Bike Month and supporting ActiveTO road openings and temporary bike lanes, we wanted to pause and provide you with an update about Move365.

Late last year, as we looked to broaden our work outside of the core, we started talking about Move365 as our approach towards integrating our encouragement and education programs with our advocacy work. We know that building a culture of cycling requires many supports beyond infrastructure, whether it’s helping people access bicycles, providing education on how to ride safely, or tackling secure bike parking and access to bike share. It’s also about supporting the great work already happening in communities across Toronto and ensuring they are at the decision making table when transportation projects are proposed for their neighbourhoods. We are aiming to accelerate the transformation of the entire city into a safe, healthy, and vibrant place; to grow the culture of cycling and push for infrastructure in parallel. Thanks to your support, we raised nearly $16,000 toward the implementation of the Move365 program.

The funding has allowed us to deliver some initial programming to meet our goals across four geographic areas, with more work to come soon: Thorncliffe Park and Flemingdon Park, York-Weston, North Etobicoke, and Scarborough West.

Thorncliffe Park & Flemingdon Park

We have continued and expanded our work in this area after initial work around ActiveTO:

Regular working group meetings have increased community engagement for safe streets by building meaningful relationships with parents, teachers, and students from schools in the area. Some community action items include:
- Teachers meeting with Transportation Services staff
- Students building websites and launching social media platforms calling for safer streets in the neighborhood including the Overlea Bridge
- Broad media attention
Building community partnerships with organizations such as Flemingdon Health Centre, The Neighbourhood organization (TNO), Gateway Bike Hub, and the Women's Cycling Network to create a bold mobility vision connecting Thorncliffe Park and Flemingdon Park with the rest of the city.

York-South Weston

Cycle Toronto has been advising the new and diverse group Walk and Cycle York South-Weston on building cycling culture and infrastructure with projects such as
Supporting engagement efforts for the upcoming ActiveTO major road opening on Black Creek Drive which is set to come to life this summer (date TBD)
Engaging the local councillor on filling the gap in the Humber river recreational trail — a City study commenced in March
Ensuring that high quality active transportation options arrive with the Eglinton Crosstown LRT to serve local Neighbourhood Improvement Areas
Providing cycling education, bike safety stations, and collaboration opportunities with the local Community Place Hub to build out cycling supports

Scarborough West

We have collaborated with Scarborough Cycles and Toronto East Cyclists to develop programs to expand our advocacy and encouragement efforts. Some of these include:

Advocating for an extension of ActiveTO complete street style road transformations east into Scarborough
Co-founding a transportation coalition in Scarborough with the goals of improving non-motorized mobility options for Scarborough residents
Collaborating with local businesses to make a strong case for cycling infrastructure
Calling for safety improvements along Huntingwood ActiveTO alongside advocates and neighbourhood organizations
Outreach events such as bike safety stations and celebration events
Working with Scarborough Cycles and the Centre for Active Transportation (TCAT) on a community storytelling project, and mapping a complete street network in Scarborough with University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) students

Our long-term vision is to build a broad network of organizations in Scarborough working to transform the transportation network in the east end, starting with safe and connected cycling grids.

Etobicoke North

We've been working with Africa Climate Action Initiative (ACAI), the CultureLink Tobermory Bike Hub, and delivering workshops at no cost to members of the Rexdale neighbourhood regarding safe cycling, along with key advocacy materials.

We introduced a brand new route planning workshop and delivered it to our North Etobicoke partners
Delivered a free Advocacy 101 workshop to increase knowledge of how to deal with City processes
Delivered free cycling education workshops and an upcoming bike safety station
In discussions to support bike match program
We have participated in the United Way Community Cluster, a group that keeps community stakeholders connected and listens to the needs of the community, since 2020

What’s Next?

With the pandemic’s lockdown keeping us indoors, we’ve gotten creative by producing educational cycling videos and workshops rather than deliver them in person. We’ve been eager to get out and deliver outreach and cycling supports with the reopening of our city, and will be launching bike safety stations in every ward of Toronto this year beginning June 3. These stations are designed to help people get their bikes tuned up and ready to ride, particularly where access to bike shops may be limited. We will be putting particular focus and resources into our project areas.

We have recently brought on two full-time staff members to help us carry out this work; Sonam our Engagement Coordinator, and Taneisha our Community Outreach Coordinator. We’ll be profiling them in the upcoming Ring & Post newsletter.

We have released a public commitment as an update to our anti-oppression statement from last year, and have also committed to participating and investing in a national equity collaboration project which is set to begin in the coming weeks. We will announce details about this project when a more formal announcement can be made.

While we’ve received some funding from supporters like you, we have sought out additional grant funding to take this work to the next level. We are still awaiting a decision on one funding opportunity, and recently learned we were unsuccessful in obtaining major funding from another source. While we are still actively seeking out funding to properly resource this work, your additional support would help us continue the important work we are set to do this year. If you want to help us bridge this funding gap, please consider donating!

The horizon is full of opportunities — we’re preparing for the release of the next phase of Cycle Toronto’s campaigns in the next few weeks, with Move365 at its centre. It will see us working toward safe streets for people while building community partners in Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough and across the inner suburbs of the city.

Thank you again for your support thus far. If you can continue to support our Move365 work, we’re confident we’ll havemore to report back to you later in the summer. It's through members and supporters like you that we can make this work a reality.

If you would like to support this work, please click here to donate.

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Together, we can build the city that we want to see.

Keagan & the Cycle Toronto staff team