The issue that caused almost 300 residents to jam the students’ council room at King’s College on Epworth Ave. was the city’s proposal to widen Colborne St. by about a metre to accommodate two bike lanes and in the process ban on-street parking.

The net effect would be turn this residential street through the centre of a leafy and affluent historic neighbourhood into a collector for motorists from elsewhere trying to avoid congestion on Richmond and Adelaide.

But what really “got people pissed off,” in the words of Rosemary Cooke, a self-described one-time activist currently, and ironically, recuperating from a serious bicycle accident, was the terrible way in which the city communicated its intentions.

Did anyone know about this until recently? Ms. Cooke asked the standing room only crowd at one point. Not a single hand was raised.

“The city didn’t do it right,” Ms. Cooke said, then went on to explain what the meeting was about. “This will not simply be a way to provide an example of what went wrong. It will be an example of what went right about protecting our homes. We are the ones communicating, the city is not.

“Can you fight City Hall? Yes you can!” There was thunderous applause.
 
That fight, though, started small. Jane Monteith, a Colborne St. resident and a chartered accountant by day, is credited with getting the community engaged. When she heard about the city’s plan she cranked out some flyers and stuffed them in mail boxes along the length of Colborne north of Oxford.

She’d never met Ms. Cooke before her flyer drew an email. Two became more, eventually spawned a website (check it out here) and culminated in last night’s protest meeting which the area’s city councillor, Nancy Branscombe, helped organize.

In turn Ms. Branscombe invited John Lucas, the city’s manager of transportation engineering, and two consultants involved in the project to help answer questions. She also invited Jeff Fielding, who as the city’s chief administrative officer is the city’s top bureaucrat. As things turned out that particular invitation was auspicious.

Mr. Fielding arrived late, took some criticism from the crowd for that, eventually got seated in a chair at the front of the room “so he could see the emotion on people’s faces as they spoke.” He made a brief statement that sounded a lot like an apology, suggested there were other options now being considered, then sat down and listened for awhile.

This is a bit of what he heard.

“I really resent when staff show up with a smirk on their faces and say there are options, but they are kept secret,” said one man. “Old North is already great for biking and should be left alone,” said another. “This whole process has been a mendacious scheme,” said one woman. “I think they are going to open up the street for more traffic and it will be more dangerous than it already is,” said another. “There is no benefit to us. Is there a mechanism in place to compensate us for the loss of property values?” a long-time resident wondered.

And over and over the refrain: “What can we do? How do we stop it? Where do we go from here?”

At 8:04, roughly an hour after the meeting started, Mr. Fielding stood up again. The City Hall boss man had heard enough and had a totally unexpected answer.

The Colborne bike lane project would not go ahead, he announced. “I will recommend (to council) that we keep the road the way it is. There are lots of ways to bike in Old North; we don’t need to have dedicated bike lanes.”

There was confused and stunned silence for a brief moment, then a roaring and spontaneous standing ovation that punctuated a huge victory for people power.

Later Ms. Cooke said she and her colleagues are not anti-biking. They are pro neighbourhood. But if Mr. Fielding hadn’t come and city council hadn’t listened, what would have happened? “We would have keep pushing,” she said. “There was always lying on the street.”