0:00 Cycling has grown in popularity in downtown Toronto, but people still aren't cycling as much as they could, according to a Ryerson report released in October. The report on cycling potential in the GTHA found that although nearly one third of the 14 million trips gtha residents take daily could be cycled just 1% are. The report notes a lot of room for cycling growth among women who make 8% more cyclical trips than men, but make up just 30% of the city's cyclists. Claire McFarland is a fourth year journalism student and co founder of the Bad Girls Bike Club. 0:33 Because the the industry is so traditionally male dominated, we sort of wanted to create our own space that safe for women and trans people. One of the reasons that we decided to start the group was that we were hearing from both men and women that they feel intimidated by the idea of riding downtown, so we sort of just wanted to show them that it's really not that bad. It's totally doable, and it's a lot of fun. I ride my bike everywhere. I live like five minutes from campus and I still ride my bike because it's faster like a 5 minute ride. So I ride here, I ride to work, I ride for fun when I'm going out too. 1:07 MacFarlane says that for a lot of the cyclists she speaks to their biggest fears are getting hit by cars or caught in streetcar tracks. Her advice? 1:14 Doing shoulder checks before you sort of move into another lane is always good. Some people forget to kind of like look before they turn. Facing streetcar tracks at a 90 degree angle is much better than trying to sort of weave in between them, that's how a lot of people get stuck. And other than that, just being aware of your surroundings. Try not to use earbuds when you're riding although some of us do it sometimes. Try to avoid that and just to be as aware as possible. 1:40 Watch it. 1:41 But sometimes even frequent cyclists run into problems. Take city councillor for Ward 27, Kristen Wong Tam. 1:48 I have been doored personally and I have had at least two accidents, which involves a car hitting me on two separate occasions. During my time of providing a bicycle in Toronto. 2:02 Nancy Smith Li a principal investigator on the Ryerson Cycling report has also been doored. 2:07 It really hurts. Yeah, it's it's very sudden, and it's despite all of the the ways that we're instructed to navigate the city to avoid it. It's really difficult to avoid. 2:26 Although McFarland says most of her cycling experiences have been positive, she's had her share of negative ones as well. 2:31 Yeah, we had, this is a really sad story, but someone who came out with us to ride and she had written like twice before in the city. And the second time she ended up getting doored. Someone opened up the door on her and she fell and sort of scraped herself up and that was kind of a bummer. And then when she was riding with us, we were riding in a protected bike lane and a cab was sitting in the bike lane, so we had to go around. And then as she was trying to get back up into the bike lane, she ended up falling and it was really very sad, but she was fine. She she just seemed to think that was part of the experience. 3:08 Smith Li and her team think that the best way to get more women riding bikes is to build more infrastructure in the city so people can cycle safely. Their study says women are less likely than men to cycle on unsafe streets. Councillor Wong Tam says unless Toronto gets more cycling infrastructure, it's going to become more and more difficult to move people around. She says Toronto needs more bike lanes, bike parking, and bike share stations. Ian Cantello one of the researchers who worked on the Ryerson report thinks politics holds back the development of those things. 3:39 But just the idea of people saying that okay, well, one lane less because we have a bike lane instead of you know, cars going there. That that's a huge problem. And that that you can win votes based on that. It's something that doesn't that I don't see really happening that often in the political discourse of the other cities that I've lived in, in this area. It's more bike lanes or a public good. Should build bike lanes. That's it. 4:03 MacFarlane agrees. 4:04 It's a lot more fun to be able to as you're riding your bike to see the city essentially interact with your surroundings and being able to get some exercise while you're doing it. When you once you get to where you're going you're like full of endorphins and just generally a lot happier than you would be if you took the subway. 4:20 For Ryerson News Night, this is Justin Chandler.