Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Lanrick Bennett, Jr.: Toronto Mike'd #1127

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

In this 1127th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike is joined by the Bike Mayor of Toronto Lanrick Bennett, Jr. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Yes, We Are Open, The Advantaged Investor, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Welcome I'm from Toronto where you wanna get the city love I'm a Toronto Mike, you wanna get the city love My city love me back, for my city love Welcome to episode 1127 of Toronto Mike Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA StickerU.com Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals.

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Pillars of the community since 1921. And Canna Cabana, the lowest prices on cannabis, guaranteed. Joining me today, making his Toronto mic debut, is the bicycle mayor of Toronto, Lanrick Bennett Jr. Toronto, Lanric Bennett Jr. Lanric, right off the top, in multiple places online, you're referred to as Lanric Jr. Bennett. Yeah. Explain, are you a Junior Bennett or a Bennett Jr.? I'm a Bennett Jr., and yeah, it's a wonky setup. My father, he's passed away.

He was Lanric Bennett. My condolences. he's passed away. He was Landrick Bennett's. My condolences. Thank you, yeah. He was Landrick Bennett done. Like, not even Landrick Bennett Sr., just Landrick Bennett. And we've just had a lot of interesting, how can I put it, just wonkiness when it comes to my name. just wonkiness when it comes to my name.

And, you know, it really actually bubbled up during the last municipal election when I ran. And they were like, well, you can't put Junior on your name. You just have to be Landrick Bennett. And I'm like, well, but that's my dad. And they were like, it really doesn't matter. We don't have suffixes so you're just land anyways um a lot of just banking and and just stuff in general um i have to try and fit in whatever it is that that they allow for so sometimes it comes up as landrick jr sometimes

it comes up as landrick bennett jr um Have you considered maybe you're just Junior Bennett? Yeah, you know, the Junior thing was such a, from zero to like grade six, I was known as Junior. And then after like grade seven, eight, it was just like, no, no, no, I'm going to stick with this Landrick thing. thing um my uh my my father um hilariously naming me lanric um also enjoyed the fact that uh we had a near similar birthday so both my parents uh were born on june 14th i was born at 1201 on the 15th wow so two minutes you were two minutes that's a that is amazing. So he completely enjoyed the fact that he was this massive shadow across me where it was just like, I'm always here. I'm always going to be around. You're never going to lose me, which is cool.

Okay. You went by Junior as a younger man because of Junior Felix, right? Right, yeah, of course. Just making sure. How long ago was Junior Felix? Junior Felix, right? Right, yeah, of course. Just making sure. How long ago was Junior Felix? Junior Felix, I believe, didn't he make the catch that sealed the no-hitter for Dave

Steeb? Wasn't that, am I right about that? I don't even want to try and remember that far back. I think we're similar vintage here, but okay, so we've already addressed my main question, so you can leave now. Done, this is great. Because a lot of places, like the Bicycle Mayor website and stuff, they're like, but done this is great because a lot of places like the bicycle mayor website and stuff they're like oh this is lanrick jr bennett and uh for a while i thought that's what you were going by but it's like that doesn't make sense but you know we

just leave it as that all right i'm can i just say that like this setup is so cool you can say anything you want buddy i'm in the basement it's a safe space I'm in the basement. It's a safe space. I'm in the basement of Toronto Mike. And yeah, no, this is awesome. Thank you so much. But did it meet your expectations, Landry? It met my, I'm blown away. Low expectations. In all honesty, thank you so much for the invite. And, you know, sans the crazy weather riding out here,

this was, it's awesome to be here. So thank you. Okay, so thank you for making the ride here. You and, it's awesome to be here. So thank you. Okay. So thank you for making the ride here. You and I are cut from the same cloth in that when we have somewhere in the GTA we need to go, we bike it, right? Like if you can bike it, you'll bike it. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, the biggest issue with cycling in general in this city throughout the GTA in general is infrastructure. cycling in general in this city throughout the GTA in general is infrastructure. If you've got a safe route to get to a place, why would you not ride? I mean, even with rain coming down, even if there's snow, it is so wonderful to be on a bike and to be able to explore our city. I'm with you 100%. Yeah, I just, and this is not,

and I'm sure we'll... We'll get into biking more later. We let people like log off before our bike. I mean, I was one once. Who's the woman? There was a woman who was like a cycling advocate and she was kind of around for a while. She wrote a book, I think,

about cycling in Toronto or something. Do you know who I'm referring to? You're talking about Yvonne Bamberg? Yes. Okay. So I reached out to her a few years ago. Maybe this now we're maybe going back four or five years ago. I reached out to her because I said,

come on Toronto Mike and talk about cycling in Toronto because I love cycling. So two things happened. Once she really did not seem into it. And this is before the pandemic. So you had to come here and I'm like, well, just bike over. You bike everywhere, right? Like you practice what you preach. You biked here biked here she said oh that's kind of far i don't even think she was nearly as far as you are but we're getting back but then the sex so that's one thing

and then i was talking to my brother steve who listens to every episode and loves tron and mike then he said that would be the first episode i skip that's what he told me and then i had like i was gun shy like oh i guess i can't do an episode all about even though that's my great passion cycling the city and it's like oh i can't steve doesn't listen like who's gonna listen i can't do an episode about cycling in toronto but then i mean and we're gonna get into cam gordon here because i'm gonna let the world know that we met once before we actually met we literally met on the red carpet you remember this i do Landry? Yes, I do remember this. Okay. So that's, we met, that wasn't long ago, but we were there to hear the cast of The Woman King.

Yeah, yeah. So Viola Davis and everybody. And company, yeah. So, okay. So there's a lot of places I want to go here, but let's start by saying hello to Cam Gordon, who is, so he kind of tapped me on the shoulder and said, why haven't you had Landry on yet? And I said, oh, the bicycle mayor? I would have Lanric on.

And he goes, yeah, you guys would hit it off. I know you both quite well. And he says we would hit it off. And I said, okay. And that day, I think I sent you an email and said, come on, Toronto Mike. And then we met on the red carpet at TIFF. And we were both there.

Of all places. We were both there because Cam Gordon invited us. That's right. So we're going to put the nod to Cam for bringing us together. This was quite sweet of him to connect this tissue of cycling peeps together. So thanks, Cam. And do you listen to Toronto Mike? I have been listening to Toronto Mike, but I was actually following you way before that,

like when you were just a blog. You're an OG. I'm a real OG. Love it. was actually following you way before that like when you were just a blog you're no g love it but you know what and the thing the the reason why i i you know on top of just you know reading the blog i loved that you actually talked about radio and and back in the day uh my radio station was 102.1 CFNY. Like that was kind of my, that was my itch. It was, you know, Alan Cross and it was Martin Streak and it was the entire enchiladas of what music was for myself, which was really strange back in the late 80s, early 90s, where you didn't know what it was that you wanted to listen to,

but for some reason this one station was able to. It was Thursday nights. My Thursday nights were myself with my tape recorder and trying desperately to get the commercials out of the way and the dj would just stop talking so i could get like the the music online and you're referring to the thursday 30 that's right yeah and yeah so streak did host that for a while i remember yeah and uh co-hosted by with uh pete fowler for many years as well but so pete fowler's become a very good uh friend of the show a a great FOTM.

He's a police officer with the OPP now. So shout out to Pete Fowler and I want to shout out Blair Packham, who's going to be here soon with, uh, how do you know all of these people that I know? So how do you know Blair Packham? I know Blair.

Uh, so I've had many hats, uh, before becoming the bicycle mayor. I used to be the, um, education officer for the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. Oh! Yeah, way, way back. Really?

Yeah. So much to learn about you. They were based at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. And I had a music show called Bare Bones and Up Front. I was co-producing that show. And Blair got to play, I believe it was season two. I had three seasons out there.

We had like 40 or so Toronto singer-songwriters. And as everyone knows, nothing happens in North York. Everyone knows that, you know, Toronto basically ends up Bloor Street. So it was, no, but it was a reason to get people to come to North York, to come to the Toronto Centre for the Arts.

So we put together a music series on Thursday nights that would bring Toronto singer-songwriters to North York. And Blair was one of our, it was a wonderful show. And he is an amazing guy. He lives in the East end as well. Yeah. But yeah. So, so,

okay. So he is a great singer, songwriter. Yeah. Blair Packham. So it makes sense. So I have, I want to hear more about that,

but Blair listens to this program very closely. He does a very good Mark Wise blot impression. He played at TMLXX. How come you've never attended a TMLX event? If you're such a listener of John Lee? Yeah, you know, it's timing. It's all about timing. There's been 10 of them.

None of those times worked out for you, Len. Listen to you. I mean, I can't just wander in and just hope that I will be... December 3rd is the Saturday. Can you make... I can make it. Okay.

I will be there. So you'll get Palma pasta because it's going to happen at Palma's Kitchen. Do you have room in your backpack? We're going to talk about how far you biked and everything. I've got lots of ground to cover if you land right. I've got bungee cords. I can basically take anything.

Okay, I have a large lasagna for you to take home courtesy of Palma Pasta. Delicious lasagna going home with you. You're awesome. I am awesome. I've got a gift for you as well. Don't think that I came here empty-handed. Hold on to that gift gift so i want to just before i leave the blair packham subject of the day here uh blair is returning to toronto mic'd with david quinton steinberg and he's a we had

him on before david quinton steinberg i don't know if he's crossed your paths but he's uh he was with the mods and he recorded with stiff bait's, and he also played at the Jitters, and that's why he knows Blair. But Blair is going to bring his guitar and play some songs and stuff with David Quinton Steinberg. So that is coming up. What other singer-songwriters crossed your path in that gig? Oh, my gosh. So, love Julian Taylor.

Why hasn't he been on Toronto Mike? I don't know. Have you sent out? That's? I don't know. Have you sent out? That's what I need to do. I need to invite him. I like it when people knock on my door and say, can I please come on? Which happens, but you could have done that.

I didn't need to wait for Cam Gordon to give me the orders. I'm blanking now on the many singer-songwriters. I'm blanking. It's okay because Singer-songwriters. This is bad that I just... I'm blanking. It's okay, because you know this is not going to be edited. No, of course not.

So it's going to make me look really, really bad that I can't even... But needless to say, many a great singer-songwriter. I'm sure Joni Mitchell, you met her. I'm sure Neil Young. Oh, yeah. Bruce Colburn. For sure, they're all...

Okay, how far did you bike today to come here? So, I mean, if we look at... Let's take a quick gander at what Strava says that I did. Because, I mean, you're talking to a guy who will so relate to this because I bike everywhere. 21.31 to get here. And I came out from, like like Pape and Danforth, went down to Queen and basically,

or sorry, to Richmond, took that all the way to the C&E and then just took Lakeshore. And Waterfront Trail. Yeah, it was beautiful. So the nice thing about this location is it's right on the Waterfront Trail. So always when I'm like, where do I have to go?

It's like Monica, my wife was just telling me, hey, can you pick something up for me? I said, oh, where is it? She on the waterfront trail so always when i'm like where do i have to go it's like monica my wife was just telling me hey can you pick something up for me i said where is it she goes young and finch like my brain right away says oh humber trail like i already map it out right i love that humber trail and uh you know basically you got you know you got those like i say there's humber trail there's waterfront trail and there's dawn valley trail and then that's like your meat and potatoes and then you figure out like from where you go from there yeah from there but i have never encountered a location that i didn't feel safe getting to but then again i am one of those guys who's very comfortable like i'll be very comfortable on finch alongside like trucks and stuff like i don't have fear which might might end up being uh the quote people pull when uh shout out to Ridley Funeral Home when I show up on Brad's doorstep. But that is, that's maybe the biggest crux when it comes to talking about

cycling as a means for mobility and transportation in this city is that, yeah, we've got a good, you know, two, 3% that are like yourself or even like myself that don't mind being out in and around traffic. But if we're going to see a larger portion of the public actually take the want and time to actually start exploring the city by bike, it's, and I know this is going to sound like. No, I'm with you. You've got to get the masses. You've got to get the infrastructure built out. You've got to find the politicians that actually have...

Are you allowed to swear on this show? Well, I don't even need to swear about it, but... Oh, I was looking forward to the Lanric... You need the balls. You need the political will. Is that a swear? That's not a swear. I know.

But you need the political will. You can say that on CFNY in the morning right now. You need to have the political will to actually bridge that conversation of, are we going to put vulnerable road users as a priority? And if that is a priority, if you've already voted for Vision Zero and you think that, yes, you know, making it so that we're not so dependent on cars, then you've got to put forth that political will to put the money and the time and the effort into making it safe for, you know, for my daughter to be able to ride her bike. And, you know, as such. So it's, it's a, yeah, it's, it's a dynamic where, you know, it's not a chicken or egg situation here. or egg situation here. You just got to build and keep on building and, and allow for people to just be able to touch this protective membrane of, of public space and go, oh yeah, I can do that. And maybe I'll just go two kilometers today. Maybe I'll go four kilometers. Maybe I'll take a 10 kilometer ride with the family or with my friends or go to the grocery store or ride to work i mean it's all of these

different situations that you can um you know really uh expand the the ability for us to get around but and i have a question about infrastructure here so i'm often on royal royal york say the word rural york really fast royal york say it again royal york say it again royal york oh you're good You should have your own podcast. Okay. So Royal York is like urban juror. Oh, no. And rural juror.

That's the one. Right. Rural juror. Okay. Royal York. It's a slowdown. You can nail it. Royal York is, I take it all the time because it's got a bike lane and I feel much safer

on Royal York than I do on Kipling or Islington. Sure. So I take Royal York. And the reason I feel safer as well, there's less traffic than a Kipling in islington but also there is a bike lane but it's just paint like like what are your thoughts and again i'm actually going to save the bike lane stuff till later because i want there's so many interesting things about you i want to cover before we get to cycling but right as a teaser here what are your thoughts on these bike lanes that are literally just a line of paint on the road they suck and and let me put that into a quick context of this is not a blame on our pedestrian and cycling unit

that works within the city what they're able to accomplish with the with the funding that we give them as a city is remarkable and hats off to them. But paint does not protect. It is not protection. It is a hope and a will that a driver is actually going to see it. Basically, it reminds drivers that maybe there might be someone on a bike beside them. And how dangerous is that maybe, right? I mean, like that maybe is just...

It's not a separated bike is just it's not a separated it's not a separated bike now here in this neck of the woods when i moved into this neighborhood uh between uh and again hyper local here but it is toronto mike that it is my show darn it but like between norris norris crescent okay and first street so you were coming from the the east so you were on the waterfront trail so you got off the water you got off the waterfront like a true waterfront at norris crescent and you took that and there was a separated bike lane it just like you see in queen's key there it was great that got you to first street and then you noodle over yes it's cool but when i moved in there was no bike lane on lakeshore between norris

crescent and first street there was nothing you just sort of biked on the street yeah and my daughter who was obviously much younger then, but she hated that part. We did that ride all the time. That's how we went, you know, that's how we got back and forth from her mom's house

to my house and everything. And she hated that segment because she had to ride on the street. And they did put in a separated bike lane and it, to me, I don't know. Game changer, right?

Game changer. Yeah. We need more separated bike lane infrastructure in the city of Toronto. I can't. Yes. There's no argument there. Do you agree, Larry? I agree, of course.

And in the... I can't hear you. The entire thing is, though, that the argument against that is, oh, well, you're taking away, you know, street usage from drivers and cars and trucks. Yeah, yeah, we are, and that's okay. And you want narrower streets. You want smaller sections of this public domain to be put towards cars and trucks and everything else that unfortunately can kill vulnerable road users.

You want to be able to put forth that separated piece to allow for, and it's not just bikes. I mean, even coming here this morning, I passed by at least three or four people that were on mobility devices. I passed a guy that was in a wheelchair. I passed a dozen people that were out with their strollers. You have such, Toronto in general has such an opportunity to allow everyone, everyone to be able to travel the way that they need to safely. Um, it's, I, I, I'm going to preach on this, the political will, You need that political will. You need that want to prioritize people's lives. And it's hard to understand why that is so hard to get into a politician's head.

And again, I know we're in the weeds here and I know I've lost my brother, Steve, which is too bad because there's some fascinating stuff. Does he ride? No, he doesn't really ride, no. Does his kids ride? I'm sure Nate gets on a bike now and then, but

it's not that he doesn't care about bike infrastructure. It's just he doesn't want to hear an episode about biking, I guess. But we'll see if he's stuck around. I did shout out his wife the other day when Matt Dusk was here. So I did shout out Vanessa. So we'll see if he's still listening.

So when I look at the, I think of Toronto, like there's a grid and I can visualize it in my head. And of course, there's no problem east-west because I'm on the waterfront trail. And I also am, you know, I'm sensitive to the fact

that not everybody lives this south of the city. And I know I talk to people in Scarborough and they're like, okay, this is how I'm supposed to bike. Like I don't want to bike alongside the 18-wheeler or whatever. And I get that it sucks there. But then I look north-south, okay? So from where I'm supposed to bike. Like, I don't want to bike alongside the 18-wheeler or whatever. And I get that it sucks there.

But then I look north-south, okay? So from where I am, I just mentioned my route north-south is Royal York, which is just a line of paint on Royal York. And I think it... How far does Royal York go, like, north? It goes to Lawrence. Okay. And then you got to...

Then you're right. But at that point... So typically, I've already switched over to the... And again, you have to move quite in as we're in the weeds but you got to move quite a bit uh east to get on the humber trail so you don't have time to get that for east so i can take rural york it depends if i have to go to like eglinton or something i'll take rural york and then eglinton has separated bike lane on it right uh which is cool but but but but but but uh just a line of paint and i'm of the thought that, so why can't we just say, okay,

Islington is where the automobiles are going to go, and they need to go north. So between the 401 and the Gardner, this street, Islington, that's going to be the car-centric street. That's your car corridor. Gotcha. And if you move just a little bit east, you've got rural York, and we're going to put separated bike lanes.

And you're right, it doesn't go that far north because you have to go on St. Philip's, I think it's called, and then you have West End. There's a whole lake. It kind of breaks up. It does break up at Lawrence. I think that's as far as you can go. But basically, we do suffer for a good north-south artery.

In the West End. Even where I am right now. And I know it's worse. I heard it's worse in Scarborough, but here I am in southwest. And if I need to now go north, I'm going to take rural York, and it will only get me so far.

But then again, I'm a guy who's comfortable going on the streets or whatever. And also, I like to make time. I'm a guy who likes to bike, so I will make time to get myself on the Humber Trail and then take that, and I can take that up to steals okay so here's the here's the the global mindset of being able to travel in toronto sans a car is not french this is a bilingual podcast as much as i am yes the bicycle

mayor and and definitely amplifying and pushing for cycling infrastructure. There is also the need for us to be able to be a multi-mobility piece where you're using cycling that gets to be added on to public transit, that gets you to utilize, again, all of this public space. Our streets are public space. This is not a private, you know, roadway. This is something that everyone should be able to use. So as much as it would be great for yourself to be able to ride all the way, you know, to Lawrence on Royal York, maybe someone that may not be as agile or, you know, just doesn't feel as comfortable to be able to ride. How cool would

it be if we had, you know, public transit that was really utilized to allow for, hey, hop on, bring your bike, we'll take you as far as you want, then you can hop back off. And, you know, the conversations that need to happen between the cycling infrastructure people, TTC, Metrolinks, all of that needs to, they need to be building out almost at the same time in the same mindset to be able to get people from point A to point B and everything in between. I don't mean to interrupt, you're on the roll, but how the heck? So I'm a realist and I live here and I've got the one vote. And of course our premier is Doug Ford. ford yeah our mayor is let's face it it's going to be once again john tory okay let's do it in my crystal ball so with john tory and doug ford at the at

the helm of their respective uh you know offices there uh what hope is there for a uh bike-centric, like, I know you're the bicycle mayor, and we're going to talk about what that means, and who the hell elected you as the bicycle mayor? I don't remember casting that vote, but I'm glad you're there. And you're a great advocate for cycling, and I really look up to you, because I feel it, but I don't really have the energy. I wish, maybe I should, but what hope is there? You've got those two, you know, pinnacle points of elected power that are, you know, kind of, not kind of, they're controlling the, you know, province and city. I think a lot of the power that constituents have, they don't utilize. They don't put themselves out there to change the narrative. And, and a lot of the work of the bicycle mayor of, uh, cycling advocates

of pedestrian advocates of people that are out there, friends and family for safe streets. Like there are so many avenues of advocacy that are trying to push on to just that simple understanding of if I'm a vulnerable road user and everyone is, even if you drive for a living, even if all you do is hop into your car, as soon as you park, you're a pedestrian. If you have to cross the street to get to your car, you can be hit by another driver.

Like you are as vulnerable outside of that steel box as anyone else. And I think that there is a almost, it's a shyness of being able to voice the real concerns of why shouldn't I, as a 47 year old black man be able to, you know, hop on my bike, get on the street and feel safe why shouldn't i be able to do that why shouldn't my 11 or 14 year old be able to do that why shouldn't my mom at 72 be able to do that same thing that narrative needs to we we need to change the course of of how we uh advocate as constituents okay i uh i'm off of all, I'm on team Lanric. That goes without saying. But how did

you become, what is the bicycle mayor? And also, I've noticed on Twitter, there's a guy tweeting about, he calls himself the bicycle lawyer. Does anyone confuse you? We have a bicycle mayor and a bicycle lawyer kind of on Twitter. No one confuses us.

Dave looks so much better than me so i haven't met dave so i cannot comment he's wonderful um the bicycle mayor there is a small organization out in the netherlands uh called bikes bycs and they have a hundred and fifty of these bicycle mares across the world uh their their want their hope their need is to transform the way that we discuss and push forward mobility throughout our cities and these bicycle mares uh no sashes no crowns we we don't necessarily per se get elected but um you in my case i had um a few people that put my name forward and and they and you're worthy don't get me wrong oh no no well you know what that's this is toronto's first so i i'm in for a two year term and i love the fact that it's a term limit. I'm all for term limits.

I think that you get in, you do some good stuff, and then before you leave, you start to- But is your limit two years? My limit as the bicycle mayor is two years. It doesn't mean that I stop advocating because of that. But before I leave, I want to be able to bring in more people into the conversation and have them be, uh, excited to be able to carry, um, the mantle of, of the bicycle mayor. And, and I'm not, I'm not, you know, out there, uh, you know, beating my chest to, to say this, you know, that as a bicycle mayor, I, I need to do this or do that. It is, it's a lot of amplification. It's a lot of, you know, being there as a, an additional voice to, uh, to, to push the real, uh, narrative of why cycling, why, you know, this type of mobility piece is so important

to a city like Toronto and, and, you know, living in the city, I've been here now for, uh, what, geez, 16 years. Where did you live before? So I lived in Mississauga. All the way in Mississauga. All the way in Mississauga. I was literally on the border of Mississauga and Oakville, Winston Churchill on Dundas, where you could, at the time when my parents bought, uh, their house, you could choose between having your gas, hydro or water, either being Holton or Peel. It was literally just kind of like, which one do you want? Because, you know, so. You're on the border.

You're on the border. So, yeah, I've only been living in Toronto for the last 16 years. in Toronto for the last 16 years, and I've only actually been riding a bike as my main focus of transportation for like six, seven years. Our stories are similar. Even hearing, you said you were a 47-year-old black man.

Yes. I'm a 40, I'm thinking, what am I actually? You know what, at some point in these years, I get a little confused. I am a 48-year-old white man. Okay. But pretty similar. So I'm going to read your statement as bike mayor of the city of Toronto here.

So, okay. This is good. I'm not going to imitate your voice though, because I couldn't sound as good as you. As bike mayor for the city of Toronto, I plan to work directly with community organizations to adopt cycling inclusion and safety in the communities in each of the six boroughs. I will work with employers to adopt cycling commuter programs and BIAs in the city to engage in bike-focused activities with an emphasis on reaching BIPOC and underserved community groups. To achieve these goals, I will need your support and participation.

Please reach out and let me know how you'd like to participate in making Toronto a cycling city. So if anyone listening, if anyone's left, and it's only the cyclists probably, they're obviously passionate about cycling in this city. How can they reach out to you?

I mean, the best way is you can email me at bicyclemayortoronto at gmail.com. You can, of course, follow me on Twitter or Instagram at bicyclemayorto. I'm always open for conversations. And just hearing you read my opening statement, I mean, I've been the bicycle mayor since, what, January? my uh my opening statement yeah i mean i've been the bicycle mayor since what january and the conversations that have already started to bubble up i'm i'm kind of humbled by by that i mean i've had bias uh you know kind of kind of go so you know this this bicycling thing isn't it going to

hurt businesses i love that being the first question because it allows me to start showing them exactly. No, actually, this is, you know, this cycling, but to really showcase the power of having people hop on and hop off of their bikes to hit all of these businesses, especially during the pandemic, I think was just a huge blueprint for the city and just being able to see that, oh my gosh, these people on bikes, they're like everyone else. They can buy things. They can look at things. They actually enjoy their neighborhood enough that they want to be able to support the local businesses and establishments that are there. And it just makes it so much easier to be able to be on your bike, buy stuff, put it on the back rack, put it in your basket,

you know, just be able to see and touch things in such a more meaningful way than trying to drive through in your, you know, steel box at 40 or 50 kilometers an hour and try and find parking. So a lot of this is actually a mindset. So, you know, you said you've been only hardcore biking everywhere you can for like several, about seven years or something.

So I'm not that far off from you. I think I took a 15, I biked a lot as a teenager and then for 15 years I didn't bike. I drove everywhere. And then it was really to me, it was a mindset where, I'm trying to remember what year, I think it was 2012.

So we're going back about, yeah, 10 years. So about 10 years ago, I sort of picked up biking again, just something I did at lunch because I was working from home. And I would do like a 5 or 10K. I did a lot of trips to West Dean Park. Shout out to West Dean because I was living in an apartment near there. And then I realized, oh, yeah yeah why did i not bike for 15 years i absolutely love it i love seeing the city but here we're still talking fair weather cycling

which i say would be like from may to like september to october maybe okay so and then uh in the winter i would uh lock up the bike and i just go back to driving everywhere again okay so this was like my initial thing and i did that that for a couple of years. And then I said, Hey, like, why do I lock up my bike in a, like, it's just a mindset thing. Like I was just thinking to myself, like, why am I locking up my bike from like October to April? Because it's not like warm and sunny and dry and stuff. And, uh, changed my mindset where I said, Hey, let me see what happens. Like, let me just figure it out. And then, so now for several years now, I've been biking 12 months a year like that literally there's only maybe five to ten days a year where i look outside and say

nope like five to ten days a calendar year that that happens and i measure all this like you do so i can i track it all because it's all kind of gamifying it but you you know you came here and you're a bit wet so you you you looked outside and you said oh it's rainy but you didn't you never had a moment of like i don't want to ride in this, right? This is a mindset for you. It is a mindset. And I mean, I'm not expecting a brand new cyclist to just be able to jump out into the ether and just go, hey, we're going to do this. Baby steps.

You need a bit of baby steps. You need a bit of planning as well. And even this morning, just looking at the weather and figuring out. Yeah, how do I dress for this? Yeah yeah how do i dress yeah how do i dress when can i leave there was even a time frame where i was like all right here's the route that i'm going to take because if it is a huge downpour i can either hop on a streetcar or i can maybe just make it to the subway and and have that be you have your contingency i've got my contingency plans out there, but, uh, and even,

and I'm going to have to correct myself. I said seven years and it's actually not seven years. It's probably only about five. Okay. Thank you for collecting the record. And I put that in for the fact that my, my resurgence into cycling was all about my daughter, Zoe.

Zoe. And so here's Zoe. I'm going to have to embarrass you i'm really sorry zoe zoe will zoe listen to this oh zoe will listen to this zoe i hope you're very proud of your father uh lanrick jr bennett but she um we live about 15, 15 minutes away from her, um, from her middle school. And Zoe came into the kitchen, uh, one morning and she was just like, I'm going to ride to school. And my wife and I kind of looked at each other and like that, that's, that's great. You, you do that. No, I'm going to ride to school next week. And it was just like, oh geez.

Oh shit. Um, my wife has a bike she's been she's been cycling for years she does the ride to conquer cancer loves you know she she has been a an avid uh cyclist for seven years there's the seven uh but for myself i was i was just taking public transit for most of the time she had to start work early in the morning. So it was kind of like, you need to go and buy a bike. So that's what I did and bought a bike, went out riding with Zoe for a couple of weeks just to kind of get her into understanding where she would need

to fit into riding on the street. And that was, you've already talked about bike lanes with paint. Yeah. We had to ride on painted lines. And so Zoe would be in the paint and I would be in the street. So I would be that, you know, force field of such. Buffer.

The buffer, the buffer zone. And I got to tell you, it was the most fantastic time riding with, she was nine at the time. She was a nine-year-old riding to school. Love it. And how amazing is that, just being able to ride with her to school, pick her up in the afternoon, ride back home. It's so liberating, right?

It was liberating. And I mean, it just, it made so much sense. Okay, so you're having fun. Having fun. You're not, I mean, you take public transit anyways, but for people who, you know, opt out of driving, there's a, you know, your carbon footprint goes to zero. There's no fossil fuel burning. It's what's good for Mother Earth.

It's good for your health. And I'm not just talking physical. Obviously, you're exercising. Your mental health. Absolutely. It's my drug of choice to treat my many ailments. Okay. So, and then last but not least, it saves you money, your wallet benefits. Oh my gosh, right.

So, if you're saving money, you're having fun. I'm counting these down with you. So, you're saving money, you're having fun, you're helping, you're good for Mother Earth, you're removing one more car from traffic and the volume. And then, you know, this city was not built for this kind of vehicular traffic. We all know that. And you're saving money. Oh my goodness.

It all wraps up into an amazing opportunity to just do so much good. So we're riding. We're having fun. We're doing our thing. We're bonding as best as a dad and a daughter can do. Love it. And then someone got killed on our route. Douglas Crosby was crushed by a truck.

I know this story. Crushed by a truck at Dundas and Jones. We missed this crash by 20 minutes. And, you know, I remember picking up Zoe that evening and we didn't take the same route home. I think we actually took Greenwood and made it all the way up to, we kind of, you know, just whittled our way back home and I didn't tell Zoe what had happened.

I was just like, we need to get home. I explained to her, you know, that someone had been killed, um, uh, opposite our route. I asked her how she felt. Um, and, uh, geez, you know, she was like, okay, all right, this has happened, daddy. I, I still want to ride to school. Can we still ride to school? This was happening at the same time as me running for city council. And Zoe turned to me and she was just like, you got to make a promise to make it all protected. Like all of it. Got to make it. Paint is not sufficient. Not enough.

Not enough. So, you know, we kept on writing throughout the campaign, and that was, you know, one of my tentpole pieces for it. We had the CBC actually follow Zoe to school. Nice. They had a van. They put on a GoPro on her and, like, followed her route to school. Of course, I did not win. Who beat you?

Paula Fletcher. Okay, that's tough. You know, I just... Yeah, incumbents. You heard the Amber Morley episode. Yes, I did. I did. And I'm, you know, she's got my vote.

Yeah, she's pretty awesome. I quite like Amber Morley. She's pretty awesome. She won, by the way, at TMLXX. She won the Canna Cabana gift packana gift pack and she did text me to say i received my canna cabana gift pack so wonderful shout out to canna cabana who's helping to fuel conversations like this that not even my brother steve will listen to but i think it's very important and i'm passionate about it and i'm loving my chat with lanerick bennett jr don't

put jr in the middle. It's at the end. So Zoe, this story, by the way, the Crosby story is tragic. It is. And of course, his wife was a media personality who also passed away. Passed away a year later. It's just so sad, that whole story.

So Zoe lasted on her bike for maybe, maybe another three months. And then she gave up she she literally went on on bike strike she wrote to paula she wrote to peter tab and she wrote to our trustee jennifer story got no response from any of them it wasn't until she actually wrote to john tory and we put it on social media that we actually, that, yeah, no, that's exactly what it was though, because we got a response from Paula, you know, not even, not even four hours after, you know, putting that letter out there. So, um, and they've got, if you've, if you ride on Dundas right now, you'll, you'll see, you'll see Douglas Crosby's, bike at the corner of Dundas and Jones,

and you'll see a little strip of concrete on Dundas at that corner. Nothing on Jones, and that concrete barrier, it's not a continuous piece across Dundas. It's kind of piecemeal across the entire piece so dundas is still not a protected bike lane the way it should be jones is completely just a minefield of paint and destruction so we've got to do a lot you know what gets me on that so it's it seems to me in this city even though that's insufficient action it is actually a an example of some action and it seems like people have to die for action because and i'm reminded because i ride that

waterfront trail every day and where the of course uh where the uh legion is right outside legion every day i see the ghost bike for the five-year-old uh xavier morgan yes and i see it and i see it every day a couple of of times, I go there and back. And I remember that, oh yeah, these barriers, this actual physical barrier that prevents people from going off the trail

onto Lakeshore into oncoming traffic. Weren't there. They weren't there until a five-year-old died. Yeah. And then they were there. Yeah.

And every time I see those barriers, my thought is, oh my God, that makes so much sense. Why weren't these always there it's um it really boggles your mind and and it comes back to having the the mindset of what what is a vulnerable road user what and and how do our streets work for people the fact that the fact that you as a pedestrian are allowed to be in a street,

you are allowed to cross that street. You're allowed to take up space in that street, but we've given so much power to what a driver's needs are that there's no thought to, uh, doing anything more. It's, we've got a corridor for the, for the, uh, cars to get, you know, east or west, north and south, yeah, we'll give them a sidewalk here and maybe we'll give them a sliver of bicycle infrastructure. Well, we'll put a shurrow there. We'll put a bunch of lines there. There's no immediacy or wanted understanding

that as vulnerable road users, they need to be the priority, not the cars. And it does take death. And it's so tragic that that one piece, and it's a political piece, because a politician does not want to be looked at that they didn't do something when someone gets killed. So a lot of it is is a bare minimum lakeshore is great and i mean i'm happy that they've got those barriers and that was definitely a a big um upgrade from what was there but i look back at you know jones and dundas and great that you've put that piece of uh concrete there but we've got we've got an entire stretch of roadway that is that are taking mums and dads and and teachers and students and and just people in general that

are using this as a way of getting around and we have not yet that's that's going to be four years you know that that he's been that he's that he died and we're still at the at the you know just the conversation of so how do we how do we make this safer for everyone it's like don't worry about slowing down cars like just build the bloody stuff build the infrastructure that will that will prioritize. And don't worry so much about the drivers. They'll be okay, honestly. You're in a car right now, you're going to be okay. You will get to your destination. If that means it's a bit slower than normal,

I think the fact that you're going to be keeping people alive is probably a much more important piece. And it's a shame in this city and i do love this city uh i was born and raised in this city but that the wheels of progress seem to be lubricated by the the blood of cyclists it's it's it's just how horrible is that right it's just horrific and and this is and i mean we're i'm i'm very much how am i going to put this? There is a lot of, of feedback on, well, we can't be like Europe.

We can't be like the Netherlands. We can't be like Copenhagen. We don't need to be. Yeah. We don't need to be like them. We need to be like Toronto and we need to be putting people ahead of what doesn't need to be put ahead of. And that's,

that's what Copenhagen did. That's what Amsterdam did. That's what Paris is doing right now. Right. even what new york montreal vancouver they're all trying to place people's lives and their safety ahead of a car that's all toronto needs to do it's not trying to copy and paste what other cities are doing just just put vulnerable people as a priority above being able to jump into a car and get places that's it lanric do you know how you eat an elephant i'm hoping with a knife and fork one bite at a time listen i want to address anyone out there listening who does not currently, you know,

have the mindset of like, if I can, because this is literally, and I've said this to all four of my kids so many times, but if you can bike it, bike it. This is just, that's just it. If you can bike it, bike it. And everywhere, everywhere I got to go, whether it's to the no frills

or it's to pick something up at Young and Finch or if it's to go visit, to go record of Jim Cuddy at the woodshed in, uh, Riverdale. Okay. If I can bike it, I will bike it.

And I just want to let everybody listening know that, uh, cause sometimes I'll pull it, you know, I just did a 60 K ride or I did a 45 K ride. You're going to do like a 45 K ride today, Landry Landry. And it's like,

that's like this. I can't, this elephant's too big. I can't eat it, but i just want to let everybody know about 10 years ago when i started biking again i because i've been measuring all the bike rides in this iteration of my cycling life because the apps didn't exist when i was a teenager but i would start and i would map and i remember my first rides were like i'm going

for five kilometer ride it was four to five kilometers i started with that and i did a week of that maybe two weeks of that and then i like, let me try like eight kilometers. And I would kind of map out an eight kilometer route. And I used eight kilometers for a while. And at some point you're like, I think I'm ready for 10 kilometers. I remember that was like a big milestone. Like I can do a 10 kilometer ride. So basically, you know, you can't see the forest for the trees there, but if you just start with these smaller rides and you just naturally build up your endurance will follow suit right um my buddy mark harry just went to quebec to run a 100 mile trail race okay so not just okay it's 100 miles sorry yeah it's 100 miles

so 160 kilometers yeah i don't i can't imagine running that but he's not doing it like on flat ground he's doing this trail there's all these hilly stuff. Like anyways, he does this like, you know, and he didn't just, you know, wake up one day and say,

I'm going for a hundred mile trail. Right. Like, like, you know, so start now. And then I'm going to just sort of segue this into Toronto's weather. Okay.

Cause we, we talk about Toronto. I mentioned, you know, for a long time, I biked from, uh, like I'm going to say may to like through september

or something i remember still when i was a teenager even halloween was like that demarcation point where it's like after halloween i'm done because it's cool and i don't want to figure out whatever but the mindset i talked about like once you figure out like okay it's not it's a lot of trial and error i've got to perfect it now but it took me a while to figure out like what's that formula of outfit i need for this kind of and i'm just going to shout out cam gordon again because we went to see ron hawkins at the only cafe oh nice and before that he said hey come have dinner with mf and i and i'm like oh yeah okay so and i remember uh because i have that mindset like if i can bike it i will of course i'm biking to uh east york to see cam

and mf and then go to the only cafe and see ron hawkins okay of course i am but that day it was like i don't know in the middle of winter and that day a blizzard hit the city okay that happens in toronto of course it does but i had the time because a lot of it is time you know it's i know it's going to take some time to get there back but my mindset didn't change because i have you know adapted to, I can bike in a blizzard, but I still remember Cam's face when I showed up at his door and I'm like, I'm soaked.

There's ice on me. My bike has got like, it's just, I got there in the blizzard. He couldn't believe it. That was a very long ride. I don't know what it was, 25 K each way or something like that.

Easily. And, but to me it was, it felt great. Like, and he was like, Oh, you can take the TTC back.

I'm like, no, I'm riding home. I love this. So it is a mindset. Start with a small bite. Go for a 5K ride. Build it up a little bit. And I promise you, in a couple of years, you'll be thanking me.

You'll be like, Toronto Mike, I now bike everywhere. I bike to work. I bike to visit my mom. I bike to the restaurant or whatever. I'm biking everywhere because I bike to work. I bike to visit my mom. I bike to, I meet everyone at the restaurant or whatever. I'm biking everywhere because a couple of years ago, you told me how to eat an elephant and it's not, you can eat an elephant one bite at a time, but everyone is capable of eating an elephant.

Hey, yesterday, yesterday, Ralph Ben-Murgy, you want me to say Beatles? Yesterday, Ralph Ben-Murgy was here. I to say Beatles? Yesterday. Ralph Ben-Murgy was here. I think I mentioned that because you came here wet,

so I put a towel on that seat. The next guy to sit in that seat is going to be in about an hour, is going to be Donovan Bailey. Come on. In an hour, he's sitting in that seat. But you know what is almost as impressive as Donovan Bailey sitting in that seat is Ralph Ben-Murgy. I mentioned Ralph was here, and you said,

I have a story about that or you triggered something. Do you remember what you were going to say? So way back, I love that I can say way back and my kids look at me and go, gosh, you really are old, aren't you, daddy? You fell off your dinosaur. But I did about six or eight weeks on the ralph and murgy live show at the cbc and was it midday no no no this was his he had a live uh variety show oh the friday night yeah the friday early 90s yeah of course we talk about that all the time and uh he was amazing he was so much fun

just a and all i i was i was a what do you call him, like a gripper? I was running around. A gopher? A gopher. Gripper, gee whiz. Gripper's on the house. I was a gopher just literally running around. Go for this, go for that.

Go for that, doing whatever it is that. So you were working for the CBC? I was doing that through a broadcasting co-op. Wow. And it was amazing. It was so much fun. Was Ralph good to you? Ralph was great to me.

I know that I was literally just a number of people working with him, but he was phenomenal. Just had so much fun on that show. And I was so upset that it didn't last. And, you know, I mean, this is the 90s, and I'm just thinking anything that is on TV that, you know, has a live crowd in it should definitely be continued on.

I know it did not last, but, man, it was good. It was just a lot of fun. Really, really great. So I will definitely be listening. You got to listen to his return. He hadn't been here since the pandemic. We did some Zooms and stuff, but it's not the same. You need Ralph in the flesh.

He made the ride. He made the drive from Hamilton. Now, Canada and late night talk shows. So when I think about it, okay about okay so ben murray's experiment did not last very long i don't know 18 months or something okay yeah yeah but uh that was early 90s and then there we we of course shout out fotm ed the sock yeah so ed the sock had kind of a late night thing going on city tv and that's right and then the only other guy i can think of is the guy whose name i will not mention because he's threatened my life

this past summer multiple times. Literally threatened my life. So fuck that guy. Fuck that guy. But he took up space. Anyway, I'm going to give you something here now that I'm all jazzed up here.

And again, nobody's listening, but Hey, you know what? Okay. No, I say that as a joke. It's just Steve who said he wasn't going to listen to, and I almost called her right now.

I almost called her Heather Bambrick, but Heather Bambrick is another great FO team. What is the name? What Bambrick? What's her first name? It's it's Yvonne Yvonne. Okay. I wonder if she's related to Heather Bambrick,

who I learned is a neighbor of Matt Dusk. Okay. And coincidentally Matt Dusk did like a crooning song for what's the Daniel Tiger, which is like the current version of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood is Daniel Tiger. And Heather

Bambrick plays the mom on Daniel Tiger. Oh, Daniel Tiger. And he didn't even know and they're neighbors. Okay. That's hilarious. All right. And they're Etobicokeans. I never know how to say that. Okay. I mentioned the pasta.

You mentioned the pasta. Is it good pasta? I'm not bullshitting you because before they paid me to talk about them, I had them cater my wedding in the distillery district. That's a fact. I paid. It wasn't free. I should point out I paid. I paid the full invoice for them

to cater my wedding because of how delicious palma pasta food is. That's why it was so easy for me to talk about them. I have never heard a complaint about their lasagna. In fact, most people, including Peter Gross, tell me that it is the best lasagna they've ever

eaten that came from a store. I don't know what Nona's bacon for you or whatever, but if you're going to that it is the best lasagna they've ever eaten that came from a store. Like, I don't know what Nona's bacon for you or whatever, but if you're going to buy store-bought lasagna, I promise you, you can't do better than Palma Pasta. So you got that. But Fresh Craft Beer brewed right here in Southern Etobicoke. And they're great cycling advocates too. I know that Mike and there's a whole bunch of cats at Great Lakes Brewery here in Etobicoke that cycle all over the place. And they had a nice cycling run from their Etobicoke location to the brew pub, which is at like Jarvis and Lower Jarvis and Queens Quay.

I know exactly what that is. And that just opened up. So I'm bringing, you're bringing some fresh craft beer home with you, buddy. Thank you. And a Toronto Mike sticker because you listen. Did you take it already? Was there a sticker on there? There it is.

Yeah, I got the sticker. Thank you, StickerU.com. They are a fantastic company. And then if you need anything printed, like if you need your, I don't know, Bike Brigade, we'll talk about Bike Brigade stickers or Bike Mayor of Toronto stickers

or decals, you get them at StickerU.com. It's just quality, great stuff. And it's a wonderful Toronto company. So shout out to StickerU.com. Thank you for your support. I have more gifts for you. This is amazing.

Like I'm literally just sitting here and I've got all of this awesome stuff in front of me. That's like, the beers are great. The pasta is going to be awesome. What about the Ridley Funeral Home flashlight I just gave you there, buddy? You know, keep you safe. Safety first.

Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Brad Jones at Ridley Funeral Home has an excellent podcast called Life's Undertaking. And speaking of excellent podcasts, do you see the Bluetooth speaker in front of you? I do. Courtesy of Moneris. Because Yes, We Are Open

is a Moneris podcast production telling the stories of Canadian small businesses and their perseverance in the face of overwhelming adversity. This is your kind of podcast, Landrick, I'm telling you. This is really, and I love that the ads don't feel so much like ads. They feel like it's a part of the entire enchalance of what it is that you're putting together. I like that.

Thank you, thank you. And you're going to like that speaker. And I should point out for the FOTMs listening that it's Al Grego who hosts. Yes, we are open. And Al Grego played for a band called, I almost called them the weekends, but they were called the Royal pains and they played the first three Toronto

mic listener experiences. So FOTMs know Al Grego. He presents the best of Toronto mic episodes. And he also does a fantastic job on Yes, We Are Open. And season three is dropping as we speak. Go to yesweareopenpodcast.com. And Lanric, I'm telling you, tumultuous times in the markets. Like, I don't know if you peek at your RSPs anytime recently, have you?

No, no. Don't do it. Don't do it. Think of it. Hold on to them. It's all about long term. Of course it is. Don't even look. Because once in a while I to them. It's all about long-term. Of course it is. Don't even look.

Because once in a while, I'm curious and I go, oh, I'm bleeding out here. But no, that's why you need to be aware of what's going on. There are bargains to be had and there's always opportunities. And whether we're talking RRSPs or RESPs or you name it, even cryptocurrency, everything that you want to learn about, you can learn about it with the Raymond James Canada podcast called The Advantaged Investor. And Chris Cooksey hosts this, and I love him. I love The Advantaged Investor. They provide the engaging wealth management information you value as you pursue your most important goals. So this is your, you're going to subscribe to these three podcasts. I'm going to subscribe. You know that every Wednesday

I put out a list of like my top five podcasts that I listen to. So I'm going to have to like give this all to everything that you've put forth. I call it the Hump Day Podcast Picks. So I will, this is going to be. How often

do I make those lists? You know I try not to you've made it a couple of times. The Amber Morley episode made it. She did, yeah. That was a good. Because you ran for council and you learned how difficult it is to win over unseat and incumbent. hard in, in a city that, uh, does not embrace, uh, term limits or any type of, uh, democratic reform, um, as a, as a new, as an unknown, it's, it's difficult. And, and even though this is Amber's second, uh, kick of the can, she's going up against

a incumbent that's been in there for almost two decades. Right. incumbent that's been in there for almost two decades right and uh that is um you're you're setting up the city is setting up for um for not wanting change and and it's such a weird status quo right like yes and i always think like the people who are well off and stuff they don't they don't don't don't touch a thing like the status quo is what we like it's's, it's, this is, again, my thought on this. And I, I feel like, I feel like, and shout out to Gil, okay,

like, like the mayoral race, it's so clear to me that Tory will be reelected in a landslide that I, I will personally be voting because city council

is very important to me. But, and Amber needs my vote, but, FOTM Amber, but, I can see a lot of Torontonians skipping this election because the mayoral race is not particularly close.

And I think that, I think the election turnout is going to be very low. I don't. I hope I'm wrong. No, I don't disagree. And I mean, I'm not going to talk much about the mayoral piece. I'm much more focused on what happens

on the councillor level. And there is a wanted need for constituents to feel that they are a part of what's going on in their local piece. You open up your front door, you see your street, you see your sidewalk, you go to the park, you visit the library. Those are your local nodes.

And I feel even as a constituent that my representative does not give two shits about what I need to better myself, better my community, my neighborhood. Those are the things that we as constituents need to start piping up about and making some noise against where we don't have the representatives that want to listen, that want to be a part of what's going on. Harder still now in these much larger wards, and you know me running four years ago it was all it was was ward 36 and then we had to cross over you know onto the north side of the danforth and then it was all of toronto danforth as as a counselor 110 000 people that's a lot of people to try and um uh come to you know some sort of working relationship with but as city, we are so far behind creating democratic reform that allows for something like a community council. So, you know,

being able to have neighborhoods and communities work with the councilors so that the councilor isn't bogged down by, pothole or removing a tree. All of those things could be done at community council where we need your councillor's attention and their focus is on the big things like TransformTO where we're completely trying to reverse decades of, again, you know, car dependency, greenhouse gases. We are trying to transform how we live and breathe and operate in our city. Those are the pieces of the puzzle that I need my councillor working on. I need better, you know, situational understanding of how we transform our police force.

Those are the things that I need my councillor to be working on. And they can't do that because they're spending six hours, you know, debating whether or not a tree should be removed or should we put heritage on this building. I want my councillor to be working on housing. I've got an entire section of the Danforth from Broadview all the way out to Coxwell where we've put this blanket heritage stamp on where we haven't done anything on housing in probably 20 years. And you have a NIMBY that goes, oh my gosh, we're going to put

up a 40-story condo. And it's like, like yeah because we haven't done anything for the past 15 years and anything where you wanted it to be eight or ten stories will not work in a situation where we are in such dire need of house so there we need affordable housing we need so much affordable housing but you need housing in general you need to be able to build out uh housing that can work for as many people as possible. Developers aren't the bad guys. It's honestly kind of the city that's been, you know, the one that is been shooting themselves in the foot, not being able to get past many of those NIMBYs that are louder than, you know, the larger group of the community.

But those are the ones that, unfortunately, councillors have been listening to over the last 15 years. And now we're in a situation where we need housing everywhere. Landrick, you're a force of nature, my friend. So glad we're doing this. Now, we talked about Zoe. Oh, yeah. But we need to talk about Jack.

Otherwise, aren't you going to hear it? Like, where's the Jack love here? You know, Jack's got it easy. As an 11-year-old, he kind of just looks at his sister and he's like, my gosh, you stress out about so much. Just let Daddy do what he's doing. My 11-year-old was probably the biggest reason why I even got into the urban space and being able to look at our city.

When he was five years old, Jack and I got to travel across Toronto by public transit, visiting all 100 libraries across the city. And it was literally by accident. I brought home a book called All the Libraries, T.O., flipping through this adult coloring book. And my son kind of, you know, he was looking through it as well, and he was like, hey, I want to go here. And it just happened to be Fort York Library, so we went down, spent, you know, a good couple of hours. It was great.

We're leaving, and this five-year-old is tugging at me going, I want to see all of them. And there's a hundred of these. There's a hundred of them. And it was, this was like mid, it was, it was, yeah, it was during March break. So here I am trying to calculate in my head, 99 libraries. How the hell are we going to do 99 libraries?

And I mean, he got to pick the next four randomly. do 99 libraries and i mean he got to pick the the next four randomly so we went to weston out in uh north uh tobaco ish and then we had two in scarborough and it was like okay kid you can't pick these out yeah we need to uh yeah we need to plan this out and six months later we hit all 100 libraries it was amazing it was amazing but it was also one of those um just aha moments of i took public transit with a five-year-old everywhere um i have you know horror stories of visiting just four libraries on jane street where it took us eight hours of like getting onto a bus getting off the 35 yeah it was Oh, the 35. Yeah, it was nuts. I know it well, my friend.

But this was on a Saturday at that. And it was just, it was peak crazy. See, this is, what you're speaking to is that like, you know, you walk a mile in my shoes, like you did it and you learn so much by doing it. And I always said like, if the city counselors would start biking to work for a week, okay, just bike to work for a week, you'd be like, oh, why?

All the lights would turn on and there'd be this whole different understanding of like, oh, why don't we do this? You'd hope, you'd really hope that they would, you know, just take the time. And we've got a couple of councillors that do cycle, you know, here or there. You want to shout them out? I mean, you've got Brad Bradford that I know. Who I met at Great Lakes Brewery. I met him at the GLB. So I've bumped into him numerous times on Danforth and it's great to see him riding continuously

to work. We're losing Mike Layton but Mike would, he has a cargo bike with his kids which is phenomenal and wonderful that he's able to do that. Before we say goodbye, we're actually going to close on like some nuts and bolts, like bike, what's your steed and all that, like what do you ride and all that.

Yeah, please go on. Yeah, Chris and Wong Tam, great cyclists as well. I mean, so we had a few there. It will be interesting to see. Because Grimes isn't biking anywhere. I don't know if Grimes has been on a bike before. And that is Doug Ford too. They did that one stunt for.

I'm not trying, I'm not going to slam. I'm not trying to slam it, but you're, you're right. It does help to at least, you know, try the different types of mobility.

Can I shout someone out? Please. Seems like the time. Okay. So I've been working very closely for a few years with Diane Sachs. Okay. She was the environmental commissioner for Ontario until Doug Ford got rid of that position because he didn't want to be criticized on his green practices.

Okay. So Diane Sachs, you know, she's got a great podcast herself called Green Economy Heroes. In fact, we talked to like people starting up bike stores and stuff. It's really an interesting podcast. And Diane Sachs is running for city councillor. And I know for a fact that she's got an e-bike and she's not

afraid to use it, as they say. And she's always, you know, she lives in a very hilly neighbourhood and she takes her e-bike and conquers that hill, no problem. Ralph Benmerge also has an e-bike, by the way, and he's been conquering he takes her e-bike and conquers that hill no problem ralph ben murgy also has an e-bike by the way and he's been conquering hills on his e-bike but yeah i'm a huge fan of these e-bikes i get people out of uh get get them out of the cars and uh and uh i hope diane sacks has great success later this month as well where you see a lot of you know

the push for electric vehicles and and i am one of those that will poo-poo electric vehicles we don't need them we don't need more cars and it doesn't matter if it's being powered by gas or powered by the sun uh we don't need more vehicles e-bikes are going to be that radical game changer where you can allow for someone to move from an acoustic bike. So a bike that's not powered by anything other than yourself to a, uh, a vehicle that literally, um, just makes hills disappear allows for a longer amount of, of your travel time to be able to, to get to where you need to go, where a lot of that is being offset by the, uh, by the battery pack. And, and it is, it's such a, it's such an awesome way of just being able to get yourself around in, in a city that does have, you know, a lot of Hills. Um, and,

and, and it will be, I'm hoping that, that both the provincial and federal governments see that as being a bigger, uh, push than EVs in general. Like I, I want to see a rebate for an e-bike. I want people to be able to, that may not, you know, have, uh, you know, the, the funds to just offset, you know, buy this outright. I'd love to see rebates coming forward for, for e-vehicles that are not cars. I think that that's your future. You're making too much sense.

Get out of here. That makes too much sense. Absolutely. What bike did you ride to my place here today? So I've got a, it's called, it's an Opus. I know that the company was based in montreal i don't think it's there anymore it's a 21 uh gear uh um bike it's okay because if you think of the three categories let's say there's a mountain bike right there's hybrid so i've got

a hybrid there's road yeah it's it's it's a hybrid. It's a hybrid, and it's done me wonderfully. I got to ride my first winter with it as a Bike Brigade volunteer. I was going to ask you about Bike Brigade. Yeah, so, I mean, just kind of throwing into that fact that with the Bike Brigade, With the Bike Brigade, this is a fully volunteer setup where we work with other non-for-profit food organizers. One of the big ones is FoodShareTO, and we deliver food to people that are in need of food. It's kind of that easy. We, we all get to meet at different places across the city. Uh, the bike brigade has a very simple text based, uh, setup where you pick your time that you want to, uh, do a drop off basically seven days a week. They set

up where you do that pickup and who your client is going to be for, uh, that drop off. Most of the rides are no more than about six or seven kilometers from the point of pickup to where you have to deliver. And for, you know, for a majority of riders, especially the ones that came in during, uh, the pandemic where that's where I came in and it really was a, a quasi selfish piece of, I want to be able to ride and I'm also going to be able to do something great. This works out perfectly. And we're, I, I, I can see the fact that this, this setup is going to expand, that we're going to be able to, you know, ride out or at least have a node in Etobicoke and a node out in Scarborough and a node out in North York where the food gets dropped off in those different areas.

And then you have cyclists coming over, pick up the food and drop it off. I'm here, I'm ready. Yeah, yeah. So bikebrigade.ca is where volunteers can sign up. Yeah. And that's cool too. It's a wonderful, I mean, you were just talking about, uh, uh, the, uh, the bike lawyer and, uh, that's Dave, Dave Shelnut's, uh, little baby.

And it is, uh, it's a phenomenal, um, call to action. And it's not just about cyclists. I mean, the fact that, yes, we, we use our bikes to do that, but it's, it's about rallying, um, rallying the city and, and being able to, to give, you know, a couple hours a week to, uh, to do something that most people already need. And it feels great. It's a good use of my time as a volunteer. And I would push that on to anyone as an added piece of being a part of the city. Good for you. Now, the bicycle lawyer came to my attention

because cyclists were getting harassed in High Park. I don't know. Did you EastEnders follow this story? Oh, we followed it. Yeah, no, we follow it. And that harassment may not be as amplified in the EastEnd, but we definitely know and have seen the unnecessary attention that our police force, and I don't call it a police service, it is a police force,

that at times has used unnecessary harassment and bullying to exert some sort of power to say that as a cyclist you need to be doing X, Y, and Z, and not also putting their attention, needed attention on the drivers that are putting, and I say this again, we're vulnerable road users. That's where the priority needs to be set to protect vulnerable road users. And for whatever reason, the police have decided that, no, we're going to be petty and we're going to be harassing and pushing an unnecessary amount police cruisers just kind of sitting there waiting for someone to hop over the speed limit. people on bikes should be able to break the law. I'm not here for that. It's putting into context how many people are being killed, not even hurt, killed by drivers throughout this city, and how many people are being injured by someone on a bike, and it's not even in the same stratosphere of talk. We need to make our streets safer.

even in the same stratosphere of talk. We need to make our streets safer. We need to make them operate so that the most vulnerable are the most protected. That's the pedestrian for sure. Cyclists have a sphere of influence and understanding and responsibility in that as well. But cars are killing people. Drivers are killing people. And that's where the focus uh should be and ticketing a guy in the high park loop there and i spent a lot of time in high park because of where i live i'm in there all the time doing rides and first for uh not coming to a

complete stop at a stop sign okay see my objective is to get as many people on bikes as possible get get people on bikes and that. Yeah. Get people on bikes and that kind of behavior and that makes, you know, makes headlines and it gets shared on social media.

It's, it works against my objective. It makes people not want to bike in the city if they're going to get a ticket for one time, right?

And so, that's where I stand on this. It's like any messaging that makes people hesitant to hop on a bike instead of hopping in their car. I do not like, I do not like Landrick at all. Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle.

And I will tell you, my behavior did change for a while there. So when the cops were in Hyde Park every single day and I was following it on social media, I actually changed my route. So I would often go for my lunchtime sport ride because I do ride for destinations and when I need to go somewhere, but I love to ride every day regardless, even if I have nowhere to go. So I would often take Waterfront Trail

and then go up Colborne Lodge there and I'd go up and I'd do a couple of loops of High Park. And that would be something I would do normally. But during that period of time, I actually just stayed on Waterfront Trail and I went to that Trillium Park at Ontario Place. Okay. And what's happened now is I, so I'll do the loop, I'll do my loops in Ontario Place at Trillium Park there.

And I will shout out that that's a pretty new development. I think it's only about five years old and I love it. McAuliffe, FOTM Sean McAuliffe, and Ben Rayner, and all my good Ontario Place loving FOTMs, have our good eye on what they're going to do to Ontario Place because to me that's a park. It is a park. It's always been a park. Yes. And to see that the provincial government

is hinting at making this more of a lounge with a bunch of chairs and, hey, chairs and, uh, Hey, I can, you know, go out and get a massage there. It, it, it's, it does feel a bit ridiculous that you would want to take away a open and accessible space that, uh, so many people are exploring again, uh, some for the very first time and, and wanting to, to put it behind a gate almost.

It's, yeah, it's backwards. Let's watch it closely, Lanric, because I'm worried about what's going to happen there. And it's a beautiful, it's a park I love to ride daily. I'm still there all the time. I like to do a daily photo or whatever. A lot of them are taken from that Trillium Park there. And then you can also noodle your way into Ontario

Place. That's right. And I absolutely love it. I've met MF and Cam Gordon in that park once for Great Lakes beer. That's another thing. If you get back on, if you ever run again for city council and you get on city council, can we please let responsible adults drink a beer

in a park? I'm done. I mean, we do it anyway. Like we've literally flaunted. I believe in the spirit of these laws and I ain't following that one. That's bullshit. I hear you. Police the inappropriate park behavior.

Don't make some blanket nanny state where it's like, oh, we don't trust that you'll behave yourself after your eighth or ninth beverage. So you are not allowed to have one or two responsible beverages on that park that you bike to. Fair enough.

Come on. But Landry, okay, before we say goodbye here, I've loved this. We're going to take our photo, and I love that you're going to bike back. And I wish every guest of Toronto Ike would bike here, but I know it's not feasible for everybody. But it will be if you, as bicycle mayor of this city, get improved infrastructure. So I'm here for you, man.

Thank you. If you need anything of these, I'm here. I'm glad I did an episode with the bicycle mayor that was primarily about cycling. I love cycling the city. I hope that people listen. And I mean,

there is the very easy war against cars mentality. Great podcast, by the way. Really do need to listen to it. They've got some fantastic stories. But that war against cars has to be, you know, by the way um really do need to listen to it they've got some uh fantastic stories but that war against cars has to be you know that has to be massaged into i'm going to say it again for all you folks vulnerable road users that is where the priority is and any way that we can keep people

safe and allow them access and uh equity in your public space which is your streets those are that that's public space you should be there you don't need to be in a in a steel box to be on your street we've got open streets going on it's incredible when you you know open a street to something other than cars dude when they were closing, what do we call it? Active TO. Active TO. When they were closing Lakeshore from Windermere to Stadium Road, that was a stretch. And I loved it.

Yeah. And I would bike it like crazy. I absolutely loved it. And then it sort of just went away and nobody seemed to fight for it. And I don't know, like, I don't know why we can't have nice things in this city and these are nice things that that don't cost a whole lot this is not something that actually even needed to be um uh managed by by but rogers you remember this okay i do okay so mark shapiro i believe it was said like hey we got like lots of 905ers who want to come to our dome and watch the blue jays

and they like to they don't like the congestion i guess people can't take lakeshore there's more people on the gardener and in in shapiro's uh minded to slow down their commute so maybe people weren't making the commute which means they weren't buying tickets right but and of course rogers owns the dome rogers employees mark shapiro rogers owns the uh blue, Rogers employs Mark Shapiro, Rogers owns the Blue Jays, and Rogers employs John Tory for $100,000 a year. Ouch, ouch, ouch. And the fact that they got their way. Yeah.

It boggles your mind that an organization like the Blue Jays would not have fought outside of that proverbial box and went, oh my gosh, so we've got people that are coming to see our games outside of the Toronto region. Great. How can we get them, say, on a GO train? How can we work with Metro? I mean, they're right beside Union Station.

And that's the, that's the, the, the, you're just, your mind is just kind of going, you, you, you run a baseball team, a multimillion dollar baseball team. This is literally just a, an add value to your audience where they don't need to drive. They get themselves to a drink beer and you don't have to worry about driving all, all of their focus could have been on how do we get our audience here to see a

game and have fun. But they know the 904. I mean, I know. I just hate the fact that we sort of don't care about this conflict of interest that John Tory gets a hundred thousand dollars a year from Rogers and that, that Mark Shapiro can make this request to the city and it was granted.

Like, like, am I the only one who knows it's, it's rotten in the state of Denmark? I don't think you I the only one who knows it's rotten in the state of Denmark? I don't think you're the only one that knows. I think a lot of constituents are kind of flabbergasted. But he's going to be re-elected

in a landslide, Lanric. It hurts. And I don't even want to, I'm not even here to crap on John Tory. What an upgrade over the previous mayor, to be quite honest with you. And he did record something lovely for episode 1000 of Toronto Mike.

So there's no hypocrisy here. I gotcha. But we can do better. We should do better. This is a world class city. We should want to. And by the way, since I mentioned Union Station, and you're right, is there any, you know, taking the GO train, we got the Mimico Station nearby, and you're at Union Station in no time flat. Yeah. That

walk from, you know, the skywalk there, it's nothing. I don't know why more people aren't taking the GO train, or TTC if you know, the skywalk there. It's nothing. I don't know why more people aren't taking the GO train or TTC if you will to Blue Jay games. I personally always bike to the Dome for a game. In fact, I biked with my eight-year-old to a game this summer and again, I'm walking by, we're biking by that

Xavier Morgan ghost bike and I'm with my eight-year-old and it's late at night because, you know, it was late. We're biking home and I was like, oh, there's a fence there and it's there because xavier morgan yeah died yeah but uh but i'm here to talk we mentioned union station i am going to take uh via train okay from toronto to montreal wonderful are you ready my i my daughter lives in montreal i should point that out so i'm gonna

go visit uh michelle who's at McGill. Yay. Can't wait. It's going to happen in late November. It's all set. I cannot put, see the Fuji feathers? So I got a few bikes, but the Fuji feathers behind you, that's my go-to ride. I just want to bring my Fuji feather bicycle on the train

from Union Station to Montreal. So I can be biking in Montreal that weekend. Right. Via says, no, Toronto Mike, you may not bring your bike on this train to Montreal. Really? I can't bring my bike to Montreal? Asinine.

No, that's, and we talked about this right at the beginning about, you know, trying to figure out how to have those additional pieces of how we get around this city to have Via not accommodate the fact that you're, like, yeah, it's... And then if you read the fine, they say, oh, they got rid of it. You could have used to be able to do this, of course.

When COVID-19, they got rid of it. You could have used to be able to do this. Of course, when COVID-19, they got rid of it. They said, so we're, so COVID hits March, 2020. Sure. And they ban bikes from the,

so COVID was, was a clusterfuck unto itself. And a lot of weird shit went down and I don't, it's fine. It was crazy. We didn't know what it was. It was a very scary time. Yes.

We're still living off these COVID rules. Okay. Yeah. That there's no, there's no COVID. You don't have to mask. No, I know. So why are you in a block of bikes? I'm just emptying the vault here. One more thing.

I don't personally bike share. Do we call it bike share? Yeah, bike share TO. So I don't actually utilize the service because I own bikes and I like to ride my own bike. But I love that that service exists. And when Cam Gordon visits every month for Toast, often he will utilize that service to get from his office to here and it's very awesome it's awesome i think it's awesome like all these stations have popped up here in etobicoke

even growing like weeds it's phenomenal people who use the service and multiple people tell me that the service has declined in recent months okay like. Like the number of faulty bikes, if you will, or lack of bikes at certain stations, and that they've, this is, again, not my experience, but a number of FOTMs I trust have told me in the last couple of months, the service has deteriorated, and it's not what it was.

Do you have any insight? Like, is it a labor shortage? Do you know what's going on there? I want that service to thrive and exist, even though I don't don't currently utilize it i like to know i can utilize it at some point i can't give any and you don't have any insight into that but you're the bicycle mayor find out what's going on i will find out i will find out but but i i do want to just just really quick on that just to say that it is a great service that needs much more investment. It needs investment.

And there are patches. I hear from somebody like Kipling and Mardin Grove, a guy, shout out to James Edgar, FOTM James Edgar. But he was like, we found out the closest one to him was like Scarlett and Eglinton. Oh, wow. Which is like, that's a whole stretch over from a Kipling. But that's the closest.

There's a lot of patches of the city. And I want to remember this city. And I do i mean i'm i'm i'm i'm as guilty as anybody because sometimes when i have to go to bluer street i think oh i gotta go all the way north to bluer street like it's like so i do live in the southern part now if this is my life right now but the top right corner and top left corner these uh scarborough and rexdale and these areas, lest we forget. They're not, we should do better. I'm going to put a cap on this before I play some

Lois Loke. You got me all riled up here, Landry. This is your objective, right? I'm ready to go. I'm ready. I'm going to run through a wall. Radicalized bike piece. So you're on it, but we need improved infrastructure, more separated bike lanes so people feel safe biking this. And my wife's a good example.

She doesn't want to ride on Dundas with the cars and trucks like I do. She doesn't want to do it. She wants to feel safe when she rides. So we need better biking infrastructure. We're going to find out what's going on with bike share. VIA's got to let me bring my bike to Montreal. We've got to fix that. Let me bring my bike to Montreal.

We got to fix that. And last but not least, final word to you. What message would you like to give the FOTMs? You are the bike mayor of Toronto. You are now speaking to the city. I am not editing a stitch of this, as you know. What say you on our way out here? On our way out.

Final thoughts. My final thoughts are just really thank you for the opportunity to have this stage of being able to talk to your audience members. Go out and bike. Even if it is just a few kilometers at that, try it out. See how it is. If you've got questions, please, please, please find me. Biking is going to be our future. This is going to be how we change our city. When you bike in the winter, do you have special tires? I don't, but I do carry two extra pairs of socks, just in case. Yeah, that's a good idea. Now, I did recently, I have a hybrid. It's actually around the corner there that has snow tires on it. So that's that blizzard ride to see Cam and MF before the lowest, sorry, I'm hearing Ron Hawkins in a moment here

but the only cafe to see Ron Hawkins I rode the bike with the snow tires and when there's snow on the ground and it's actively snowing and nothing's been plowed yet nothing beats those knobby snow tires. The traction's amazing. To me, if you're going to ride in the snow

it's a game changer. But I will leave everybody with this. There is no bad weather, just bad clothes. There you be. You just got to make sure you got the right gear and set up, and you can handle minus 20 wind chill. You can handle the blizzard. You can handle the rain, which Lanric's going to bike home in right now.

You can handle all the climates. Love biking the city. It can only get better with the bicycle mare. Thank you, Lanrick Bennett Jr. This was a pleasure. Thanks, Mike. And that... Oh, man.

That brings us to the end of our 1,127th show. You warmed up that seat for Donovan Bailey. He's all set. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Okay, Landrick, you got a couple of Twitter handles. Do you want to remind us how we can follow you on Twitter? You know what, just go for the bicycle mayor T.O.

That's the best one. But when your term runs out, don't you have to give that up? When it gives up, I'll just revert back to Lanric Bennett. So follow both is what I'm telling people to do. Just in case. Lanric Bennett is where you find Lanric. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta.

Sticker U is at Sticker U. Moneris is at Moneris. Raymond James Canada are at Raymond James CDN. EPRA are at EPRA underscore Canada. Cliff Hacking drops by next week. Ridley Funeral Home, they're at Ridley FH. And Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore. I'm doing a special episode tomorrow all about Spirit of the West.

I'm sure Lanric here has enjoyed Home for a Rest once or twice in his life. See you all then. I know it's true How about you? They're picking up trash And they're putting down roads And they're brokering stocks The class struggle explodes And I'll play this guitar

Just the best that I can Maybe I'm not And maybe I am But who gives a damn Because everything is coming up Rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow

Warms me today And your smile is fine It's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and green Well I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun

go down on Shakhty Kul But I like it much better going down on you Yeah, you know that's true Because everything is coming up rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold

but the smell of snow Warms us today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is Rosie now Everything is Rosie

Yeah, everything is Rosie and Gray Yeah, everything is rosy and gray