I think there are easily hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of GTA peeps just like you who don’t care about the culture war aspect.

Give us an affordable, convenient, and pleasant way to get around town and we’ll take it. Owning a car isn’t very affordable, it’s pretty convenient, and it’s not very pleasant to drive around Toronto. So, the bar is set pretty low, here - and STILL transit is worse by comparison.

Transit in Toronto is worse not by definition but through decades of very active dismantling, interference, political sabotage, and corruption. It doesn’t have to be this way - but it’s how driving can suck yet transit sucks even more. The will to destroy transit was just that strong.

This is a subreddit for bikes in Toronto. I’ve seen lots of direct action to support new bike infrastructure in Toronto. This is exactly what you’re talking about: there are lots of people who are way beyond demanding better; they are already making it happen, week after week.

Unfortunately, when a group of 4 people on Bloor get together to oppose bike lanes, the newspapers haul out their vans and give them the spotlight. Meanwhile, those who support the lanes are actually at city Hall, where councillors from the suburbs dismiss their voices as the “radical cyclist lobby” who are such a minority they aren’t worth addressing.

So if you got the impression it was all complaining and no action, I would understand - because that’s what everyone has been told about cycling in Toronto. It’s not true, of course, and even worse, it’s a hideous distortion of the truth.

Most people are probably like you: the culture wars are just noise. But when it comes to the size of the pro-bike community, there are three adversaries:

• the anti-bike community: these are not serious people; they are a fringe minority of unhinged individuals. These culture warriors overlap with anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy noise.
• the pro-car community: this is an actual constituency but there aren’t too many people who believe this strongly enough to build a political enterprise around it. But, these people enjoy amplification by the media thanks to the next group.
• industrial players: car manufacture, road construction, etc. There is money in opposing bike lanes and transit insofar as it’s a zero sum proposition. There are MANY people who work full time, year round, to ensure their projects are started and other projects are cancelled. This is a real lobbying force and, with billions on the line, it is extremely powerful.

So that’s the landscape. Bike advocacy is framed as “complaining” because that’s one way to undermine a movement; it’s straight-up propaganda designed to remove political agency from a voting constituency. It’s not fair, it’s not democratic, but it’s the reality of making progress in Toronto and around the world.

Anyway, I am tired of the culture wars - which is why I am calling for the alignment of two groups who have seen themselves as opposites. As far as improving transit is concerned, this is a very real movement but it is fighting against a very wealthy industry and it’s frustratingly slow when they’ve run the province and the city for decades.

I know where your comment comes from - but it’s an incomplete picture that was crafted specifically to give you the impression you have.