Oct 20, 2026, 10:58 PMthere is an old white guy wandering around talking to people about how he is an avid cyclist, he's just not for THESE bike lanes, and how everyone here is not from the neighbourhood, etc., so I showed him my photos of mites and other arthropods and talked about bugs until he excused himself. You'd better believe I'm gonna show him more if I see him again
Oct 20, 2026, 11:06 PMI have no idea if I missed anything or if something is planned or what. Mostly people are standing by the road with signs and small groups of people are periodically biking laps around the area. Mood is chill and social. A few cops are at the edge keeping watch. OH MY GOD there's a hot drink cargo bike
Oct 20, 2026, 11:17 PMA young girl made me a cup of delicious cocoa
Nearby, CP24 is interviewing a guy in a motorized wheelchair with a sign on the back saying "If we lose bike lanes we also lose: all day parking, accessibility, safety for all, lives!" (Plus Doug Ford's phone number.)
A guy heckled rudely as he drove by and someone yelled back "YOUR MOM!" which is all that needs to be said, really
Oct 20, 2026, 11:50 PMOutside Islington Station, cyclists blockade two large trucks hauling machinery for resurfacing the bike lanes.
Oct 20, 2026, 11:57 PMThe number of cops has substantially increased. Someone is going around making sure everyone has the legal aid number written on them. Am hearing optimistic noises but am suspicious.
Oct 21, 2026, 12:00 AMOne of the trucks just drove off (with a couple people tailing it). Line of bike cops moving out of way, mass of cyclists going in same direction as truck. Some bike cops now here around second truck (with smaller crowd).
Oct 21, 2026, 12:10 AMHave petted a small fluffy dog another protester was carrying around.
An organizer is calmly standing their ground as cops surround truck
Oct 21, 2026, 12:15 AMCops determined to let this truck unload
Oct 21, 2026, 12:17 AMprotest chant voice ALL THIS BULLSHIT / FOR ONE TRUCK
Oct 21, 2026, 12:30 AMA lady was walking by with a tray of coffees and I was like, whoops let's not get in the way of the regular people going about their business, but she was actually offering them to us! She seemed very sweet and nice. A local resident who moved here around when the bike lanes were put in and was rather hurt and surprised to hear of the local businesses that apparently don't care about her safety.
Oct 21, 2026, 12:45 AMWHAT EVEN IS / THIS BIG MACHINE
(I looked it up. It's a cold milling machine.)
A dump truck has just pulled up at Bloor & Islington.
Oct 21, 2026, 1:19 AMstanding around shooting the shit with a couple other people who were both out here for the first time
the mom was given the sign by someone else and none of us knew what the other Pokemon was lmao.
Oct 21, 2026, 1:25 AMThe mom says the largest group of protesters is effectively kettled at Bloor and Green Lanes so I guess I dodged a bullet there.
The truck guy says they're planning on not just taking out the pavement but repaving tonight too!
Oct 21, 2026, 1:32 AMOh boy they got the Court Services truck here for mass arrests. The milling machine is already going and melting? tearing up? the pavement, a cloud of dust going up
Oct 21, 2026, 2:03 AMCaught up with the "action": a huge swarm of police is clearing the way ahead of the machines with a bunch of protesters being gradually pushed ahead and aside.
I am trying to make my way homeward safely, hopefully no more updates
Oct 21, 2026, 3:07 AMUpdate: home and in comfy pants and with tea and cat!!
There was a delicious damp over the Humber River and I think I even saw a star. And it was difficult but I did all of the hills without having to walk my bike up any of them.
Thanks for following along all. As I said to @cargot_robbie, hopefully there will be something left to protest tomorrow.
Oct 21, 2026, 6:50 PMUpdate update: protest tonight, 7 PM, usual spot
https://status.nevillepark.ca/@nev/statuses/01M5FPVNJADXP7HH9AX7AC2KH7
Oct 21, 2026, 11:17 PM
Oh no! Good thing I left when I did.
Oct 21, 2026, 1:58 AM@rzaichkowski.bsky.social it ended up driving off afaik
@nev @cargot_robbie This was pointed out in a Bluesky thread but *sigh* Toronto is paying their municipal police to enforce a provincial edict that the city never wanted.
Oct 21, 2026, 4:04 PM@jsstaedtler @cargot_robbie we're why the TPS budget is a billion dollars, baby
@nev I'm told the mounted unit is nearby and the cops are on edge because a truck was torched yesterday
Oct 21, 2026, 11:17 PM@krupo lmao like what kind of truck? where?
@nev absolutely no other details so I was skeptical about that claim
Oct 22, 2026, 5:33 PM@krupo apparently a tourist bus on Queen's Quay caught on fire, which is what someone might have misremembered https://www.cp24.com/local/toronto/2026/10/21/tour-bus-catches-fire-in-downtown-toronto-no-injuries-reported/
@nev Eevee is the brown one, pikachu, and pichu (baby pikachu)
Edit: Also heart shaped tail on pikachu is female, lighting on the rnd is male
Oct 21, 2026, 1:34 AM@fullywoolly thank you
@nev Oh, the irony of bike cops fighting the public who doesn't want... bike lanes removed.
Why are the Toronto Police participating in this? If Drug Ford wants this removed, he should be using provincial resources.
Oct 21, 2026, 12:34 AM@JustinDerrick man I've seen the cops defending literal white nationalist fascists, it is the way of things
@nev People like that guy, who follow the Gospel of John Forrester, are responsible for setting back cycling advocacy in both the U.S. and Canada by 50 years. They deserve as much annoyance and derision as we can give them.
Oct 21, 2026, 12:50 AM@ND3JR I don't even know if he was an adherent of vehicular cycling or just a NIMBY or what.
While I obviously am opposed to the philosophy, it is a useful skill to be confident "taking the lane". Self-defence in areas like mine where most streets do not have bike lanes!
@nev Bug photos is an awesome deescalation technique. Bravo.
Oct 21, 2026, 1:24 AM💯 Reading that made me want to move to canada. No lie!
Oct 21, 2026, 5:50 AM@nev Oh you ran into the, “Actually, I'm a keen cyclist myself,” guy. Well done for defusing him without an actual confrontation.
@nev ah I see you too have discovered the art of the weaponised info dump 😂 I was once in a taxi and mentioned my wife, and the taxi driver started getting a bit homophobic and said that in nature everything was male or female. I spent the rest of the 20 minute ride delivering an enthusiastic monologue that covered flower morphology, cereal genetics, the sex changing branch of the Fortingall Yew and clownfish without letting him get a word in edgeways until he finally let me off at my destination and escaped before I managed to get to penis fencing flatworms
Oct 21, 2026, 12:54 PM@afewbugs one of my favourite mind-blowing things about sexual diversity in biology is that not only are "male" and "female" not a simple binary, sex itself exists on a continuum: there are intermediaries between "this species [or even individual] has sexes" and "this species/individual doesn't". See e. g. bacterial fertility-inhibiting factors that control conjugation; which is all sex really is when you get down to it, a factor that limits which individuals can exchange genes with each other.
Oct 22, 2026, 3:54 AM@Jeanniewarner @afewbugs arrhenotoky, it's called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrhenotoky
@nev
One of those cyclists who doesn't think bikes should be used as transportation and should only be ridden in traffic?
Oct 21, 2026, 5:54 PM@cshlan or perhaps the kind of recreational one who puts his bike in his car and drives to a trail