Bike Share Toronto is the city's official bike share program, designed to give locals and visitors a fun, affordable and convenient alternative to walking, taxis, buses and the subway. There are 200 Bike Share Toronto stations and 2,000 bikes across the city, making Bike Share the most accessible way to get around and explore.

    How it works

    Become an Annual Member or buy a day Pass to access the system.

    Find an available bike nearby, and get a ride code or use your member key to unlock it.

    Take as many short rides as you want while your pass or membership is active.

    Return your bike to any station, and wait for the green light on the dock (停靠点) to make sure it's locked.

    Choose a plan

    For visitors

    Day Pass: $ 7. Unlimited 30-minute rides in a 24-hour period. 3-Day Pass: $ 15. Unlimited 30-minute rides in a 72-hour period.

    For locals

    Monthly Pass: $ 25. Unlimited 30-minute rides for a month.

    Annual Membership: $ 90. Unlimited 30-minute rides for a whole year. The Annual Membership is the best deal for locals of Toronto and other frequent riders.

    The first 30 minutes of each ride is included with the membership or pass price. Avoid extra fees by dropping off your bike every 30 minutes at any other station. If you keep a bike out for longer than 30 minutes at a time, you will be charged all extra $ 1.50 for the first 30 minutes, $ 4 for the next 30 minutes, and $ 7 for each additional 30 minutes after that.

    Contact us

    Customer Service: (855)898—2388

    Repair Service: (855)—2378

    Corporation Partners: (855)898—2398

    Employment Opportunities: (855)898—2498

    British English may have come first, but around the world, the American way of spelling is now far more popular.

    A recent examination of the English language shows that publications now largely use the American version swapping words like “centre” for “center” after the 1880s. To get data, researchers used Google's Ngram Viewer to analyze the words found in all English-language publications from 1800 to 2000. Entering a word into the viewer will show how frequently it occurs within the massive corpus(语料库)of books around the world.

    According to the data, this shift was further strengthened around World War I. Since then, English-language publications have preferred “gray” and “flavor” instead of “grey” and “flavour”. The American spelling has continued to grow over the years, with “liter” passing “liter” around 1900, and “center” becoming the more common choice over “centre” in 1913. “1913 marked a turning point in British spelling, as the American alternative became more frequently used in literature,” the post explains, in regard to “center”. This was just a year before the beginning of World War I, which many views as a key period in America's rise to superpower status.

    Though this switched again between 1920s and the late 1930s, the American, spelling took over for good around 1940, during which time the spelling “airplane” shifted dramatically over “aeroplane”.

    Ever since the middle of the 19th century, even the British Isles have slowly rejected the old spelling. The future is gray for British English.

    Kay and Charles Giddens sold their home to start a bed and breakfast. Four years later, the couple now dishes out banana pancake breakfasts, cleans toilets, serves homemade cookies to guests in a bed and breakfast surrounded by trees on a mountain known for colorful sunsets.

    “Do I miss the freeways? Do I miss the traffic? Do I miss the trees? No,” says Ms. Giddens. “This is a phenomenon that's fairly widespread. A lot of people are rethinking their lives and figuring out what they want to do.”

    Simple living ranges from cutting down on weeknight activities to sharing housing, living closer to work and commuting(通勤) less, avoiding shopping malls, borrowing books from the library instead of buying them, and taking a cut in pay to work at a more pleasurable job.

    Vicki Robin, a writer, tells us how she deals with the changes in her budget, now far less than what she used to make.

    “You become conscious of where your money is going and how valuable it is,”Ms. Robin says. “You tend not to use thing up. You cook at home rather than eat out. You find your life is not a mess anymore, and you discover your living costs have gone way down.”

    Janet Luhrs, a lawyer, quit her job after giving birth and leaving her daughter with a babysitter for two weeks.“It was not the way I wanted to raise my kids,”she says.“Simplicity is not just about saving money ; it's about me sitting down every night with my kids to a candlelit dinner with classical music.”

    Ms. Luhrs now edits a magazines called Simple Living, which publishes tips on how to buy recycled furniture and shoes, and organize potluck（家常便饭）dinners instead of fancy receptions.

    “Simplicity is about conscious living and creating the life you want. The less stuff you buy, the less money goes out the door, and the less money you have to earn,” Ms. Luhrs explains.

    Once an old man rose early to read each morning. His grandson wanted to be just like his grandfather, so tried to emulate him every way he could.

    One day the grandson asked, “Grandpa, I try to read just like you do, but I don't understand most of it, and I forget whatever I do understand immediately I close the book. So what good is it for me to read?”

    The grandfather, who was putting coal on the fire, said, “Take this coal basket down to the river and bring me back a basket of water.”

    The boy did as told to, but the water leaked out before he could get the basket home.

    The grandfather laughed, saying, “You'll have to move a little faster.” This time he ran faster, but again the basket emptied. Out of breath, he decided it was impossible to carry water in a basket, and he went to get a bucket (桶). But the grandfather said, “I want a basket of water instead of a bucket of water. You're just not trying hard enough.”

    The boy knew what he was trying to accomplish was impossible. However, he decided to show his grandfather a third time.

    The boy dipped the basket into the river and ran as hard as he could. With the empty basket, he gasped (喘气说), “See Grandpa? It's useless!”

    “So you think it useless?” the old man asked. ''Then look at the basket.” To his surprise, the boy found it washed clean of the dirty coal stains and now clean inside and out.

    “My child, that's what happens when you read the book. You might not understand or remember everything, but the words will change you inside and out. That is the work of reading in our lives.”

    Play time is in short supply for young children these days and the lifelong consequences for developing children can be more serious than many people realize.

    An article in the most recent issue of the American Journal of Play details not only how much children's play time has declined, but how this lack of play affects emotional development, leading to the rise of anxiety, depression, and problems of attention and self control. “Since about 1955, children's free play has been continually declining, at least partly because adults have applied ever-increasing control over children's activities.” says the author Peter Gray, Ph. D, Professor of Psychology at Boston College.

    We can describe the unstructured freely-chosen play as a testing ground for life. It provides critical life experiences without which young children cannot develop into confident and competent adults. So kids need more of it, not less. Because play is how young children learn important social and emotional skills such as sharing, cooperating, communicating, and empathizing. It helps them develop fit bodies, strong minds, and brave hearts, so they can take on new challenges and risky situations.

    Gray's article is meant to serve as a wake-up call regarding the effects of lost play. We must know that lack of childhood free play time is a huge loss that must be paid attention to for the sake of our children and society. But parents who keep a lookout over and disturb their children's play are a big part of the problem. It is hard to find groups of children outdoors at all, and, if you do find them, they are likely to be wearing school uniforms and following the directions of coaches while their parents dutifully watch and cheer.

    Actually, when children are in charge of their own play, it provides a foundation for their future mental health as older children and adults. Play gives children a chance to find and develop a connection to their own self-identified and self-guided interest. It is through play that children first learn to make decisions, solve problems, improve self-control, and follow rules. Play helps children make friends and learn to get along with each other as equals. Most importantly, play is a source of happiness.

When parents realize the major role that free play can take in the development of emotionally healthy children and adults, they may wish to reassess the priorities ruling their children's lives. The needs for childcare, academic and athletic success and children's safety is important. But perhaps parents can begin to identify small changes——such as openings in the schedule, backing off from quite so many supervised (有监督的) activities, and possibly slightly less keeping watch on the playground that would start the slow returning to the direction of free, imaginative-directed play.

    Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28,1926. Since Lee's mother was mentally ill, she was raised by her father. She became very close to her father.

    The naughty Lee loved reading, and would make up stories with Truman, her neighbour who was two years older than her. Seeing her daughter's imagination, Lee's father gave her a typewriter.

Before her final year in the university of Alabama, Lee dropped out to become a writer. She moved to New York City where her childhood friend Truman was already established as a famous writer. While there, she worked on her first book—To Kill a Mockingbird. It won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was made into an Academy Award winning movie the following year. To Kill a Mockingbird tells the story of six-year-old Scout and her brother who lived in the town of Maycomb Alabama with their single father Attics. Attics is a lawyer who defends the blacks. At a young age, Scout is exposed to the terrors of segregation(宗族隔离)。Then, in 2014, the first draft of a new book—Go Set a Watchman was discovered among Lee's papers. It is the story of 26-year-old Scout who returns to Maycomb to visit her father. She is shocked to find her father a changed man. Attics has turned into a segregationists! The story shows the mixed feelings Scout has for the changes that have taken place in her hometown and father.

    A loner for most of her life, Lee stayed unmarried, preferring to lead a small town life. On February 19, 2015, Lee passed away at the age of 89.