Report on cycle tracks likely set for June

I've been increasingly distrustful and less supportive of what's being proposed here, and also getting critical of the CU for its naivete in being overly cheerleading this along.

Maybe I'm a bit too cynical/jaded etc. but can we really trust those who are proposing to cut out a full 21 Citizen's Advisory Committees, and Mr. Ford, when Councillor, did try to cut out all the funding for bike lanes at least twice. So, sure. where's the harm in a study, and then the study comes in, and there's little way to get it put into context of the Bike Plan, the lack of connectivity and horrible road conditions, and now it's likely called the Ford Bike Plan - and will it be a gold-plated to build mini-network that will drain the bike budget. And then, we won't have the $ to keep it cleared well enough in winter, so they won't be well used, and then since they're empty, it'll be such a waste, and gee, time to rip them out for motorists again.

While Richmond/Adelaide is extremely overdue for a bike facility, and could well have the good width needed for a physically separated lane, and it would be helpful to have in the core, the rest of what's proposed for consideration really isn't all that broken, with the exception of Sherbourne - It truly needs repaving, and TCAC has supported doing something different there.

The CIty and the CU must look at where the gaps in our network are, where cyclists are getting hurt, and that tends to be in the east-west directions in the core. So why don't we do the bit of Bloor St. between Sherbourne and Church that is in the Bike Plan, or a longer bit of Bloor in the west end from Dundas St. W. over to Ossington; and urgently, for this year!!!

In my deputing, I was asking where the frack was the Bloor St. EA - that will be discussed at the June 23-sh meeting - and maybe they will try to kill it off then, despite the 5800 signatures on that petition in support of it.

I also tried to nudge the PWIC to support having a TCAC again - do get in touch with your local Councillor in the hope that Council will outvote the Execute Cttee, as per Monday's Star editorial urging that. And consider being suspicious about what actually might happen. Sure, honi soit y mal y pense - but look at what's been happening with the sensible Transit City!

This is what the PWIC approved, and it may go well beyond what's been talked of...

The Public Works and Infrastructure Committee referred Item PW3.15 to the Acting General Manager, Transportation Services, for a report to the June 23, 2011, meeting of the Public Works and Infastructure Committee on the following:

1.    the  development and implementation of the Mayor's Bike Plan during the current term of Council.
   

2.    the development and implementation of a continuous Separated Bike Lane Network in the downtown during the current term of Council. 
   

3.    the status of the Bloor-Danforth Environmental Assessment Study.
   

4. any other outstanding matters relating to bike lanes.

Apologies for 2nd posting of comments - things didn't seem to register - and I guess I have bad habits of repeating myself eg. Bloor bike lanes....

With 1. above "the Mayor's Bike Plan" - in talking a bit with Doug Ford, and listening elsewhere, the push will likely be for paths in parks etc. This is wrong for many of us, as the parks can be especially dangerous and unuseable for women - thinking of Arlene Woods I think the name was in Ottawa a few years ago, though at other times off-road is heaven.

With 3. - Bloor/Danforth EA - it's been over a year since the RFP was out, atop four or five years of delay in studying it previously, so where the frack is it? Increasingly, it needs to be sold as a way of expanding the crowded Bloor/Danforth subway for essentially free. Please start talking to transit users and/or thinking about this aspect of it yourselves.

My contacts with residents' associations (specifically Harbord Village) is that cycle paths through parks are going over like a lead balloon.

I too would caution the TCU to tread lightly on this and not get themselves too associated with the project.

Hamish,

Rob Ford's bike plan may be found here:

http://www.robfordformayor.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Transportation-...

I draw your attention to the map on page 5.

Some of it makes sense. For example, eliminating the completely stupid and insane 3 km gap along Eglinton between the Richview Bicycle Path and the Kay Gardiner Beltline Trail, connecting the Beltline with a bridge across the Allan Expressway and paving the unpaved parts of the Beltline. This creates a continuous high-quality off-road path parallel to Eglinton all the way from Hwy 427 to Yonge Street.

Closing the equally stupid and insane gaps in the Finch Hydro Corridor path also makes sense to create a continuous path across the top of Toronto.

Completing the West Toronto Railpath also makes sense.

Closing the gaps in the Lakeshore Trail also makes sense.

The Ford plan creates several excellent East-West paths across Toronto by eliminating gaps and connecting existing paths. The major weakness of the Ford plan is that it results in essentially zero North-South routes. The Don Valley recreational trail is completely unsuitable for transportation use, for reasons that I have previously written about.

Kevin Love

Thanks for the link, Kevin.

But it looks like a way to gut the existing tepid and delayed Bike Plan, and avoid doing a thing in areas where we have heavier bike traffic and proven sets of harms where we now bike in good numbers, and pushing forward off-road trails that aren't as safe, nor necessarily as direct, and it could well totally drain ALL the bike budget with a "bike" project vs. repainting a street, like Bloor, for merely $25,000 a km. So $200,000 would have done Bloor St. from High Park to Sherbourne,

And I think it's quite worthwhile to be beyond-skeptical about the merits of draining budgets with off-road trails and bridges vs. on-road improvements, and putting all the money into one or two salient but costly projects, and gee, it'll all be too expensive to do with the money crunches since we're giving money back to the motorists right?

So try and find a transit planner that thinks what Mr. Ford is doing/has done to Transit City will truly help us, and then maybe I could start thinking more positively about what Mr. Ford's Bike Scheme entails for cyclists.

Hamish,

I am certainly not endorsing the Ford plan! I merely observe that some of it makes sense. Completing the gaps along Eglinton, etc, are sensible things to do.

Can you imagine if the existing Hwy 401 across Ontario was built as it is now, except with a gap between Pickering and Port Hope? And politicians refused to fill in the gap, saying "nobody uses the 401 on either side of the gap, so why complete it?"

That is precisely the situation that we are in along Eglinton and many other places that Rob Ford (more likely, someone working for him) has quite correctly identified.

I also agree with you that we desperately need a proper Dutch-style seperated cycle path along Bloor. And also along Yonge Street. The Yonge subway is seriously overcrowded during peak hours. We badly need a proper Dutch-style Yonge cycle path to to take the excess passengers off the Yonge subway.

With, of course, intersection protections that look like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlApbxLz6pA&feature=player_embedded

Kevin Love