Cycling groups earn big grants

Another study on bike lanes on Yonge Street and Bloor/Danforth. Just what we need -- NOT!

This has been studied to death. All we need now is implementation of 15 year old reports. In terms of recommendations, I've already done it. I'll just quote from myself in a previous discussion. So go ahead, implement this plan and send me a cheque for $231,922. Here goes...

What would impress me would be bike lanes on both Yonge Street and Bloor/
Danforth all the way across the city. Bike lanes with physical barriers (ie 15 cm granite curbs) keeping the cars out. Bike lanes with zero adjacent parked cars so there is no dooring issue. Bike lanes that are at least 2.5 metres wide so that faster cyclists can safely pass slower ones. Bike lanes that connect to a whole network of less sophisticated "feeder" bike lanes throughout Toronto so that one is never more than 200 metres from a bike lane.

What would impress me is making Yonge Street south of Bloor a car-free zone, just like we did in the 1970's. What would impress me is steadily expanding the car-free zone, with a steep congestion charge in the rest of Toronto. And road tolls that triple on "smog alert" days so car pollution doesn't continue to kill 440 people in Toronto every year. One of whom, by the way, was my father.

What would impress me is having every subway station on Yonge and Bloor/Danforth have handicapped elevators so that bicycles could be easily taken on the subway. Not to mention allowing disabled people on the subway!

What would impress me is having no peak hours restrictions on taking bicycles onto the subway. In order to do that it would be necessary to shift half the people riding the Yonge line onto the parallel Richmond Hill GO train line. With Richmond Hill GO trains running every five minutes to provide an express alternative to the Yonge subway. This is in the recent Metrolinx plan, but with implementation scheduled for the distant future.

Pardon me for a bit of an edge after 3+ focussed years of pushing for a Bloor/Danforth bikeway aka TaketheTooker, but given that we're now awaiting the results of a City study prompted to some degree by our/my efforts to raise this B/D issue, it seems that most of the heavy lifting for at least one of the routes is pretty well done, except of course for getting the City to match their rhetoric and motions with what they do.
That little task in reducing hypocarisy has involved a bit of fussing about EAvasion, including a complaint to the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario and now, participation as an Intervenor in the Judicial Review of the B/Y project sought by Wm Ashley coming up on Oct. 9 I believe.
Doing this heavy lifting on a voluntary basis is pretty rough - it's much much better to be a meek and mild, diplomatic, suave group of followers if one wants personal sustainability.
And of course, there's usually more of a supply of funds for evermore factually solid studies and sustain-the-bull vs. more political and pointed approach about current actions and inactions that yes, alienates politicians, but given that I've once again! seen stuff that shows that the City KNEW about solutions to some nasty problems for bikes 15 years ago and has done nothing, there is real cause for outrage.
A current vexation now includes the new Bloor Revisioning in the Annex area which is suggesting to remove a lane of the westbound traffic through the Annex just to widen the sidewalks in portions, (ignoring how these indented parking bays are quite unworkable in winter for parking and just increase hazards to cyclists), and Cnclr Vaughan is seeming to be okay with the current level of roadkill roulette. It's smelling like another "fix" with some bypassing of process possibly occurring
Maybe the funding will allow TCAT and CAP to "discover" that 15-year old on-the-shelf analysis of Bloor/Danforth that I found in late March in the City's first analysis of possible routes for bike lanes. Heck, the City didn't bother finding it again, though Dan Egan's name is on the report for further copies, and it might have done for the communication to Works Cttee 2-odd years ago that never really happened, but was rolled into the new longer study.
Yes, it's good news, some good reports and facts will obviously come out of this, but even with the comparison stuff, Pucher has already done that, and we really do know what to do.
At least the cyclists do - the City however, remains caraven and carrupt, keen on putting in bike lanes where cyclists aren't and ignoring provincial processes and policy directives on a key segment where a bike lane would be easy to do as the merchants have already agreed to take out parking. But when that also includes bike parking, (eg. 55 Bloor/Manulife) the City acquiesces.
Yup, I'm a bit carisped with it all, and likely shouldn't be so "negative" - but we don't need the studies nearly as much as we need strong organizing and pointed commenting.

Dear Annie,

Thank you for your kind words. Being by vocation a preacher I do have a bit of a way with words. If you really want to see me, I next appear in public at 8:30 AM at St. John the Baptist, Norway. I'm the really tall guy (200 cm, no kidding) up front.

I'm not preaching at this service; I've just been placed at this church. I'll let everyone here know when I'm next scheduled to preach.

Count me in. Just what we need more studies on bike lanes and grants for fix-all brochures that take up too much staff time, bike union focus, and paper.

Toronto bureaucracy sucks. The simple answer is: Send $9.99 and a self-addressed stamped envelope to the archives of Toronto City Hall. They'll send you copies of decades of council approved bike plans, good bike plans by good advocates, good politicians and good engineers.

Another study. Another $200,000+ down the sewer grate. I predict the newcomer cycling initiative will in the end be stalled by fear. Can we just get on with painting some lines on the road so we can all get around better?

Post-submission of the first comment, I thought maybe it was too much hwining, and it still may be.
The City seems unable to do simple basics of repair, lights, snow-plowing, let alone line-painting for the prime cycling season.
As for the Bloor Visioning that doesn't see cyclists,here's the City site for more details and help on this one please: http://www.toronto.ca/planning/bloorcorridor.htm
The Sept. Annex Gleaner had some interesting and somewhat infuriating comments from the local Councillor Adam Vaughan, who at least rides a bike. (It's not online so rekeying here):
Improving the pedestrian realm in this case trumps the needs of cyclists, agreed Vaughan, especially since Bloor Street becomes so narrow through the corridor in question.
"First you get the pedestrian realm right and then with the leftover space, you deal with the argument between bikes and cars," said Vaughan.

"I'm not going to thin sidewalks to put cycling paths in at the expense of the needs and the health of the local community. It doesn't make sense. If you have trouble getting through Bloor Street on your bicycle, do what they do in Kensington Market and walk."

So that's what cyclists have to look forward to beside the subway - being leftovers parallel to the subway, and who was talking about about thinning sidewalks? Merchants who want to put out their A-frames and have patio spaces? City officials who wish to put new light standards in
another foot from the curb like at NW Brunswick and Bloor because urban standards aren't good enough in our suburban-dominated "city"?
This article also says that the study will go up to "a council meeting in October, said Councillor Adam Vaughan" - and if true, this seems to bypass another meeting in the local community where yes, cyclists were asking where was the concern for bike safety (especial thanks for showing up while sick, Margaret, and still having the smarts to see that some of the new streetscaping coloured pavers were just about the width of a bike lane). One might think that there might be another opportunity at some committee meeting to further express strong reservations about how this proposal is anything but a complete street, and that the indented parking bays do NOT work in wintertime as the City is unable to plow the existing ones out.
So it seems that there's another set of concerns about process, and if they are talking about reworking Bloor from Ave. Rd. over to Bathurst St. without regard for bike safety - which is a distance of about 1.5km - do we have another instance of EAvasion?
Perhaps the Cyclists' Union will find their voice on this issue - meanwhile, please folks, get yourselves informed about this, and consider activating and expressing yourselves. We hope to get the takethetooker.ca website more postable soon.
thanks, safe rides.

While bike lanes are nice I just don't really care for them to be honest.

I agree that they would encourage the less insane to ride on the road, encourage kids and the elderly etc. but the basic issues that cyclists face regarding respect from automobiles are hardly addressed by bike lanes.

The graphic spatial separation does nothing but promote the idea that the road is a predictable place. My issue with this is that it is not....there's often poo in the bike lanes, mail trucks and couriers, slow moving e-bikes, debris and pot holes. Similarly, there are hte same hazards on the normal road.

I would advocate for a much more visual thinking motoring culture and the organic ability to share the road (that short of Amsterdam style physical separations between the bike lanes and car traffic). Little white lines offer illusions of safety.

I have encountered few problems on the road sharing it with cars, sure i've been honked at, but i've been honked at in my car too. I just think (amongst all these dishevelled ideas) that more cyclists on the road can build the role of biking as a legitimate form of urban transportation and drivers will just have to adapt. Use your brain and own the road.

Don't forget courtesy and abiding by the HTA is always helpful in this respect building exercise and getting people to adapt.

Though if that fails I find that yelling obscenities and placing beautiful metal cleat marks in the sides of Suburbans driven by dimwitted cel phone talking drivers may be the only recourse. White lines on the road won't keep these tanks out of your way.

best regards

Theo's quite correct in that bike lanes aren't always the "solution". A key non-paint move would be to mimic the Euro laws re: responsibility and liability for any crash involving a bike. My understanding is that there's a presumption of guilt/wrong on the part of the motorist, just because, so they don't need the helmets and lanes etc. as much as we do.
Going back to the grants, I unearthed a letter at my awfice to Dan and the Bike Plan study team about putting bike lanes on University Ave., the logic being that it's really wide, without streetcar tracks, and there's a subway underneath to ease with the howls of outrage about squeezing the SOVs and other vehicles. However, University Ave. didn't make it into the Bike Plan.
I've also sent myself an idea for a route out to Parkdale through the lower west core to help mark the time that options for safe biking are known to exist.,Many of the area politicians though, prefer to "complete the grid" for motorists eg. Front St. Extension, and sure the Gardiner links are gone, but guess what? the local road pressure has returned!! (for $80 to $100M as a guesstimate) - and we're not seeing leadership from some, or any west end politicians for beginning! a safe east-west travel route of utility for bikes.
Hey - just had a thought for a post or article - what's the tally of the number of lawsuits launched by cyclists or their families against the city?
That's a piece of information that would be worth some money to figure out (in my view).

In late summer they mentioned something about closing the east Gardiner. While that would cause chaos on the roads in terms of gridlock there could be a reflex towards cycling.

I'm just against the use of physical spatial markings and structures (short of the amsterdam style bike lanes which will never happen here) that absolve people of the use of their brains while motoring.

Just own the road you are allowed to by law!

HTA 154

154. (1) Where a highway has been divided into clearly marked lanes for traffic,

(a) a vehicle shall be driven as nearly as may be practicable entirely within a single lane and shall not be moved from the lane until the driver has first ascertained that the movement can be made with safety;

(b) in the case of a highway that is divided into three lanes, a vehicle shall not be driven in the centre lane except when overtaking and passing another vehicle where the roadway is clearly visible and the centre lane is clear of traffic within a reasonable safe distance, or in preparation for a left turn, or where the centre lane is at the time designated for the use of traffic moving in the direction in which the vehicle is proceeding and official signs are erected to indicate the designation;

(c) any lane may be designated for slowly moving traffic, traffic moving in a particular direction or classes or types of vehicles and, despite section 141, where a lane is so designated and official signs indicating the designation are erected, every driver shall obey the instructions on the official signs.

Exception

(2) Where safety is not jeopardized, clauses (1) (b) and (c) do not apply to road service vehicles and clause (1) (c) does not apply to road-building machines or apparatus while engaged in the construction of a highway. R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8, s. 154.

I think thats the right provision that stipulates you don't have to ride your Cervelo across potholes and glass so that buddy in his Civic can get to the next red light 3 seconds faster.