The Fixer: Sunken grates menacing Dupont cyclists

Jack Lakey, writer of the Toronto Star's "Fixer" column reported today on a dangerous pair of sewer grates on Dupont St., north side between Edwin Ave. and Osler Ave. (map).

"Pietro Taleporos emailed us photos of a sunken storm-sewer grate on the north side of Dupont, just west of Edwin Ave., with a utility cover next to it that caught the wheel of his 14-year-old son's bicycle and sent him sprawling."

Also, according to the article, "a small cone and a much larger, orange-and-black traffic pylon were placed over the rough patch", although this was definitely not the case when I rode by at about 8:40 this morning.

You can view the original article on The Star's website here.

This is definitely a dangerous situation for any cyclist who does not see this chewed up section of road in time to ride around it. Let's hope the City fixes this soon.

This section of Dupont St., between Dundas and Lansdowne, is also scheduled to have bicycle lanes installed, possibly sometime this summer. This will connect to the Annette St. bike lanes, and the West Toronto Rail Path. It will be even more critical to have this fixed before then, as the bicycle traffic will likely increase, while cyclists will be directed to ride right through the roughed-up curbside pavement.

Unfortunately for cyclists everywhere, this type of poor roadway infrastructure happens all over the city. Our bicycles do very little damage to the road, yet we are often stuck riding in the worst pothole-ravaged, debris-collecting, door-zoned sections of the road. Sometimes the "bike infrastructure" even directs us to ride in these awful places. Wellesley bike lanes, or the Runnymede door-zone rollercoaster bike lane, anyone?

Bike infrastructure can be a good thing, but sometimes the roadway itself needs some improvement to make cycling safer.

Update: I checked it out again this evening, and there was some fresh asphalt to help smooth out the bumps. Better, but still nowhere near perfect, and who knows how long it will last after getting beaten by automobile tires all day. I guarantee it won't make it through the winter either. The Fixer got it temporarily fixed pretty quickly.