It appears that Rocco Rossi may have miscalculated in coming out strongly opposed to bike lanes: almost 60% of Greater Torontonians strongly or moderately support bike lanes on major roads like Bloor and Jarvis, as discovered in a new Angus Reid poll of residents of the Greater Toronto Area. If one were just following the pundits and media comments one would have arrived at a much different conclusion than from this poll.
In the burbs support for bike lanes and transit is lower, but in the city proper (where Rossi and crowd need to get votes) support is strong:
“Commuters who are concerned about threats to the smoothness of their commute overall have less support (for tolls or bike lanes). Whether it’s, ‘I have to pay money to drive my car into the city’ or ‘I have to contend with bikes on major arteries,’ support is lower in those regions,” [Angus Reid senior vice-president] Shanoff said. “But in the city proper, support for more bike lanes is 59 per cent.”
Candidates seeking support from younger voters might want to look at expanding bike lanes, she added.
Comments
dances_with_traffic (not verified)
Interesting how there is a gap
Sun, 04/18/2010 - 18:28in the moderately oppose.
Seems that the majority of opposition are feverishly entrenched, perhaps galvanized by the media's coup regarding the war on cars.
Victor (not verified)
Burbs count too
Sun, 04/18/2010 - 19:29"In the burbs support for bike lanes and transit is lower, but in the city proper (where Rossi and crowd need to get votes) support is strong"
I don't understand why you are concluding that the candidates need to focus on the city voters. As a person who lives in the suburbs I hope that the next mayor can put our needs in the suburbs at par with the needs of those who live in the city.
Certainly some bike lanes are necessary in the city. But let's please not forget about those of us that need to commute to work every day and need car lanes. There must be a compromise somewhere on the issue.
herb
GTA versus Toronto
Sun, 04/18/2010 - 20:11The city referenced here is the entire City of Toronto versus the GTA. The pollsters found strong support for bike lanes in Toronto, thus concluded that candidates should have a platform supporting bike lanes on major roads.
Last I checked there were already car lanes all over the city, nobody was suggesting removing them all. So take a chill pill, Victor.
jh (not verified)
Don't worry we can't forget
Sun, 04/18/2010 - 21:52Don't worry we can't forget you. Those of us who don't need roads to commute will leave it all for you. Were not that hungry anyway.
Sam Davies (not verified)
Something doesn't add up
Sun, 04/18/2010 - 23:11I'm more amused that when you add all 4 up, you get 101.
Dr. Loud (not verified)
Fear of the Unknown
Mon, 04/19/2010 - 10:53The campaign agaist Bike Lanes resides in the minds of a misinformed public.
Some people belive that bikes back up traffic and make driving more dangerous. Of course these things are false, but nobody including our politicians is ready to tell that side of the story.
David Juliusson (not verified)
Fear of the unknown is the norm for Etobicoke Councillors
Mon, 04/19/2010 - 15:28For those living in the west end of Toronto fear of the unknown is much more than the uninformed public. Etobicoke Councillors know cycling and are vehemently opposed to bike lanes.
Here are their records
Ward 1 Susan Hall supported mandatory bike helmets for all Torontonians.
At the Jarvis St. debate she said many motorists are actually scared of aggressive cyclists. “I don’t think we should be demonized for driving cars,” she said.
Ward 2. Rob Ford. March 8th, 2007 edition of the Toronto Star. “I can’t support bike lanes. Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day.”
Ward 3. Doug Halladay. He has fought long and hard against bike lanes on Bloor St. and the West Mall. He can be counted on consistently to vote against any bike lanes, particularly in his ward.
Ward 4. Gloria Lindsay Luby. She supported the bike lane on Rathburn, but not on The Westway. She at least gives effort to bike lanes. She once referred to Rob Ford as a waste of skin. By Etobicoke standards this makes her a very pro bicycling Councillor.
Ward 5 Peter Milczyn voted in favour of the Bloor St. bike lanes, but requested the city's transportation staff defer the installation of any new bike lanes until after the Ministry of Transportation finalizes its plans for changes to Hwy. 427. He argued money would be lost.
On Royal York he argued the bike lane be deleted from the bike plan. His opposition to the lane forced a compromise that resulted in a sub-standard bike lane that is dangerously narrow at 1.2 metres.
Ward 6 Mark Grimes blocked bike lanes on Horner Ave., even though it was on the bike plan and is a road that allows no parking. He reasoned that it was too dangerous for cyclists because so may trucks turn at the corner of Browns Line and Horner. Councillor Grimes has first hand experience with this. " I've been in the trucking business, I know the turning radii of the trucks, it's too dangerous, I know somebody is going to get killed," he says. This has already happened even without the lane. The stoplight at Beta St. was installed because a pedestrian was killed there. All compromise solutions were ignored and the issue is back in the “study” phase.
He is best known for his opposition to bike lanes on Annette Ave.
He voted in favour of the Jarvis St. bike lane. He considers himself a supporter of cycling.
This is the record for the west of the city. Bike lanes are few and far between. They have the power to send approved lanes back "for further study" Concentration on bicycling downtown by the cycling community allows them to do this successfully. The old phrase if you build them they will come applies in the areas around the old city. These councillors have the same vote as councillors in the downtown do when it comes to cycling issues. Yet nothing is done to try and get them to support cycling.
Alan (not verified)
"I'm more amused that when
Mon, 04/19/2010 - 14:44"I'm more amused that when you add all 4 up, you get 101."
101 makes sense, The percentages likely didn't result on nice round numbers ( like 18. 8956 and 23.5590384...) So for the graph the probably rounded to the nearest whole number that would likely create a margin of error of up to 1%. Statistically speaking that is a pretty reasonable error. I would be more amused if they added up to something like 110 or 115.
Still gives you a good idea of the spread.
Tom Flaherty
True Lies
Mon, 04/19/2010 - 17:50The media, politicians, and general public believe that the Bike Lanes added to Jarvis Ave. were the cause for the removal of the centre lane, and this is a problem in my opinion.
Of course it was City Council that voted in favour of removing the centre lane to build more spacious and attractive sidewalks per the recommendations of a study on how to restore the community around Jarvis.
The Bike Lanes approved for Jarvis and had nothing to do with the removal of the centre lane, yet this story is so poorly told that it serves to discredit the cycling community & city staff. It has created animosity and resentment in the minds of drivers and even some cyclists I have spoken to.
Perhaps there is some value in letting people believe that a lane was sacrificed for Bike Lanes as it may help build the acceptance that this an inevitable outcome in some cases, but I'd argue that the negative fall-out has set the implementation of cycling infrastructure back 2-3 years
hamish (not verified)
Bloor was mentioned; it made my day!
Tue, 04/20/2010 - 13:15This survey was good news though the Star had a clunker editorial the next day dissing the University Ave. effort,, and it may be problematic.
But Bloor got a bit of a banner mention - and it's sensible to squeeze cars abit parallel to the subway and it also could expand the subwway's capacity, as safe biking might entice a few transit users off the transit onto bikes, thereby freeing up space.
With Jarvis, it might have been wiser to have relaxed on full bike lanes there, as we do have the bike lanes onSherbourne parallel, and let the pedestrian/community demands take the hit/friction for the removing of a central lane.
Now there's the curious thing of having the bike lanes being an A+ cateogry project just like the Bloor St. rebuilding in Yorkville - still ongoing....
Though horribly dangerous and rough riding, we still need to keep riding it.