The origins and politics of Minnan-Wong's bike lane plan

Herb, QueensQuayKaren just tweet she doesn't approve of your pointed questions.

Hi Herb et al,

I was riding along the Birchmount bike lane in East End toronto tonight, thinking about this whole thing. Out here in my new home ward of 36 Scarborough Southwest, there are few bike lanes to speak of. It's very clear to see what the majority of the rest of Toronto outside the downtown core looks like from a ground view.

I predict that separated bike lanes will cause more problems than solutions. Examples of separate bike lanes already abound in Toronto - the Martin Goodman Trail parallel to Lakeshore, the Don Valley Trail parallel to Bayview - and the list goes on. MY fear is that separating cyclists from motorists will encourage more lawless, inappropriate behavior, and injuries and collisions. My belief is that cyclists and motorists need to learn to interact with each other better, not to count on a strip of concrete or a stripe of paint to dictate how each should behave.

I trust things work out the way our Creator intended, and politics aside, I trust we Torontonian cyclists and road users learn and grow to be at peace, not odds, with each other.

Brian

I just hope that the Star got it wrong last week when they said that these lanes would feature parked cars between the bike lanes car lanes. "Cars would be able to park next to the curbed bike lane, adding yet another layer of safety."

If anyone has ever used Rue Rachel in Montreal, a crosstown street similar to Harbord as a bike highway, but with a two-way lane separated from the moving cars by parked cars, they know how dangerous it can be. Cars turning into and out of sidestreets rarely if ever see bikers coming along. I can't tell you how many ambulances i saw when i was living by Rachel for 5 years.

There's a video about a similar lane in NYC worth checking out, at least, the part around 2:35: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADUhqva9PwU

The bike lanes in Copenhagen are almost all separated and feature parked cars between the lanes and traffic. There are clear rules here that place cars at a lower priority than bicycles and drivers have learned to look for bikes (and in 3 months of riding here I've never seen even a close call with a car). Make it explicit that cars have to yield to the bike lane (with laws if needed but certainly via education campaigns) and then enforce the rule.

Riding in the snow is much less stressful in this setup than in typical Toronto riding (whether in bike lane or not) because if you should wipe out you're in no immediate danger of being hit by a car or sucked under truck wheels. A little slipping and sliding actually becomes fun. Additionally the slush and spray from cars hits the parked cars instead of the cyclists, so the whole thing becomes much nicer.

I was having trouble imagining riding in Toronto again once I come home, but maybe the lanes will catch up while I'm gone. I can dream....

For both political and design reasons, hastening slowly would be far wiser than embracing all of this, and we need a functional TCAC - with!! sub-committees - in my view ahead of this proposal.
On the political side, I have reasons of distrust of the new regime, not that Mr. Miller and crew did all that much for us, though they talked well. The big f-up was Bloor in Yorkvile, but we also have questions of competence in doing, another longer issue.
So if we all "get behind" this proposal, and Ford et al look green and bike-friendly, will stuff get built? because there's such a $hortfall. Is this a way of looking good, but respect for taxpayers means no lanes because we gave the surplus back to motorists? The Queen's Quay rebuild was to have a 2/-in-1 separated thing, and I think it's scaled back from funding shortfalls. Let's see how it works first maybe, and what the costs are. Because if we as a community, and the CU is not necessarily doing us a favour here, embrace this more costly reworking, we may be stuck in a costly plan vs. repainting Bloor from High Park to Sherbourne for $200,000/8kms of bike lanes.
On the planning side, the Richmond lane might be really excellent, bruited since 1992 like Bloor, and resisted ever since, but it remains needed. And if we look at many of the other egs. the situations of these facilities is for wider, one-way streets, or so it seems. So, like bike boxes, we do the "latest" things without actually thinking them through via a TCAC/TCC, and one important design element, coloured paint, is not possible for us to do. Why not? - I tried to get this as an agenda item on the Heaps TCAC, he denied it, said Dan would get back to me, and I'm still waiting, and Heaps canned the last TCAC meeting arbitrarily.
We also really really need to go beyond the core and think/respond to where cyclists are coming and going to ie. origin/destination and where are patterns of harm/crash. The City likes to ignore data because it would force some changes eg. Bloor, eg. main roads in the west core. But isn't Queen, or King St. really the True place for having a 2-in-1 lane put in?
Maybe as a bike community, given the decade plus of demonstrated real hazards etc. need to go beyond easy Bloor St. (technically easy that is - funny how to paint a line on a road - maybe - needs an EA), and insist on Queen or King having a great rise in bike safety with one of those curb lanes becoming a two safe bike route.
Consider looking at this as well...
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2011/01/wake-up-ottawa.html

There's something fishy about the whole dedicated lane proposal. Could it be that once the separated lanes set up and connecting to a major road grid system, the move then will be to ban cyclists from other major routes such as Bloor St.?

And is the cash-strapped city going to buy special snow clearing equipment for the bike lanes?

I don't trust this administration at all.

Thanks for posting this entry about the context and recent history of this dedicated bike lane network plan, Herb.

Our expat in Copenhagen has it right. (I was also an expat in Copenhagen last year and use it as my best example of safe and effective cycling infrastructure.)

Separated infrastructure is the best way to improve cycling safety and attract new cyclists. It is especially important for cyclists who don't fit the relatively young and physically fit type that is predominant in Toronto. That is, in Copenhagen, it doesn't matter your age, gender, background, or level of physical fitness, everyone rides a bike! Building a cycling city requires that it be safe for children, families, older folks, those who want to ride slowly, and those want to ride faster. In Copenhagen, the standard lane is wide enough to accommodate two lanes as it were: one for riding (on the right) and one for passing (on the left). All one does is ring his or her bell when passing and if a slower rider is in the left part of the lane the rider will move to the right to allow the faster rider to pass. To make this work, it's really just a matter of educating people about the rules of the road.

For me, the best way to think about the issue of "to separate or not to separate" is to think about pedestrians. It would be very unsafe to have pedestrians walk on the edge of the road with cars driving past, and to walk between moving cars to get to the left side in order to run through the intersection and make a left turn. No one would advocate for this. Pedestrians would get hit by cars, people with strollers would tend not to walk on streets, etc. So we built side walks. Now pedestrians have a safe place to walk that is separated by a raised pathway with a curb. Cars can drive on the road and park at the curb. Pedestrians can walk on the sidewalk and wait at an intersection to cross with pedestrian specific traffic lights. Car drivers are educated to pay attention to pedestrians crossing and know that pedestrians have the right of way. Sidewalks are an effective and safe way to accommodate both motorists and pedestrians in the "space between buildings."

Cycling is, in many ways, exactly the same. Cyclists take the position between cars and pedestrians with a cascading sequence of right of way rules. A "bike lane," a la Copenhagen, is essentially a sidewalk for cyclists. It takes the physical position between the road (where cars drive and/or park) and the sidewalk (where pedestrians walk). It is elevated from the road slightly, and the pedestrian sidewalk is elevated from the bike lane. Bikes have specific traffic signals alerting all three users (cars, bikes, pedestrians) to the rights of way at traffic lights. Snow on bike lanes is plowed by machines that are appropriately sized for sidewalks (not sure if we have these in Toronto, but they're everywhere in the burbs such as Richmond Hill - sidewalks are always plowed there.) In CPH, the bike lanes are plowed even before the car lanes are! There is a compromise trade off between cars and bikes: cars don't turn right on reds, bikes make two-point left turns (i.e. they don't merge with car traffic, but ride through the intersection to the other side and then proceed left on the next light). In CPH children are required to learn how to ride bikes and pass cycling tests in school, which is a great way to raise a new generation of cyclists (many of whom may go on to also drive cars) and teach them how to ride safely.

Bike lanes like these don't take up as much road space as bi-directional separate lanes as designed in NYC or Montreal; they take up the same amount of road space as standard Toronto painted line lanes.

It took Copenhagen 40 years to develop the network they now have, so we can't expect Toronto to transform into CPH overnight, but we should adopt these best practices and build them into a renewed and comprehensive bike plan. The proposed network is a fairly good start.

Kev, you're spot on about about Rue Rachel.

Here is hoping.

Ed, you are right about the muppet racer. They like to go fast but are really lacking in the handling and common sense department. I've almost been involved in a few head-ons because they're all pumped up and passing inappropriately. I don't care if you want to go 40 in a straight line, but don't pass on a blind corner or weave at 40. So please chill, spastic roadie guy. I think most of my problems on the Martin goodman arise from salmon, but are these new lanes bi-directional? Room to pass? Will I get stuck behind a trike going 15km/h?

I'm excited about the Minnan-Wong proposal. I don't think Ford would try to remove the bike lanes on Jarvis, and I was never completely sure about the design for University (with the lanes in the middle). So I don't see what the risk is, to throw our support 100% behind this.

I've already publicly stated my preference for seperated lanes on Richmond and Adelaide. (although, I'd like to see one way bike lanes on each street, rather than two way bike-lanes on Richmond). Here's my original blog post for those who haven't seen it (including a photo-illustration of seperated lanes on Richmond):

http://meslin.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/richmond_adelaide/

The bottom line is, we need more bike lanes in Toronto. So when a senior member of the Mayor's Executive says he wants to propose new lanes, we should be cheerleading. Of course there are design tweeks required, but that can all happen later.

Even if the proposed lanes aren't perfect, we should STILL get behind them. The process alone would set an important precedent, that bike lanes are not a left/right issue. Bike lanes are about safety, and they cross political boundaries. Having anyone from the Ford administration talking about new bike lanes, is amazing. Having Minna-Wong pose for a photo for the Star, standing in a bike lane (!!) is unbelievably hugely wonderfully amazing. I think this is one of the biggest political breakthroughs in the history of cycling advocacy in Toronto. We've seen conservative mayors in other cities (like NYC) implement ambitious bike projects. We can do it here too. Bike lanes are cheap to build, and fit perfectly into Ford's agenda of cutting costs and respecting taxpayers. Reducing gridlock, providing safety for families, encouraging exercise, etc. All for a bargain $ price.

Let's get behind this.

There is no huge hole west of Bathurst in the proposed network.
There is a huge hole currently in the existing unseparated lanes on Harbord between Spadina and Bathurst where cyclists have painted sharrows to make them feel safer, but not make them safer.
The separated Harbord bicycle lanes in the Minnan Wong Plan are proposed to be continuous and close this gap.
The proposed Harbord separated bicycle lane is also proposed to go west all the way to Ossington. Please look at the map at the top of this stream.
The separated Richmond Street lanes are proposed to end on their westerly end at Bathurst St.
Richmond Street does in fact go west of Bathurst and the lanes could be extended west of Bathurst Street.
If those posters who are negative to the DMW proposal would put their energies in how to improve and extend the Minnan Wong proposal that is on the table the network might actually happen.