City Transportation staff are developing a trails report and asking the public to review the proposed trail connections for Toronto before the report is submitted to Public Works and Infrastructure Committee. The open house will be in North York, 40 Orchard View Blvd (1 block north of Eglinton and west of Yonge), Monday February 6, 2012, 5:30 to 7:30pm) or comment via Facebook.
Our new mayor made the bike trails the primary focus of bicycle infrastructure. It's exciting that we might have more bike trails in our City! But let's not give the mayor too much credit. The vast majority of these connections were identified in the 2001 Bike Plan. What the mayor did was make these trails a priority over the rest of the bikeway network. In fact, the mayor has supposedly scrapped the Bike Plan because he claims that the roads are no place for bikes (or streetcars for that matter).
So we may see a bunch of new trails and connections throughout the City which will be great for increasing active transportation and recreation. We may finally have a complete Humber Trail from the lake right up to Steeles. We will see a major expansion along the Waterfront in Scarborough, though there is still a lot missing there. And the trail following the Finch hydro corridor will be mostly complete. We may see the completion of the Railpath so it will travel from north of Dupont down to King and Strachan. These are all great to have. It will be tough to complete them all given that there will be issues with land ownership, cost of building bridges or tunnels in some parts, and the challenges of dealing with steep grades.
This plan will still leave out most of downtown without any improvements. And there are still going to be plenty of holes in the suburbs unless some sort of bike lane grid is implemented on main roads. Much like what was originally proposed in the Bike Plan.
Still we are moving forward with this, in jumps and starts.
Comments
W. K. Lis
Bike trails over bike lanes.
Fri, 02/03/2012 - 10:34Bike trails over bike lanes. Rob Ford does not want to SEE bikes sharing the road with him, as he does want to SEE rail transit sharing the roadway. Bike trails are still needed, but bike lanes as well, especially if the trails do not take them to a desired destination (like stores, which are usually along roads and not river valleys).
doconnor (not verified)
The map doesn't include the
Fri, 02/03/2012 - 10:38The map doesn't include the rebuild of Queen Quay that will include a new trail that connects the east and west parts of the Waterfront trail. I'm pretty sure construction for this is going to start this year. That will help downtown.
herb
True. Though I think there
Fri, 02/03/2012 - 14:29True. Though I think there will still be a gap. I believe the trail will only go to Spadina, correct me if I'm wrong.
David Juliusson (not verified)
A real opportunity is being
Fri, 02/03/2012 - 15:32A real opportunity is being lost in South etobicoke.
Right now Phase 2 of the Mimico Linear Park is being built. Fully funded, fill being brought in. No bike path. Instead we get a shared path that is not wide enough for the uses that it is to provide. Bikes will be allowed on it, but are not encouraged.
It is an opportunity to close a major gap that exists in the western portion of the Waterfront Trail. If it had been combined with the bike lanes on Lakeshore that are part of the Bike Plan, there would have been a continuous bike route ll the way from downtown to the Mississauga border.
hamish (not verified)
In some ways this is good
Sun, 02/05/2012 - 13:38In some ways this is good news, but in other ways it's a terribly inequitable and dangerous to deadly misapplication of funds.
Yes, we need improvements in the network, to make connections in trail systems. But it comes at a great cost - c. $43,000,000 or so as the F*s tout things - and meanwhile, in the core, we get nearly nothing and the roads are falling apart - everywhere - moreso in the gutters where we are supposed to ride and where freeze-thaw cycles make it worse. It only takes about $25,000 a km to repaint a road for a bike lane, and while some take issue with how mere paint is not enough - and there's absolutely truth to that - we also need connectivity and a set of safe routes, and look at that Globe map for examples - like Bloor, and the Danforth.
Under $20,000 would fill in a missing part of Bloor already in the Bike Plan from Sherbourne to Church St.. $200,000 would repaint Bloor from Dundas St. W. to Sherbourne, and we have real needs in the west end of the City west of Bathurst that are not being met. Look at that map that the Globe's done...
The repainting of the curve where Jenna Morrrison died would have cost less than the funeral.
In some ways, the Cyclists Union is short-shrifting oh so many urban cyclists in going along with the Fs and their "plans" and by their cheerleading and cooperating, the Fs have been able to do a lot more - and this may well include killing off the on-street part of the Bike Plan, as feeble and as tepid and as incomplete as that has been.
I'm hoping that the wheels of the Fords are falling off again with the Transit Ciity stuff, and then we can move on to get sensible bike things happening again, which does include doing some improvements to suburban areas, but not just trails, roads too - like Lawrence, and also more urban/core roads and some of the main carterials at that.
locutas_of_spragge
I plan to attend this
Mon, 02/06/2012 - 12:28I plan to attend this meeting. I believe trails can really help less confident cyclists who do not wish to mix with traffic, but they also have many problems. The worst of these problems develop if the design does not specify a clear separation between faster bike traffic and pedestrian traffic. Cyclists routinely travel at up to 40 km/h; it simply does not do to mix cyclists with pedestrians, and while courtesy goes a long way in sharing trails (as I find with the West Toronto Railpath) it should not have to replace good design.
simplicius2wheels
I checked your posting on the
Mon, 02/06/2012 - 22:07I checked your posting on the problems with multi-use trails and whole-heartedly agree. I also think the city planners would provide better facilities if they kept in mind the differing needs of commuter cyclists vs folks that go out for a leisurely bike ride.
But in today's political landscape, it's easier to put effort into multi-use trails - and I think this is what we are observing in this go-around of trail planning. Let's look at it as a move forward, and appreciate the planners' effort to get us users involved.
simplicius2wheels
The City has summarized the
Sat, 04/28/2012 - 18:51The City has summarized the feedback meetings and posted here:
http://www.toronto.ca/cycling/network/pdf/2012_02_24_new_trails_public_i...
Needed new Trail connections were at the top of the comment list: