Strange bedfellows and petitions galore!

You don't really explain Hamish's anti-separated-lane position, aside from an oblique reference to cherry-picked Google quotes. Can you put a link or description in your post? Or am I missing something?

[Herb: I've updated the post with a bit more information. I don't have much more than just the wording from the petition to go on at this point.]

Without trying to argue his points (I'm not sure I fully agree), my understanding of Hamish's main points are (a) that there are too many road/laneway/driveway crossings of the proposed separated bike corridor for it to truly be safe and (b) bike flow that is in the opposite direction of the adjacent traffic lane is in danger from cars making turns across the bike lane without looking for bike traffic in both directions.

Based on my own experience, I can certainly believe the latter; that jibes with my own experience in places where existing bi-directional bike paths cross roads at intersections (e.g. Ontario Place, Lakeshore East). Cars will roll right into the bike lane to make their turn without once looking in the opposite direction to the left-to-right (from their point of view) car traffic they are trying to turn into. One reason I'm especially vexed to see new driveway crossings of the bikepath at Loblaws and Freshco at Leslie & Lakeshore.

Further, I have almost unlimited faith in the ability of Toronto to build unsafe cycling facilities. Look no further than the new separated bike lanes on Queens Quay east of Yonge, where the bike lanes are not situated far enough from the gates at the entrance to Redpath for a truck to pull up to the gates and not obstruct (or completely block) the bike lanes.

I believe Hamish is against separated lanes on Harbord because it is not Bloor
Hamish says he is against bidirectional lanes on Harbord
He doesn't say he would support separated unidirectional lanes on Harbord.
Hamish is undoubtedly reading this so why don't we stop speaking for him and let him tell us the answers

I actively partctpated in the establishment of the bike lanes on Davenport Rd between Dupont and Bay Streets, and saved the street from the damage which was threatened by a plan that would have eliminated vehicle parking on one side of Davenport, a design similar to what killed retail on Richmond St. years earlier.

As an avid cyclist, I favour the concept of a dedicated cycle lane, but not if it detracts from the viability of the business interests on the street. Also, parked cars form a buffer between auto traffic and pedestrians, which encourages pedestrian traffic.

Every attempt should be made not to alter the existing condition on Harbord with any plan that eliminates parking on both sides.

I'm a bit irate at some of the slagging, and a narrow selection of "facts" vs. some inconvenient truths cited in a set of previous comments, where Herb threatened to close the thread instead of responding to them. But themes are: safety, cost, the viability of the street as a place and the politricks.

With safety - while imperfect in some ways, Harbord historically has been less dangerous than other E/W roads, even before bike lanes. Yes, the bike lanes helped when first installed, and yes, we were undercut by the BIA/Wright and staff. But when the opportunity came up for repaving, actually, I was the one pushing for full bike lanes in the gap, and the Bike Union head of the time, Yvonne Bambrick, was quite okay with the compromise now on the road of 24 hour parking on both sides, and a wider travel lane with frequent sharrows.

Herb glosses over or ignores that Cycle Toronto was OK with what is there now, and while imperfect, it still made it better.

And in comparison with all sorts of other streets/places, Harbord is the best bike lane in the west end. Oops, best and only bike lane in the west end. If many of the users were asked about this facility, I think they'd tend to see it as OK comparatively, but it ends at Ossington.

The fussing for Bloor bike lanes - c. 8 years so where did Herb get that the "activist is fighting *against ** * bike lanes? from - is compromised by having a good bike route for commuting along Harbord, but again, it ends at Ossington.

In digging through old papers I found a faded fax, - then copied, then digitized but I am unable to figger out how to upload pics here - of an idea put forward by then-Futures owner Boris Wrezenskyj to take a curb lane of Bloor in the Annex area and put bi-directional lanes on it, but it was deflected by staff etc. on the grounds that there are too many short blocks along Bloor that provide too many conflict zones as they're called with all the turns - so that it was not going to be particularly safe.

Bloor has the same configuration of blocks as Harbord ie. lots of short blocks c. 75M.

So let's now refer - again! - to two design manuals/compilations. One is from Quebec, another from Denmark. The Velo-Quebec Planning and Design for Pedestrians and Cyclists of 2010 pp. 80-81 says bi-directional is ok when
- on a street without intersections or without access on one side (e.g. along a waterway or rail line, where the lack of intersections and access eliminates conflict with automobiles
- on one-way streets with a limited number of intersections and driveways (ideally, not more than one every 300m) and preferably a single motor traffic lane
- on two-way streets where left-hand turns are prohibited and with a limited number of intersections and driveway entrances (ideally, not more than one every 300m)

The Danish Collection of Cycle Concepts p. 85 has this: "Two-way paths give the individual cyclist more space, but are not as safe as one-way tracks at intersections and driveway entrances and exits.... Two-way cycle paths along the road should not be placed where there are many side roads or driveway entrances and exits crossing the path, eg. through cities."

These bi-directional lanes will be new to TO - so odds are there might well be some "getting used to" from the motorists; so yup, high potential for crashes and what if a cyclist wants to be travelling on one side of the street to actually get to a south-side destination? Will that be permitted?

I also see real issues with rightwards turns onto Spadina, Huron and St. George St. in the mornings, ie. going to the core/College St. If done, the bike rider will have to cross over the two-way vehicular traffic somehow, or wait in the middle of the bike lane/road for the light to turn whilst having other cyclists behind, or passing etc. etc. It's likely more time, and conflict, and with cyclists.

Perhaps staff was aware of these safety issues - and thus they urged leaving Harbord alone, only to be over-ruled by Council? (Dtls in a June 11 PWIC)

Part of the reason for not doing anything was that the upgrade just done cost a good $342,000. As it's only $100,000 to repaint a road for bike lanes, redoing 4kms of Bloor from Spadina to Dundas St. W. would be a deal, right?

As with Sherbourne, the Harbord reworking is likely going to eat a million? Or is it just $500,000? What could half a million do for the west end, if we thought about it? (I sent out a shorter list of small things that would improve the feeble network and biking conditions in the core to some folks - and yes, let's deflect Harbord to improve things for many of the rest of us, beyond the core.

And that certainly includes Bloor St. where it's hard to get answers about what, if any, measures there will be to improve bike safety in the repaving sorta now underway. That's where we truly need a batch of changes, and it's logical, but it seems logic doesn't apply to either the City nor some cyclists "advocates".

I do wonder how the liability insurance is of Cycle Toronto and Herb and Al Heisey - if done, I am quite sure that there will be injuries etc., and there's a pattern of avoiding looking at the crash stats in the advocacy priorities of Cycle Toronto eg. Jarvis vs. Bloor/east-west, and the west end of the core.

And this gets on to another damaging aspect of the Harbord push: it's now an Ok fairly safe bike lane, but gee, where is the new bike lane on Richmond and or Adelaide? It was c. 2 years ago to be approved for an EA; I totally support doing something there - finally - and yet Harbord with its best in west end feel and function is surging ahead, and eating up staff time.

And what about the 2009-ish set of things approved for the west end bikeways that ignored Bloor because it was a separate study? Gee, nothing yet.... as tepid and self-selecting away from the main streets as that all was.

More inconvenient truths: the Cycle Toronto/Bike Union folks are unable to see that they are being played by the Fordkers as I call them, and they've done a deal where they/"we" get one-so-far high-visibility and high-cost separation on Sherbourne St. where it did need upgrading, and talk of more Great Things to Come, but in the meanwhile, let's remove other old-style bike lanes and not do anything about Bloor, where there was a 5800 name petition in support of bike lanes a few years back. Heck, we haven't even managed to do a tiny bit of wide Bloor between Church and Sherbourne that IS in the 2001 Bike Plan yet for c. $20,000....

Harbord eats staff time and resource, and the end-result won't be safer unless there's a lot of other changes.

Having the push for separated lanes lets the Fordkers get away with grossly imbalancing where bike infrastructure money is allocated, ie. $50M proposed for off-road trails etc. (which are inherently less safe for women) and c. $5M for on-road rebuilds over 4 years.

So I'm not with the herb o'velofanz - and some slight is intended as there was a set of implications and opinions that are untrue, and almost actionable.

I have had NO contact with this Marko apart from seeing him at the one open meeting, and had no hand in the brochure production. Yes, I have signed the petition, but Harbord isn't that dangerous compared to the rest of the crap in the west end! Like what about 5 lousy meters of separated lane where Jenna Morrison was killed?! (The City doesn't want to adjust the road geometry as I think that means acknowledging that it's dangerous ie. Big Liability, but in the meanwhile, they've removed Sterling Road from the Bike Map as a suggested bike route after about 12 years, I was wrong on the date seeing it now in 2000.

But it's also fascinating to have seen the picture at the top of the piece of work here that shows a rather edgy cartoon I put onto the technical Danish info of a guy inhaling a car exhaust saying I can quit any time I want.... Update to some of you: the Harbord Bakery does have cycling customers; they might actually care about their safety and overall well-being of the area.

The way forward is to deflect this all back to a further year and let the City catch up with many repairs and previously approved projects like, like like.... and have some regard for what is actually wished for/sought. Arguably the push for Jarvis helped get Ford elected....

Sorry for length: but details matter; inconvenient truths need airing; I was somewhat defamed; and it's a bigger waste of time, staff and resource to redo Harbord at this time.

Just put them in and see what happens. Only way progress can be made when everyone talks but does nothing about it

Hamish,

Two points:

1. The costs are insignificant. Toronto City Council just spent an eye-popping $505 million to rebuild the Gardiner so that multi-millionaire Rob Ford has somewhere to drive his Cadillac SUV. As soon as $505 million gets spent on cycling, then we can talk about costs.

2. If you want lanes on Bloor then one of the best ways to get them is protected lanes on Harbord. The more cycling that there is, then the more demand there will be for lanes everywhere. That includes Bloor.

Kevin Love

[Double-post alert! Wanted to sneak this onto this thread, too!]

My thoughts:

tl;dr...
1. The Harbord cycle track is a priority for DMW, PWIC, Cycle Toronto and much of the cycling community, and will be built.
2. We should move beyond the "should we/shouldn't we" debate.
3. We should focus on making sure it is built to the highest standard possible, with specific solutions to specific problems.

Unabridged version:

The cycling community may not be 100% united in favour of the cycle track, but we will never be united against it. With the support of Denzil Minnan-Wong, PWIC, Cycle Toronto, and many cyclists, this project will be built. In the end, cyclists will mostly support it, but be better informed about its limitations (and the limitations of the city) thanks to dissenting voices. Therefore, I believe the smart approach at this point is to move beyond "should we/shouldn't we", and focus our efforts on safe design.

Now, Toronto's off-road trails are different from the proposed bi-directional Harbord cycle track for much of their lengths, but at intersections they are very similar: 2-way bike traffic crossing in proximity to a ped crosswalk and arterial roads. A few thoughts from a cyclist who commuted the length of Eglinton through Etobicoke for a couple years:

1. No right turn on red: this is the single most dangerous part of the bi-directional cycle track intersection. Right-turning cars simply do not expect bikes to be coming from their right side. If right turns on red are allowed (as they are on Eglinton), southbound cars pulling up to make a right on Harbord are going to glue their eyes to the left as they blindly roll through the crosswalk and bike path. Cyclists coming from the right will be invisible, and, unless they have Joey Schwartz-calibre shouting skills, they will have a difficult time getting noticed. No right turn on red should be implemented on southbound streets at Harbord, westbound Harbord, northbound streets at Eglinton, eastbound Eglinton, as well as other locations.
2. Turning/proceeding at stop signs: the same "blind roll" issue exists at southbound stop-sign intersections (in this case, Jersey Ave, Markham St, Robert St, and Devonshire Pl). The stop sign, stop line and STOP HERE: CHECK FOR BIKES <--> on-road paint should all be placed before the crosswalk, not at the intersection with Harbord St. Southbound cars will (theoretically) come to a complete stop, then proceed with caution across the crosswalk, bike path, and Harbord. This will require police enforcement, as Toronto drivers (and cyclists!) tend to roll through crosswalks 1B% of the time. But how to prevent SB cars from blocking the path as they wait to turn onto Harbord? One solution would be to simply make the four southbound stopsign controlled sidestreets on the north side of Harbord into one-ways heading north, so all southbound traffic would be stoplight-controlled (already the norm by far). Even with this, though, we'll still have lots of southbound vehicles coming from driveways and laneways, so that CHECK FOR BIKES <--> paint and police ticketing may still come in handy.
3. Clear bike path markings through the intersections: the key is to make an unexpected piece of bike infra OBVIOUS to an unskilled, first-time Harbord driver. Sherbourne's green lanes are a good start, but I'd love to see some white chevrons in there, too, so drivers know to expect bikes coming from both directions. Eglinton's "dusty red stone" is hilariously useless considering the context; they are slightly prettier than a sidewalk, but absolutely nothing about them suggests "bikes here", even to cyclists.
4. Put the bike path in the right place: the layout should be Car-Bike-Ped, not Car-Ped-Bike, meaning the bike path should always be between the street and the sidewalk. This is not an issue on Harbord, but it should be changed on the Martin Goodman Trail near ON Place, Eglinton Trail everywhere, Windermere crossing Lake Shore Blvd, and others. Bad form, Toronto!
5. Why not put it on a "bump": when the bike path crosses minor side streets, it could be placed on top of a trapezoidal speed bump (like the crosswalks on Glen Cedar), forcing drivers to slow down and confront the infra in a direct, focused way. It would also provide a little physical separation WITHIN the intersections. The crosswalk should be included on the bump.
6. Why not give bikes and peds a "jump": advanced greens for bikes and peds would force stopped drivers to notice the cycle tracks, and allow bikes/peds to establish ourselves in the intersection (rather than the typical "ready-set-go", cars vs. bikes vs. peds, battle royale...BTW I believe we could eliminate 90% of "scofflaw cyclists always running reds" if advanced greens were more common at heavily-used intersections). This will require bike specific signals.

I don't personally know whether uni- or bi-directional lanes/cycle track make more sense on Harbord. I do know that whichever is there at any given time, it should be high quality and well-designed. The current layout is not that; one of Mr Wilson's concerns is that the cycle track will not be that. But instead of scrapping the whole project (which is unlikely to happen), I propose we iron out as many "Harbord kinks" as possible.

Given this cycle track is going to be built, we, as leaders in the fast-growing Toronto cycling community, should demand the city build a high quality, safe, intuitive, idiot-proof, physically separated cycle track, and we should tell them exactly what we expect that to look like.

Now, who wants a bagel?

I'm not sure what you think "separated" means, if you don't think the MGT on the north side of Lakeshore between Coxwell and Don Roadway is separated. A grass boulevard is sufficient, in my books, for it to count as "separated." (For that matter, the path on the south side of Lakeshore from Coxwell to Leslie, from Cherry to Parliament, from York to Spadina, from Strachan to... well, to Norris Cr. in Mimico is all also separated. In fact I can't think of a single place where there's a bidirectional bike path along Lakeshore that's not separated.)

And if you think the MGT crossings at Ontario Place work well... I guess we're just not living in the same world; I have trouble imaging how they could have done a worse job of designing those crossings. ("Let's bend the trail between a set of gates, aim it at a light-post and suddenly create meaninglessly distinct "pedestrian" and "bike" crossing areas! Oh, and let's stick a bunch of pylons in the middle of the path where it turns, just to crowd people into one anothers' way!)

Unless you want to ride at a running pace, you can either pay attention to how far into your path the joggers are going to veer in order to cut off the bend, or you can try to figure out where the guy with the tinted windows is looking. Personally, I have more success with the former, and just try to be ready with some contingency if the car moves suddenly.