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Cycling: Simcoe Street changes for bike lanes

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Since the road was punched through under the rail tracks, Simcoe has been a two-way street south of Front then one way north of it.

There has been a lot of work on Simcoe lately that has just seemed like road re-surfacing....today, however, I noticed that at Wellington and King (I did not go further up than that) there are now traffic lights installed (but covered) facing south indicating that there is an intention to have at least one lane continue northbound from Front Street.

Any idea if this is permanent or some sort of temporary thing?
 
It's changing to allow all northbound traffic to continue to Wellington Street and cyclists to continue northbound to Richmond Street or Queen Street. The new traffic signals northbound at King are going to be smaller black bike signals.

This is part of the Richmond-Adelaide cycle track study - the less difficult sections (Simcoe, Peter/Soho/Phoebe) are being installed this year.
 
Any idea if signals are going to be added at Simcoe/Richmond or Simcoe/Queen? I can't imagine it would be fun trying to cut across either of those streets without a light.
 
Despite being so close to University, there's a dangerous level of jaywalking on Simcoe, especially around the Tim Horton's at Richmond. I think we'll see lights at Simcoe/Richmond W and Simcoe/Adelaide W in the not-too-distant future.
 
Despite being so close to University, there's a dangerous level of jaywalking on Simcoe, especially around the Tim Horton's at Richmond. I think we'll see lights at Simcoe/Richmond W and Simcoe/Adelaide W in the not-too-distant future.

Simcoe has a lot of issues in that area.....yes the Jaywalking is one of them (people seem to treat it as an alleyway rather than a street)....there is also the issue of an inordinate number of people using their handicapped parking stickers to park on both sides of the street at all times to attend events at RTH (before I bet bombed, not taking a shot at handicapped stickers but it is a real issue in this area)....then there is the traffic flowing off of Pearl Street (both from cars cutting off of University because of the gridlock and from the parking garages for the two office buildings that have their parking entrance/exit on that street.

I was not aware there was a plan to put a northbound bike lane on Simcoe and can see a lot of issues created for cyclists from people parking on the east side of the street and from the entrance/drive way of the Shangri-La north of Adelaide.

Hopefully they put some manpower on the ground when they go live with this to make sure no one gets hurt.
 
Despite being so close to University, there's a dangerous level of jaywalking on Simcoe, especially around the Tim Horton's at Richmond. I think we'll see lights at Simcoe/Richmond W and Simcoe/Adelaide W in the not-too-distant future.

There's also a ton of jaywalking just south of Wellington and around Front/Station, with GO commuters trying to cut corners on the way to Union.

The Front/Simcoe/Lower Simcoe intersection is awkward, especially for left turns.

A southbound bike lane would be nice too - right now, right-turning traffic at Wellington jams things up so you really need to get in the middle lane to head south, and from there to Front it's a bit of a free-for-all as drivers suddenly (i.e., because they didn't really think ahead) jockey for position as they approach the intersection, plus there are the aforementioned jaywalkers, delivery vehicles to Simcoe Place, U-turning cabs, etc.
 
Simcoe going north to wellington is permanent I thought. Wellington is going to be two way as well between John and Blue Jays Way.
 
The repaving seems to have been completed some time around last Friday or before. All that is missing is the lane markings.
 
The repaving seems to have been completed some time around last Friday or before. All that is missing is the lane markings.

North of Front was definitely complete on Friday....still some cones south of Front north of Bremner around 6 on Friday night (and the guys seemed to be heading home at that time).....made for a very interesting drive from Pearl to Bremner as the combo of people who did not seem to know where the lanes should be and which lane they should be in and the folks taking advantage by driving wherever they liked caused a very slow stretch of road.
 
North of Front was definitely complete on Friday....still some cones south of Front north of Bremner around 6 on Friday night (and the guys seemed to be heading home at that time).....made for a very interesting drive from Pearl to Bremner as the combo of people who did not seem to know where the lanes should be and which lane they should be in and the folks taking advantage by driving wherever they liked caused a very slow stretch of road.

I haven't been monitoring the part south of Front but it seems more like something other than paving - they didn't take the top layer of asphalt off there as they did between Adelaide and Front.

Anyway, I gave Simcoe a miss on Friday morning because I'd had enough of riding the shave-and-pave section, but it was definitely done by 6 on Friday. Checked it out on Saturday morning and then riding in this morning it was still unmarked and marvellously empty.
 
I haven't been monitoring the part south of Front but it seems more like something other than paving - they didn't take the top layer of asphalt off there as they did between Adelaide and Front.

Anyway, I gave Simcoe a miss on Friday morning because I'd had enough of riding the shave-and-pave section, but it was definitely done by 6 on Friday. Checked it out on Saturday morning and then riding in this morning it was still unmarked and marvellously empty.

As noted they have completed the paving and line painting is next. They will not have any temporary lines as the road will now be 2-way for cars to Wellington and bikes to at least Adelaide. I look forward to the first few face to face encounters as there will be a steep learning curve for this section of 2-way road (as was the case for the temporary section of 2-way road on Wellington btw York and University)
 
As noted they have completed the paving and line painting is next. They will not have any temporary lines as the road will now be 2-way for cars to Wellington and bikes to at least Adelaide. I look forward to the first few face to face encounters as there will be a steep learning curve for this section of 2-way road (as was the case for the temporary section of 2-way road on Wellington btw York and University)

That's going to be interesting at Wellington, because Wellington itself is two-way west from Simcoe to John but one-way east of there ...
 
Yesterday it looked like there were provisional (spray-painted) lines and possibly some indication that there would be proper (wide) curbs separating the bike lanes, at least south of Adelaide. This morning the lane markings appear to be finished but the bike lanes are separated only by double lines of paint ... and of course people are parking in them, again/already. Including the usual bunch of motorcycles just north of King.

They had better start enforcing the no-parking rule soon, otherwise the lanes will be as useless as the sharrows leading to them.
 

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