Cycling infrastructure (Separated bike lanes)

[rbt]

2020, in Toronto.
...
Metrolinx: "Oh? that thing? Didn't you get the memo? We are switching to the acquired Don Branch next year. Ha whoops"

Several on this forum expected the busway to York U would be similarly pointless with 1 or 2 years use only.

I'm not even sure there is an alternative reality where Metrolinx moves that quickly. 4 years to move just CN will be challenging without throwing CP into the mix.

 

[salsa]

Oliver Moore has just tweeted out some initial numbers on the Bloor Bike lanes.

• Bit more than 6,000 cyclists were counted yesterday in Bloor bike lane (at Spadina), according to Bells on Bloor.
  
• This count was done old-school, with volunteers standing at the side of the road and marking down cyclists on a form.
  
• The total number of cyclists in both directions, not including a few hours in the dead of night, was 6,099
  
• Heaviest use hours were, unsurprisingly, the trad rush hours. 8-10am and 4-7pm accounted for ~2,800 of the total
  
• In their busiest single hours yesterday -- 8-9am and 5-6pm -- the Bloor pilot were moving about 11 cyclists/minute
  
• There are 62 surface transit routes in the city with lower daily passengers numbers (2012 figures from TTC)
  
• Numbers fluctuate, but yesterday's figures for Bloor lanes close to matching Richmond and Adelaide.

As for the traffic flow, I've seen a lot of contradictory comments on social media. Some people (mostly drivers) are calling it a nightmare, claiming that the bike lanes have substantially slowed down their commute while other people claim that they don't see any real change in traffic. However on Monday John Tory observed the traffic from a news helicopter, and said that "traffic seemed to be moving fairly well". Which is....kinda important. Politically.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

I can almost envision how this will go:

2020, in Toronto.

City Of Toronto: "OK Metrolinx, we've done what you said, and at GREAT expense, built bridges over the Richmond Hill Line"

Metrolinx: "Oh? that thing? Didn't you get the memo? We are switching to the acquired Don Branch next year. Ha whoops"

That's pretty funny. The City of Toronto actually already tunnelled under the Don Branch for a trail - See page 8 "Bellville Underpass". With VIA looking to re-activate the Don Branch (yes, its owned by Metrolinx) for a new service to Ottawa and Montreal via Peterborough, It's good that this grade-separation is happening now.

 

[44 North]

That's pretty funny. The City of Toronto actually already tunnelled under the Don Branch for a trail - See page 8 "Bellville Underpass". With VIA looking to re-activate the Don Branch (yes, its owned by Metrolinx) for a new service to Ottawa and Montreal via Peterborough, It's good that this grade-separation is happening now.

Was there a couple weeks ago and seems like they're taking considerable time. The original tunnel was as-is, and other than some excavation I hadn't seen much in the way of construction for the new tunnel. Hopefully it'll be done soon, was under the impression this was a few weeks of work.

 

[downtownordinary]

^Metrolinx has a policy of no new at grade crossings.

The original EA had two level crossings, they have revised the environmental assessment to eliminate these and replace them with two bridges.

So was the new multi use path crossing under construction at Pottery Road exempt or was the EA for the Lower Don Trail improvements completed before the policy came into effect?

 

[leopetr]

Is this part of the Trans-Canada trail?

They will definitely realign the Trans-Canada trail to follow it. The Trans-Canada follows the PanAm Path now, and the PanAm Path was supposed to incorporate the East Don Trail until they cheaped out. The connection between the Don Trail and Gatineau Trail sections is not very good now.

https://thegreattrail.ca/explore-the-map/

 

[leopetr]

So was the new multi use path crossing under construction at Pottery Road exempt or was the EA for the Lower Don Trail improvements completed before the policy came into effect?

My guess is that the new multi-use path level crossing counts as part of the existing Pottery Road level crossing as far as Metrolinx is concerned.

 

[mdrejhon]

http://www.metronews.ca/news/toront...s-bike-lanes-on-bloor-boosting-ridership.html

..."During the morning rush hour, from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m, the group counted 660 bikes and 1,105 cars, meaning cyclists represented 37 per cent of all traffic..."

Very impressive. They should be made permanent (but with MAJOR improvements). New York City appears to do it more safely in areas, I believe, with barriers and green paint (even through intersections).

 

[amnesiajune]

No barriers in that pic. What they do that's smart though is putting the bike lanes on the left side of the one-way road so the bikes are more visible to drivers when they're opening doors or turning left.

 

[ADRM]

http://www.metronews.ca/news/toront...s-bike-lanes-on-bloor-boosting-ridership.html

..."During the morning rush hour, from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m, the group counted 660 bikes and 1,105 cars, meaning cyclists represented 37 per cent of all traffic..."

Very impressive. They should be made permanent (but with MAJOR improvements). New York City appears to do it more safely in areas, I believe, with barriers and green paint (even through intersections).

The NYC buffered parking model is better design, mostly because of the width of the buffer; in most stretches using the design as in the picture above (Columbus Ave. was one of the first and most controversial and has a similar setup), the buffer zone is sufficiently wide such that even the biggest cars don't present a dooring threat - that's a key differentiator between these and the Bloor pilot.

On Bloor, in most stretches, there's not room to create a similarly-sized buffer zone, so full, physical protection is needed. There are loads of different designs that can facilitate that, none of which have ever been used in Toronto. Quite simply, our bollards suck big-time, and the Sherbourne and Roncesvalles curbs aren't significant enough to prevent cars (and especially trucks) from mounting them (to say nothing of the awful bus stop design standards).

Toronto has precisely zero non-recreational bike lanes that pass good design standards for cyclist safety.

 

[W. K. Lis]

 

[salsa]

Numbers fluctuate, but yesterday's figures for Bloor lanes close to matching Richmond and Adelaide.

And here's a graphic showing exactly that. The numbers are unofficial, but they also show that cycling on bloor has jumped 75% after the bike lanes were installed.

 

[ADRM]

Also, to put the 6K/day number in context, that equates to 2.1 million riders per year.

Granted, usage numbers may dip through the winter months (though perhaps not as much as one might think if this winter is anything similar to last), but we're still talking about more than a million users per year even at a full year of half that observed usage rate.

Predictably, Mayor Tory's only thought on the pilot so far was to observe from a helicopter that vehicular traffic "seemed to be moving fairly well."

 

[robmausser]

Several on this forum expected the busway to York U would be similarly pointless with 1 or 2 years use only.

I'm not even sure there is an alternative reality where Metrolinx moves that quickly. 4 years to move just CN will be challenging without throwing CP into the mix.

I think the York U busway should be continued east along the Finch Hydro corridor after the subway is built and turned into something similar to the Mississauga Transit-way.

 

[muller877]

Also, to put the 6K/day number in context, that equates to 2.1 million riders per year.

Granted, usage numbers may dip through the winter months (though perhaps not as much as one might think if this winter is anything similar to last), but we're still talking about more than a million users per year even at a full year of half that observed usage rate.

Predictably, Mayor Tory's only thought on the pilot so far was to observe from a helicopter that vehicular traffic "seemed to be moving fairly well."

We'll see the results from the study. Part of the study asks if these cyclists are new or were they already on Dupont or Harbord. Any antidotal evidence on the Harbord bike lanes?

It will also be important to see what happens in cold weather and in rain as part of this study. If it is not used in either it means we have to have two modes of transportation available...which is not very economical. (if they use the subway in the winter than we have to have capacity on the subway (buying new Rocket trains AND have bike lanes vs just having the subway cars consistently throughout the year)