afransen
Senior Member
I suggest a boulder. Enforcement is hopeless. If your design relies on it to work, it is bad design.
|
|
|
Cycling infrastructure (Separated bike lanes)
- Thread starter MetroMan
- Start date
Northern Light
Superstar
Northern Light
Superstar
Another good thread worth looking at is by Redesign for All, in which a discussion is offered of why Toronto does, or does not program every road reconstruction for pedestrian/cycling/Vision Zero safety improvements; and why it really should!
DSC
Superstar
Member Bio
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2008
- Messages
- 19,794
- Reaction score
- 28,649
- Location
- St Lawrence Market Area
While this is clearly not only for cycling, it maybe fits here.
Call Document Summary | 
|
|
|
|
| This is a secure site
|
Northern Light
Superstar
Shawn Micallef, has a column in The Star this week explaining how the MTO is actively thwarting safe cycling in Toronto by preventing the City from putting in cycle tracks on bridges across highways.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...toronto-are-highway-401-and-the-province.html (currently behind the paywall)
From the above:
"Even when city of Toronto staff have all road users in mind and want to do something better, they’re often thwarted by the MTO, an institution that may be good at building highways across the province, but is either not skilled at adapting to cities or actively hostile to efforts to make these crossings less hazardous to humans. Even a yield or stop sign is too much at times, and the MTO has often nixed the city’s plans and suggestions. If this is a concern for you, ask your MPP about it."
***
"In Scarborough, the city installed excellent bike lanes on Conlins Road, an important crossing that links the Meadoway with University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus. However, the separated lanes, protected with concrete barriers, end when Conlins crosses the 401 as the MTO would not let the city protect the lanes there. There aren’t even any on- or off-ramps here but the MTO’s one-size-fits-all approach still applies.
Further east, at the Sheppard Avenue and Port Union Road crossing, the city will be installing separated lanes on either side of the 401, but not over it, because of the MTO."
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...toronto-are-highway-401-and-the-province.html (currently behind the paywall)
From the above:
"Even when city of Toronto staff have all road users in mind and want to do something better, they’re often thwarted by the MTO, an institution that may be good at building highways across the province, but is either not skilled at adapting to cities or actively hostile to efforts to make these crossings less hazardous to humans. Even a yield or stop sign is too much at times, and the MTO has often nixed the city’s plans and suggestions. If this is a concern for you, ask your MPP about it."
***
"In Scarborough, the city installed excellent bike lanes on Conlins Road, an important crossing that links the Meadoway with University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus. However, the separated lanes, protected with concrete barriers, end when Conlins crosses the 401 as the MTO would not let the city protect the lanes there. There aren’t even any on- or off-ramps here but the MTO’s one-size-fits-all approach still applies.
Further east, at the Sheppard Avenue and Port Union Road crossing, the city will be installing separated lanes on either side of the 401, but not over it, because of the MTO."
Northern Light
Superstar
UT's own @H4F33Z has something to say on Twitter about the new Highland Creek Village Masterplan.
***
To have a look at the plan as it appears on the City website, go here: https://www.toronto.ca/community-pe...ns/infrastructure-projects/hcvtransportation/
To skip to the 'preferred solution', go here: https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/9050-Ch.-10-Preferred-Solution.pdf
***
A couple of quick comments from me here; then a few renders (with my comments) and one more link.
1) There are elements of this plan that are quite positive. Introducing sidewalks where none exist today, adding nice streetscaping, sometimes, by way of switching angled parking to parallel (and using the extra room for streetscape)
There is also a new signalized intersection and a new rear laneway which are all positives.
2) What @H4F33Z gets at, quite rightly in my opinion, is that this is a huge opportunity which in some places fails to achieve the kind of gain one might hope, particularly for cyclists, and is right to be concerned that the opportunity to correct
this may not come for another generation. Perhaps worse, the Highway 2A cross section is actually 5 lanes in one direction (8 total) at one point. Which is, by any reasonable standard, excessive, at minimum, the right-hand turn lane is superfluous. Though one could certainly make the case for further lane reduction beyond that.
From the Preferred Solution link above:
It would be hard to argue this is not a considerable improvement; but there are 2 lanes dedicated to parking and none to cycling; that does seem problematic.
***
The overall cycling facility plan lacks ambition to say the least, and really fails in a key respect, allowing cyclists to conveniently access Kingston Road on both side of Highland Creek:
A ~ 1km connection is really needed here. :
There are already 'edge lines' on Kingston Road to the west of the bridge; though you wouldn't catch me biking in these at all:
There is ample room here for any number of better design choices, both those that would remove a lane of traffic (which I would support); but even without that.
From TO Maps:
Anything between the Pink Lines is City property already and part of the ROW. You could easily add a multi-use trail, separated from the sidewalk, and a tree-lined boulevard between the sidewalk and the road.
There's 9 extra meters inside the south sidewalk limit alone.
The bridge is more of a challenge.........but......I measured sidewalk to parapet median wall and get ~11M
That's very tight to squeeze in a bike lane; but there are creative options to be had.
One is to convert the sidewalk to a multi-use path, and add 1.5M to it vs today which would make it ~3M. Not ideal, but better.
Another would be to consider whether the existing bridge structure can support a modest cantilever off the side.
I don't know that it can, but I suspect it may; the reason the ROW is so wide on the approach to the bridge is that there's room for 4 lanes each way; could the bridge be designed w/that in mind?
Certainly, the status quo is not acceptable:
The odds on changing much at this juncture (Council adopted the report last year)......are low.........but worth a try. There is no survey, but a contact info is provided as follows:
***
To have a look at the plan as it appears on the City website, go here: https://www.toronto.ca/community-pe...ns/infrastructure-projects/hcvtransportation/
To skip to the 'preferred solution', go here: https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/9050-Ch.-10-Preferred-Solution.pdf
***
A couple of quick comments from me here; then a few renders (with my comments) and one more link.
1) There are elements of this plan that are quite positive. Introducing sidewalks where none exist today, adding nice streetscaping, sometimes, by way of switching angled parking to parallel (and using the extra room for streetscape)
There is also a new signalized intersection and a new rear laneway which are all positives.
2) What @H4F33Z gets at, quite rightly in my opinion, is that this is a huge opportunity which in some places fails to achieve the kind of gain one might hope, particularly for cyclists, and is right to be concerned that the opportunity to correct
this may not come for another generation. Perhaps worse, the Highway 2A cross section is actually 5 lanes in one direction (8 total) at one point. Which is, by any reasonable standard, excessive, at minimum, the right-hand turn lane is superfluous. Though one could certainly make the case for further lane reduction beyond that.
From the Preferred Solution link above:
It would be hard to argue this is not a considerable improvement; but there are 2 lanes dedicated to parking and none to cycling; that does seem problematic.
***
The overall cycling facility plan lacks ambition to say the least, and really fails in a key respect, allowing cyclists to conveniently access Kingston Road on both side of Highland Creek:
A ~ 1km connection is really needed here. :
There are already 'edge lines' on Kingston Road to the west of the bridge; though you wouldn't catch me biking in these at all:
There is ample room here for any number of better design choices, both those that would remove a lane of traffic (which I would support); but even without that.
From TO Maps:
Anything between the Pink Lines is City property already and part of the ROW. You could easily add a multi-use trail, separated from the sidewalk, and a tree-lined boulevard between the sidewalk and the road.
There's 9 extra meters inside the south sidewalk limit alone.
The bridge is more of a challenge.........but......I measured sidewalk to parapet median wall and get ~11M
That's very tight to squeeze in a bike lane; but there are creative options to be had.
One is to convert the sidewalk to a multi-use path, and add 1.5M to it vs today which would make it ~3M. Not ideal, but better.
Another would be to consider whether the existing bridge structure can support a modest cantilever off the side.
I don't know that it can, but I suspect it may; the reason the ROW is so wide on the approach to the bridge is that there's room for 4 lanes each way; could the bridge be designed w/that in mind?
Certainly, the status quo is not acceptable:
The odds on changing much at this juncture (Council adopted the report last year)......are low.........but worth a try. There is no survey, but a contact info is provided as follows:
innsertnamehere
Superstar
I imagine that street parking is critical to those businesses which are in a very suburban location with no off-street parking areas. Cutting it to parallel parking is likely already a large leap for them. I agree that some form of cycling infrastructure is ideal, but it's not an insanely busy road and cutting parking too much would likely be problematic to businesses.
TRONto
Active Member
If I understood the maps correctly, that particular building has its own parking out back and there is plenty of parking in the area. Keeping the condofication of Kingston rd in mind, (without knowing the area details) it seems best for the medium term (10-30 years) to put in full separated bike lanes.
Northern Light
Superstar
The plaza shown in the render has ~20 spots in behind, as well as those on Morrish:
The plaza opposite it has a considerable amount of off-street parking:
As does the one just to the south-east:
For those on the north side, I'm not completely unsympathetic on the parking question in light of the current shopping habits of area residents, but I would think there would be ample room to provide some additional parking either on the area's smaller streets, or in a cheap, off-street, green P, if demand warrants.
There's also some play there to removed just one lane of street parking, instead of 2; by shaving the boulevard treatment slightly, at 2.8M it is wider than it needs to be for healthy vegetation, particularly if Silva Cells were inserted under the adjacent sidewalks.
Edit to add, this is what's opposite that little plaza:
How about we just expropriate it and level it, and make enough room? Granted, a bit expensive, but still............
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Why do we need to paint lanes for bikes on these small residential streets? Instead the province or city should simply announce that one way residential streets do not apply to bicycles.
PL1
Active Member
So that when some car/truck driver decides to enforce what he/she sees as the law, the cyclist can be in a clearly demarcated place. There are a lot of very angry people driving their 2 tonne bits of metal.
(But I agree this shouldn't be necessary)
Last edited:
Northern Light
Superstar
The City just released date on the Yonge Street - Midtown Bike lanes.
They looked at increased travel times for cars (if any); and the increase in the number of cyclists. The news is favourable!
www.toronto.ca
From the above:
From the project dashboard:
They looked at increased travel times for cars (if any); and the increase in the number of cyclists. The news is favourable!
City of Toronto releases ActiveTO Midtown Complete Street Pilot data
News Release August 15, 2022 Today, the City of Toronto released the most recent data from the ActiveTO Midtown Complete Street Pilot, which saw the installation of cafés, bikeways and other streetscape improvements on Yonge Street, between Bloor Street and Davisville Avenue. The pilot provides...
www.toronto.ca
From the above:
From the project dashboard:
afransen
Senior Member
And the Yonge bike lanes are not particularly well designed. As if by someone who has never ridden a bike (sharp angles around the cafes).
WillTo
Senior Member
A very protected bike lane from my recent trip to Ottawa where they obviously they take vulnerable road user safety seriously but no actually it's to protect the American Embassy.
Northern Light
Superstar
Improvements to the Bike lanes on Davenport got underway this past week. Improvements include conversion to Cycle Tracks:
