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Cycling infrastructure (Separated bike lanes)

I mentioned a few weeks back that I'd had a discussion w/senior City staff in the Cycling unit concerning current and upcoming projects, and more news would follow.

Well, Becky Katz (head of City of Toronto Cycling) has now made a few of those public on Twitter; so I will share, from her Twitter feed.

A series of these coming from a big bike ride she did with another member of Transportation Services from Finch Station to where Morningside Park in Scarborough comes out to Kingston Road, via a mix of on and off-road connections.

A roughly 35km ride!

****

With that, I will take the news bits in order west to east along her route.

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* project currently slated for 2026

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Full-sized pics:

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@Natika33 may be interested to know that Becky has already read the report she posted here from the students UTSC and is quiet enthused with it.

1666116012173.png



The entire thread is here:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1580015028622995457
 
Northern Light said:
I mentioned a few weeks back that I'd had a discussion w/senior City staff in the Cycling unit concerning current and upcoming projects, and more news would follow.

Well, Becky Katz (head of City of Toronto Cycling) has now made a few of those public on Twitter; so I will share, from her Twitter feed.

A series of these coming from a big bike ride she did with another member of Transportation Services from Finch Station to where Morningside Park in Scarborough comes out to Kingston Road, via a mix of on and off-road connections.

A roughly 35km ride!

****

With that, I will take the news bits in order west to east along her route.

View attachment 433316

* project currently slated for 2026

View attachment 433317

View attachment 433318

View attachment 433319


View attachment 433321

Full-sized pics:

View attachment 433322

View attachment 433323

View attachment 433324


@Natika33 may be interested to know that Becky has already read the report she posted here from the students UTSC and is quiet enthused with it.

View attachment 433320


The entire thread is here:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1580015028622995457
Click to expand...
Oh wow! This is great news! Thank you for alerting me!
 
Traveled along Eg east between Kennedy and Don Mills today. Noticed they've added detail to the cycle lanes since my last visit, but I was curious as to the painted white lines.

There are sections that have 2 solid white lines mostly from Kennedy to vic Park (I'd guess about 8-10 inches apart), sections with a solid white line but wider lane (between vic Park to Don Mills), some sections where the turning lane and cycle lane merge without any paint whatsoever, and one section west of vic Park that has a huge 8-12' shoulder/cycle lane (has solid white line but looks really out of place).

Any ideas as to the inconsistencies or purpose? Maybe they aren't finished painting? The first section with the double lines appears it could have room for those protected cement barriers along, but the rest seems odd and random. And, as others have pointed out, the slip lanes near wynford and DVP are just awful (a cyclist was injured already at one of those locations)... No paint or anything here.
 
Guess what - the city actually got around to painting the bike lane gap between Dundas West and Symington, after how many years??

🤣

Maybe in another 5 years they'll remember to add barrier protection to this section as elsewhere on Bloor, if we're lucky!
 
H4F33Z said:
It's arguably the ideal type of separation for the route, and how narrow the street is. It's kind of a feat that the entire route is physically protected with curbs for what is a collector/neighbourhood road. Other cities or even Toronto just a few years ago would've just put sharrows and called it a day.

Also, it's a quick-build design, this gets the project done in days rather than months or even years. This is efficient design that is flexible, cost-effective and yet effective for improving safety. And who says they can't improve it in the future?

This was literally mentioned in their presentation.

View attachment 402893
View attachment 402895

A lot of nit-pick cycling advocates really love to whine (I was one of them) but these staff work really hard to get this work done. I was talking to a few people from transportation and the ped/cycling unit yesterday and they're all really cool people, and they have so much projects they're working on currently and tons they have in the pipeline. They want a protected cycling network just like we do, and they have many projects that kinda made me excited to hear is coming to fruition, it might take some time, but they're going to make it happen.

I think it's fair to complain about terrible and dangerous road design but let's not undermine or even trash the hard-work that the many engineers and design staff have done to build a new, what is a really good protected cycling route. They're doing their best!

Hopefully this doesn't come off as rude.
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The raised cycle and pedestrian crossings are what really excites me here (see second pic). I don't recall any other intersections in the city getting this protection treatment. Is this a first for Toronto?
 
Coolibop said:
Traveled along Eg east between Kennedy and Don Mills today. Noticed they've added detail to the cycle lanes since my last visit, but I was curious as to the painted white lines.

There are sections that have 2 solid white lines mostly from Kennedy to vic Park (I'd guess about 8-10 inches apart), sections with a solid white line but wider lane (between vic Park to Don Mills), some sections where the turning lane and cycle lane merge without any paint whatsoever, and one section west of vic Park that has a huge 8-12' shoulder/cycle lane (has solid white line but looks really out of place).

Any ideas as to the inconsistencies or purpose? Maybe they aren't finished painting? The first section with the double lines appears it could have room for those protected cement barriers along, but the rest seems odd and random. And, as others have pointed out, the slip lanes near wynford and DVP are just awful (a cyclist was injured already at one of those locations)... No paint or anything here.
Click to expand...
Aren't finished painting, is my bet.

My understanding is that the city aims to provide protection on the lanes after handover from Crosslinx as well, which isn't in their contract. I wouldn't take anything as "Final" with regards to the lanes on Eglinton until the end of next year, basically.
 
innsertnamehere said:
I'm surprised Tory apparently supported 40km/h arterials city wide. That would be comically under design speed on many arterials.
Click to expand...
Putting up 40 km/h signs are useless when the "suburban" roadways are DESIGNED for the "safety" of speeders doing 100+ km/h.
 
W. K. Lis said:
Putting up 40 km/h signs are useless when the "suburban" roadways are DESIGNED for the "safety" of speeders doing 100+ km/h.
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The pushback against this will be massive. Roads have a natural driving speed and it is next to impossible to drive slower than that. I'm sure if this comes to pass, it will be a feat for photo radars everywhere.

To make this work, every major artery would have to be completely redesigned, and there is no budget for that.
 
Therion said:
The pushback against this will be massive. Roads have a natural driving speed and it is next to impossible to drive slower than that. I'm sure if this comes to pass, it will be a feat for photo radars everywhere.

To make this work, every major artery would have to be completely redesigned, and there is no budget for that.
Click to expand...
As a cheap temporary measure, they could narrow the traffic lanes and put in painted segregated cycling lanes.

By "temporary", that would be 3 decades for the city.
 
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most arterial road lanes in Toronto have already been narrowed. There aren't a whole lot of streets left with excessive road lanes, and in most cases the space savings are not enough for cycle lanes as it results in only a few centimetres saved!

Excessive lane widths is more of a problem in the 905, which generally has a long way to go on that front.

I agree that it should generally be done on the few arterials that haven't yet had their lanes narrowed, though. A quick look at Ellesmere Road through it's 6-lane section shows it could potentially be modified to 3.2m lanes and have enough space left over for protected bike lanes on both sides, for example.
 
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