Cycling infrastructure (Separated bike lanes)

[Fred.S]

Yeah, from what I can tell looking at this stretch of road on Google Maps streetview and the photos in this thread, the curbs were completely redone (see red lines) to get rid of what is presumably an old bus layby on the west side and the rightmost lane for a bus stop on the east side (both shaded yellow). I am genuinely curious why the new curbs could just not be done at the curb line.

Moving a curb is not as easy as it may seem. Some reasons why:

- The road profile is a big one. The roadway is sloped so that it drains outward to the gutter beside the curb. The sidewalk/boulevard would drain inwards towards that same gutter. Moving the curb would change both of these slopes, and so there are practical limits to how much you can move a curb without flattening out the roadway or sidewalk, or potentially backdraining the sidewalk onto the private property which would be a problem. If you wanted to move the curb say a meter on a relatively narrow street, you end up having to reconstruct the entire roadway and boulevard to reprofile it.
- Stormdrains are under or close to the curb, connected to the catchbasin embedded in the gutter or side inlets in the curb. Moving the curbs a lot could mean rebuilding/repositioning the storm drains under the roadway, which again means means reconstructing much of the road.
- Utilities are also very plentiful under the street, and many are under the curb lanes and boulevard between the curb and sidewalk, or the sidewalk if it's against the curb. Moving curbs could mean having utilities move their underground infrastructure, and often there just isn't room. Many utilities, such as water and gas mains have required offsets to other utilities. Ther are lots of pipes and electrical and communications cables under there.

All of the above can be overcome, but it usually requires a lot of money and design effort that often is only justified if the street already needs to be fully reconstructed. With normal street re-paving, contractors are only really fixing existing curbs and redoing the top level of asphalt, not dealing with utility relocations, redoing the entire road base and reprofiling the street. Often road surveys and engineering design are not required. Road markings are easy, so narrowing the road with paint, while not a perfect solution, is an improvement that is much cheaper.

What gets me are roads that are completly redone, with sub-standard cycling infrastructure, i.e. bike lanes (instead of cycle tracks) on parts of the Eglinton LRT or some VIVA bus ways. Usually a result of being contractually committed to obsolete designs that were tendered 10 years ago, but being constructed now.

 

[alweky]

Noticed a couple more of these installed in Willowdale, there was another at North York Centre and one a bit south of Finch.
Too bad Transform Yonge is still over a year away.

 

[Northern Light]

Noticed a couple more of these installed in Willowdale, there was another at North York Centre and one a bit south of Finch.

Bikeshare in North York Centre, and adjacent, now looks like this:

We have a dedicated Bikeshare Toronto thread for discussing this, which can be found here:

Toronto Bike Share

I saw a new station on the south side of the well. Just a bit west off the intersection to the west. I think its new?

urbantoronto.ca

Too bad Transform Yonge is still over a year away.

Currently a lot more than a year, I'm afraid....

Its currently penciled in for 2029.

I would like to think it could be brought forward a bit. But it definitely won't be next year or 2026.