News   Dec 20, 2024
 977     5 
News   Dec 20, 2024
 746     2 
News   Dec 20, 2024
 1.3K     0 

Cycling infrastructure (Separated bike lanes)

On a more optimistic view. By forcing roadways for cars and leading to more gridlock, this could lay the groundwork for an eventual congestion tax and continuous push for construction of subway lines and other forms of rapid transit.

Therefore the “do-nothing” approach is no longer an option.
 
On a more optimistic view. By forcing roadways for cars and leading to more gridlock, this could lay the groundwork for an eventual congestion tax and continuous push for construction of subway lines and other forms of rapid transit.

Therefore the “do-nothing” approach is no longer an option.
I don't think that will ever fly. I'm not a fan of Fords bike lane law but do you see the province allowing that in this environment? Even in the past there wasn't enough political will.
 
Okay... So let's say you're right. Let's see the two options:

1) Terrible gridlock with current road network.

2) Horrific gridlock with bicycle lanes taking away some of the road network.

Man. When you compare the two options this government is proposing, it seems kinda stupid no?

Let's add:

1) More cyclists dying on the road as a result of this policy. Cool. Awesome, love that.

2) Reduced parking minimums mean thousands if not tens of thousands of new cyclists being added to the roads each year.

This seems like some real rocket surgery. Just genius stuff.
I think all but the most stauch cyclists will admit the goal of the lanes would be for the most part to reduce car dependency for short trips. But even that comes with a lot of issues? People want backyards, people want to not share walls, and looking at my condo mail room, or the TTC you notice a lot of people treat public spaces as their own. Other "lifestyle" choices like shopping at costco don't work with 2 wheels.

The TTC has never been less reliable, and you're telling people suck it up you can't drive. (with new parking maximums in developments) You're also effectively cutting people off from giant swaths of the city that are under served or not served at all. Try getting to the rouge trail head at 55 twyn rivers drive? Even if it did, the daily service suspensions or early closures don't help.

The worst of it is drivers are "competing" with bikes for the only roads that access the core that don't squiggle around or end after a few blocks. I see the frustration on both sides.
 
One elected by the people of Ontario.
Even if you had a neutral premier and focused on outcomes, not outputs, the city is failing on holistic transportation.

KM of bike lanes is an output. Reduced death is a good outcome. But yes, we are obviously choosing faster car traffic times over deaths. Quiet part said out loud in this forum.

I have yet to see concrete data in from to mode shift. I hypothesize cycling is cannibalising transit more than cars. So we are actually adding inefficiency to the streets.
 
I think all but the most stauch cyclists will admit the goal of the lanes would be for the most part to reduce car dependency for short trips. But even that comes with a lot of issues? People want backyards, people want to not share walls, and looking at my condo mail room, or the TTC you notice a lot of people treat public spaces as their own. Other "lifestyle" choices like shopping at costco don't work with 2 wheels.

The TTC has never been less reliable, and you're telling people suck it up you can't drive. (with new parking maximums in developments) You're also effectively cutting people off from giant swaths of the city that are under served or not served at all. Try getting to the rouge trail head at 55 twyn rivers drive? Even if it did, the daily service suspensions or early closures don't help.

The worst of it is drivers are "competing" with bikes for the only roads that access the core that don't squiggle around or end after a few blocks. I see the frustration on both sides.
TTC is unreliable because of ass backward policy that under funds transit, and over funds roads. It's like trying to keep the Titanic above water with a sand bucket and instead of purchasing a water pump that can pump out the water at the same rate it's coming in, buying a few more sand buckets and asking your buds to help out.
 
One very recent factor that I haven’t seen mentioned yet is the use of bike lanes by scooters and e-bikes. I don’t know about the rest of the city but in the west end they outnumber bikes.
 
One very recent factor that I haven’t seen mentioned yet is the use of bike lanes by scooters and e-bikes. I don’t know about the rest of the city but in the west end they outnumber bikes.
Where did you see this? My data is only for 1 section of bloor but I found at most it was 20% but it did vary a lot by which hour it was.
 
Where did you see this? My data is only for 1 section of bloor but I found at most it was 20% but it did vary a lot by which hour it was.
Anectodatal but The App Based Delivery services around downtown are massive. Not sure they out number traditional bikes but the share is definitely growing fast. The younger generations love for easy delivery is just going to keep growing and an ebike is much more cost efficient than a vehicle. Tossing that ebike on a train then coming in from the suburbs appears to be a very popular form of employment. With an ebike I'm sure you can manage many more deliveries than with a traditional vehicle.

Having seperated lanes would in theory keep them out of traffic. Without them i've seen they'll just take the lane and weave in and out of traffic.
 
Clearly we will need to stop ALL parking on roadways too and, as noted above, no patios and certainly no road lane closures for developers. Sigh.
Exactly. If bike lanes must not take out car lanes, then to get bike lanes either sidewalks or parking must go. My vote would be to look at bidirectional bike lanes on one side of the street so to allow some parking on the other side of the street outside of rush hour. Now this would only meet the province half way, since the bidirectional side will take out one car lane, unless the road centreline is moved over to one side, which is not feasible with streetcars.

Gerrard from Coxwell to Broadview and from River to Parliament desperately needs protected lanes. So, scrap all parking on one side here.
 
Last edited:
Exactly. If bike lanes must not take out car lanes, then to get bike lanes either sidewalks or parking must go. My vote would be to look at bidirectional bike lanes on one side of the street so to allow some parking on the other side of the street outside of rush hour. Now this would only meet the province half way, since the bidirectional side will take out one car lane, unless the road centreline is moved over to one side, which is not feasible with streetcars.

Gerrard from Coxwell to Broadview and from River to Parliament desperately needs protected lanes. So, scrap all parking on one side here.
The parking is only temporary, it's not allowed during rush hour unless you have some 24/7 parking lanes you can show me in the city?
 
The parking is only temporary, it's not allowed during rush hour unless you have some 24/7 parking lanes you can show me in the city?
I really don't understand the outcomes you want to drive outside of being unnecessarily contrarian.

If you continue to incentive driving, even people downtown will drive. There is no world where all the people downtown just walk and cycle on dangerous roads while we make space for suburbanites to cruise through our streets with easy-breezed smiles. This is proven behaviour and not rocket science.

You will just induce more traffic, period. And no, immigrants in suburbs needing to drive is not a social justice and equity issue, which you've dog whistled a few times.
 
Exactly. If bike lanes must not take out car lanes, then to get bike lanes either sidewalks or parking must go. My vote would be to look at bidirectional bike lanes on one side of the street so to allow some parking on the other side of the street outside of rush hour. Now this would only meet the province half way, since the bidirectional side will take out one car lane, unless the road centreline is moved over to one side, which is not feasible with streetcars.

Gerrard from Coxwell to Broadview and from River to Parliament desperately needs protected lanes. So, scrap all parking on one side here.
This was my line of thinking. Why not get rid of all curbside parking and replace it was a "strategically", "aesthetically pleasing", parking garage to serve the local businesses?
Drivers complain about not being able to use the right lanes on Bloor W. because of the bike lanes, but whenever I drove along this stretch of road prior to the implementation of the bike lanes, I could never use the right lane due to all the cars parking against the curb. Cars would just pull over to the side and put on their hazard lights. Idiot driver would then proceed to swing open their door into the lane of active traffic.

When you look at Bloor W. the city replaced a lane of traffic with parking, not a bike lane. They used the curbside parking for the bike lane.

EDIT: It seems the points of conflict is where the fire hydrants and street side patios are located. Also where the curb sticks out at the intersections.
 
Last edited:

Back
Top