Toronto Pan Am Village in the West Don Lands | ?m | ?s | DundeeKilmer | KPMB

Agreed about the cycling infrastructure. You'd think by now that the city has learned that painted bike lanes aren't very effective. Front Street and some of the others are so wide here that there's no excuse not to protect the bike lanes.

Riverdale Rink Rat said:
I really think that people are working really hard to hate on this, quite frankly.
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I don't think anyone is working hard to hate on the area at all. On the contrary, many people have a strong and immediate negative impression of the place. No work involved there at all. The work is in figuring out why this negative reaction is happening (it's more than just all the grey) and how those problems can be addressed in future phases. The negative perception of this area is very common and shouldn't be ignored.
 
Also remember that Toronto didn't even have segregated lanes at all a few years ago. These streets were probably designed in 2011 or 2012, back before Toronto knew anything about segregated lanes. The city has come a long way in the last 3 years on the subject.
 
Yeah, they were laid out around 2005, I believe. That's five years before the Jarvis painted bike lanes were installed and subsequently torn out, to put things into perspective.
 
I rode southbound on Cherry this morning around 8. Not terrible, but then there wasn't much traffic at all. It's easy to imagine some form of separation for bikes, at least on the regular asphalt part (not sure if there are issues with installing bollards on top of pavers).
 
I think the most you could install onto a paver would be one of the flexible plastic ones you see on Adelaide and Richmond, and I doubt the City would consider metal bollards (which would have to go into the ground below pavement of any type) without also having a curb: you wouldn't want a vehicle driving into a strong bollard if it veered off course, without having the chance to first to correct its direction with a curb first.

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salsa said:
The tunnel was a no brainer, otherwise the park would be completely cut off from the east end by the rail corridor. This on the other hand, is not what I call bike friendly.
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Yes, that's not cutting edge, is it?

I was objecting to the 'zero cycling infrastructure' hyperbole. What ADRM was actually saying was that there was the opportunity to have separate bike lanes on the rebuilt Cherry and new streets (basically Mill and Front, I guess) and instead they went with painted bike lanes.

The fact is that there's lots of cycling infrastructure for West Don Lands and environs, there's just not the piece ADRM wanted most. IMHO the bike ramp up to the Eastern flyover and the tunnel to the Don pathway are way more important. And to say 'the tunnel is a no brainer' is crazy -- that was a really expensive thing for them to do, and it makes Corktown Commons so much better as a park and destination!

None of this means they couldn't have done both, but just that 'zero' is not true and, IMHO, WDL is a very bike-friendly neighbourhood.
 
Riverdale Rink Rat said:
The fact is that there's lots of cycling infrastructure for West Don Lands and environs, there's just not the piece ADRM wanted most. IMHO the bike ramp up to the Eastern flyover and the tunnel to the Don pathway are way more important. And to say 'the tunnel is a no brainer' is crazy -- that was a really expensive thing for them to do, and it makes Corktown Commons so much better as a park and destination!
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I've mentioned this elsewhere before, but in the future, it might be useful to have a ped/cycling bridge connecting Corktown Common Park and the future Broadview Ave extension, if the south of eastern employment area ever gets developed. A bridge would also help connect the two areas if there were to be a future RER station at Broadview. Lastly, it would provide a much more preferable and direct ped/cycling connection than Eastern Avenue.

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The whole grey colour palette is starting to grow on me (just as long as we don't get any more grey buildings), and the wide ROW actually feels quite nice in person - much more so than in the photos. The whole place gives off an unfinished IKEA furniture vibe to me though...

14 April 2016:


George Brown West Don Lands by Jimmy Wu, on Flickr


George Brown West Don Lands by Jimmy Wu, on Flickr


George Brown West Don Lands by Jimmy Wu, on Flickr


TCHC Pan Am Village by Jimmy Wu, on Flickr


TCHC Pan Am Village by Jimmy Wu, on Flickr


TCHC Pan Am Village by Jimmy Wu, on Flickr


TCHC Pan Am Village by Jimmy Wu, on Flickr


TCHC Pan Am Village by Jimmy Wu, on Flickr
 
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Riverdale Rink Rat said:
If you go through the tunnel and south to Lake Shore, there's a 2nd bridge and bike path. I'm not sure a 3rd crossing at relatively high cost is necessary.
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Are you kidding me? Eastern Ave is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an acceptable bike route. The access ramp from River is next to useless because it leads up to a place where a) you are forced to ride illegally on the sidewalk or brave 80 km/h traffic (good luck crossing Eastern if you're riding westbound on the road), and b) once on Eastern, you're forced to cross the highway access ramp to the DVP. I've walked it, and it's terrifying. I can't even imagine trying to navigate that on a bike. That route is honestly not safe for anyone, and I wish the budget for that useless ramp had been put toward a separate crossing connecting directly to the foot of Broadview.
 
smably said:
Are you kidding me? Eastern Ave is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an acceptable bike route. The access ramp from River is next to useless because it leads up to a place where a) you are forced to ride illegally on the sidewalk or brave 80 km/h traffic (good luck crossing Eastern if you're riding westbound on the road), and b) once on Eastern, you're forced to cross the highway access ramp to the DVP. I've walked it, and it's terrifying. I can't even imagine trying to navigate that on a bike. That route is honestly not safe for anyone, and I wish the budget for that useless ramp had been put toward a separate crossing connecting directly to the foot of Broadview.
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No, I am not kidding you. I walked that route this week, with my wife and a couple walking a French bulldog puppy to Balzac's for a coffee. It's no more terrifying than walking across the Viaduct. No one is driving at 80 km/h as they make that turn -- it's way too tight. And any pedestrian has clear sight lines at the crosswalk.

I would agree, though, about the sidewalk aspect for bikes. Westbound, it's most definitely not a bike friendly route unless you walk your bike on the southern sidewalk (or ride it, although it's a little narrow to pass pedestrians should you encounter any). Eastbound you would have your choice of sidewalk or road, depending on your riding ability and bravery.

I'm not sure where you would have put a separate crossing without a budget 10x that of the ramp. But, given that it's there, the DVP is there, and the soap plant development will be 20 years in the making, I stick with my original statement: wasting money on a separate bike bridge from Sunlight to Corktown Common makes no sense.
 
I'll also point out that the idea of a dedicated pedestrian/cycling bridge didn't come out of nowhere -- it's actually in the West Don Lands precinct plan (see p. 25; warning, big PDF). Clearly the planners also recognized the need for this link. Hardly a "waste" of money, though that doesn't mean it's going to get built, because apparently in Toronto we only write blank cheques for elevated expressways... but I digress.
 
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