The scope of the proposed bike lanes on Univ is significantly more limited than I expected. I thought it would at least start further north at Bloor, instead of College.
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And amazingly, the city still insists on maintaining street parking on a major road.
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Last, first, there is no need for street parking on University Avenue, at all. This is not a street with retail of significance or car dependence whatever.
As to the cycling facility, I would imagine the logic goes something like this:
a) Connect major bike lane to major bike lane (College to Adelaide), as yet, there are no bike lanes east of Avenue Rd. on Bloor (I expect there will be, but that's a different discussion)
b) I expect they looked strictly at removing the 4th vehicle lane, on large chunks of Queen's Park Cres there is no 4th lane, meaning either an ROW modification or dropping the number of veh. lanes to 2.
c) Contain costs
d) Scope the bike lane proposal to the Great Streets proposal for University Avenue such that the projects overlap and consume 1 construction budget and period (that project is Adelaide to College)
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By way of observation, I believe there is room to remove a 4th lane, non-controversially, NB from College to Wellesley.
The piece from Wellesley NB to the top of the circle is bit more problematic in that the Wellesley/Harbord bus requires the ability to use the top of the circle for WB movements, which would seem to require an extra lane. Though it may still be plausible to take the road down to 2NB lanes here, I'd require a traffic study to see.
Southbound the ROW really is constrained from the top of the circle to just north of Wellesley after which options become a bit easier. A choice could be made to cut lanes SB but do do that you have to remove a lane north of Bloor on Avenue Rd that feeds University. (I would support this, but we are getting into serious scope creep and greater risk of political opposition.)
