But hey – don’t need to know how to ride a bike to come up with a bike plan, right?
Not so fast.
The mayor’s bike plan, the one with separated lanes his chair of Public Works, Denzil Minnan-Wong, has been talking up for weeks, just got a huge flat. Kaboom.
The whole crashing mess is laid out in a 40-page preliminary report tabled by city Transportation staff last week and set for discussion at today’s meeting (Thursday, June 23) of the Works Committee. The promised 14 kilometres of separated bike lanes crisscrossing the core have been reduced to a short stretch on Bloor.
The bad news in a nutshell: staff is recommending no more cash for the Bloor Bikeway EA; no more separated bike lanes on Adelaide or Richmond – only a promise of further study; rescinding approvals on bike lanes not yet implemented on Bloor West between Mill Road and Beamish; and the removal (yes, you read that right) of bike lanes on Pharmacy and Birchmount. In other words, a huge step backwards for bike riders.
The upside (if you want to call it that): bike lanes on Dawes between Danforth Avenue and Vic Park, a separated bike lane on the Bloor Viaduct from Sherbourne to Broadview, and (maybe) separated bike lanes on Wellesley and Sherbourne in 2012.
The Bloor bit is not completely bad news on the face of it until you read between the lines of the bureaucratese.
The separated lane proposed for Bloor will be “utilizing the existing designated bike lane alignment.” Which means that those imagining stylish bollards and a few trees in giant pots to take in while riding should start thinking grey concrete barriers.
The separated lanes contemplated on Wellesley and Sherbourne are not a given either, but “subject to additional assessment and consultation” – namely, the number of parking spots that would have to be sacrificed to make room for them.
Full Article
Source: Now Magazine
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