Toronto’s new Sherbourne bike lanes too little too late

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and Sherbourne St. is no exception. When its new dedicated bicycle lanes officially open on Monday, Toronto will have taken another Baby Huey step toward a future its leaders desperately want to avoid.

Indeed, the Sherbourne bike lanes illustrate what the city felt it could get away with and still claim to support cyclists. These largely notional spaces only make sense according to the convoluted logic of car culture. Here’s what happens when Official Toronto is forced against its will to bring equality to the streets.

It’s hard to be a saint in the bike lane

If you’re riding your bike around Toronto, make sure you have a bell. Or a gong. The Highway Traffic Act, which regulates cyclists, drivers, and all other road users, states that “every motor vehicle, motor-assisted bicycle, and bicycle” requires some sort of “alarm bell” in good working order. The act also states that you can use a gong, which you shall sound “whenever it is reasonably necessary to notify pedestrians or others of [your] approach.” The document doesn’t specify how big the gong can be, and its definition of “reasonably necessary” leaves room for interpretation, so you might as well buy the biggest one possible and bash it liberally.

Sharing Sherbourne

Toronto’s first separated bike lanes are complete, but the jury is out on whether they will keep cars safely out of the paths of riders.

On Tuesday, the city issued a press release declaring the Sherbourne cycle tracks officially open from Bloor to King. A second phase of the project, from King to Queens Quay, will be completed in 2014, part of a planned 14-kilometre network of separated bikeways downtown.

At a cost of $2.4 million, the Sherbourne lanes are worth every penny according to some Toronto cycling advocates.

Protestors halt removal of Jarvis bike lanes

Cycling advocates literally put their asses on the line to stop the removal of the Jarvis bike lanes Monday, and managed to win a temporary reprieve for the controversial bikeways.

As a city-contracted crew began scrubbing out the southbound lane using a truck-mounted water blaster shortly before 1 pm, a single protestor sat down in its path. The truck moved around him and continued its work, only to be blocked by another man, then another.

Jarvis bike lane protester arrested during removal

A protester was arrested and charged Tuesday morning after blocking the removal of the Jarvis St. bike lanes.

Toronto physician Tomislav Svoboda was arrested around 11 a.m. on Jarvis St. near Shuter St.

“As a family and public health physician, I’m concerned about safety,” Svoboda said. “I’m concerned about the lack of public consultation and the very undemocratic process that led to the removal of these lanes, and the waste and misuse of taxpayers’ money.”

Svoboda sat with a bike in the laneway, blocking the truck that was removing the paint. He and other members of the advocacy group Jarvis Emegency Taskforce blocked the lane, but Svoboda was the first to remain in the lane after being peacefully confronted by police.

“This is the only major North American city that’s removing bicycle lanes, which is a national disgrace,” he said.

He was arrested without incident by the 51 Division Street Crime Unit, which operates on bicycles.

Police told the Star Tuesday afternoon that Svoboda was charged with obstructing a peace officer and mischief.

Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Dylan C. Robertson 

Jarvis St. bike lane removal called off for the day after sit-in protest

The Jarvis bike lanes were granted a one-day reprieve Monday after half a dozen protestors staged a sit-in.

Frustrated, the removal crew packed it in for the day after clearing less than 200 metres of road.

Sgt. Mike Hayles, from 51 Division, said police were told the workers would return Tuesday at 10 a.m.

Why ripping up bike lanes in Toronto will hurt students and cost lives

Just when I think this city's government is finally turning a corner and making some halfway reasonable decisions I find they're not looking, drifting toward the curb and crushing the nearest cyclist with a five-ton truck. Oh well, what's some blood on the road if it means that Rosedale’s drivers get home two minutes faster?

That's right, the estimated time that drivers will be saving by City Council's decision to eliminate the bike lanes on Jarvis Street is two minutes. A shorter wait than the average line at Tim Hortons is what your city council thinks is more important than the safety of the 1,000 cyclists that ride on Jarvis Street every day. How many of those cyclists are riding to and from George Brown College's St. James campus, which sits only 150 meters from Jarvis St.?

Mayor Ford ends the 'war on the car' and starts one against motorists

Don Cherry has a lesson to teach Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Cherry has spent a career promoting the hockey fighter, sometimes known as the enforcer or goon. The problem is that the science of brain injuries has caught up with (and passed) his assertion that the violence of these bare-knuckle encounters doesn't really hurt anyone, and helps the game. Indeed, the very fighters whose role Cherry has championed are increasingly turning out to be the game's victims.

The cause that Ford championed most loudly during the election was that of motorists. On taking office he declared that the war on the car was over. He eliminated a small vehicle registration tax, then moved forward on his congestion relief plan by getting transit out of the way of motorists. Two of three streetcar lines approved by the previous administration were shelved and a third line would go underground at significantly higher cost. He even promised to build a new subway line. Cyclists, too, were targeted. The council he leads voted to eliminate three bike lanes at a projected cost of $400,000.

Science, and experience, makes it clear that Ford's solutions won't work -- and the main victim will be the motorist.

First, our roads are not congested because of too much transit and cycling; they are congested because of too little of it. Putting 20-50 people in a streetcar or bus takes up far less road space than the same people in single-occupant cars. Cyclists take up only an invisible part of the street, or, on the two per cent of Toronto roads that have bike lanes, a fraction of a car lane. Blaming cyclists for congestion and expanding roads by gobbling up the slivers of roadway dedicated to them confirms that the car-based transport model is out of gas.

The Case for Bike Lanes

New research makes a strong case for building bike and pedestrian infrastructure: more jobs.

The U.S. is currently experiencing high unemployment, an unsustainable level of use of carbon-based energy, and a national obesity epidemic. All three of these problems can be partly addressed through increased walking and cycling. Providing pedestrian and cycling infrastructure such as sidewalks, bike lanes, and trails for the purposes of commuting, recreation, and fitness is arguably more important than ever before. These types of infrastructure have been shown to create many benefits for their users, as well as for the rest of the community. There are economic benefits, such as increased revenues and jobs for local businesses, as well as things like reduced congestion, better air quality, safer travel routes, and improved health outcomes.

Sherbourne a no-go for bikes

The avenue being touted as the north-south alternative to Jarvis will require some radical rethinking to make separated bike lane plans a reality. The hazards and obstacles are many.

Bloor bottleneck

The top of Sherbourne at Bloor is a traffic nightmare. Cars lining up to make rights and lefts onto Bloor and dropping off or picking up passengers at the subway station block the bike lane going north, making navigation of this section hazardous for everyone. Prohibiting cars from turning onto Bloor may be part of the answer, but that would mean pushing car traffic through Rosedale, and weren’t they the folks who opposed bike lanes on Jarvis?

There’s a Word for This - uncompetence

There is a difference between incompetence and uncompetence. Incompetence is when people make bad decisions. Uncompetence is when people start to suspect that competence is something the elites do, and think to themselves, “I should perhaps do something else.”

Welcome, everyone, to Toronto.

Here in Toronto, the citizenry are being treated to a three-ring circus of municipal upheaval, in which the self-professed guardians of taxpayer dollars are busy throwing said dollars away for reasons that seem to range from ideology to spite, which really isn’t that far of a walk.

It’s hurry up & stop on bike plan

It was evident from the mayor’s impromptu photo op atop the art bike the other day that he hasn’t been on a two-wheeler for a while.

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 

Bike lane plan disappoints cycling advocates

Cycling advocates are unhappy with a city plan that falls short of a full downtown network of separated lanes and would potentially paint over two existing lanes in Scarborough.

“We’re disappointed with the lack of progress in the report,” said Andrea Garcia, spokeswoman for the Toronto Cyclists Union, referring to a staff report going to the public works committee next week.

“We don’t see it as bold enough to address the needs of hundreds of thousands of Torontonians who ride bicycles.”

Full Article
Source: Toronto Star