News   Dec 20, 2024
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Bloor Street West Bike Lanes

Are there any plans for an extension west to the new bike lanes added recently to Bloor/Kipling (6 points)?

That would be the logical thing to do - complete the gap from Kipling to Runnymede. I don't have faith that our city council will make this happen in the near term, but I would love to be pleasantly surprised for a change...
 
Remember back in 2010 when the council-approved bike lanes on Bloor from Kipling to Mill Rd. were deferred? Still waiting for that to get un-deferred.

 
Remember back in 2010 when the council-approved bike lanes on Bloor from Kipling to Mill Rd. were deferred? Still waiting for that to get un-deferred.


Seems "deferred" is the hot new euphemism for "permanently cancelled".
 
"Do you want to stand here for an hour, blocking the sidewalk to make sure people have to walk out into the bike lane?"
"Yeah. Or, you know, until we see at least one person get hit by a bike."
"Oh, I hope this time it's one of those e-bikes going really fast!"
Bloor_bike_lane_800pxls.JPG
 
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I noticed that the bridge construction sign between Lansdowne and Dundas has been changed from a static sign to a portable electronic sign; that way they can keep bumping the completion date of that segment of the Bloor bike lane without having to order up a new sign to be printed. Currently says June 2022, updated from December 2021 (which was updated from June 2021 and before that, December 2020!).
 
I noticed that the bridge construction sign between Lansdowne and Dundas has been changed from a static sign to a portable electronic sign; that way they can keep bumping the completion date of that segment of the Bloor bike lane without having to order up a new sign to be printed. Currently says June 2022, updated from December 2021 (which was updated from June 2021 and before that, December 2020!).

We're coming up on the 2 year anniversary (August 2020) of the partial installation of the Bloor bike lane extension. I emailed the city a few weeks ago to ask what the latest ETA was, no response so far...my primary concern is with the absolutely unacceptable condition of the road (ie the future bike lane, which is currently the "sidewalk"). Are they going to completely repave it? It's craggy and unsafe.

IMG_6082.jpeg


IMG_6080.jpeg
 
^That underpass has a huge amount of further construction before it’s done…. if anything you can expect it to get worse before it gets better.

I wouldn’t worry about the end state quite yet.

- Paul
 
One thing i'm starting to wonder is why the bike lanes are so wide through Bloor Street? I've noticed that this design has been problematic as cars barely have any room to park, and traffic is forced to crawl through (which is what im sure the city wants). The issue is, when you have larger vehicles traveling through Bloor, they are forced to either stop and let an opposing larger vehicle pass, or cross over partially to the opposing lane to pass through a choke point.

Anytime the subway is closed, i've noticed that shuttle buses really have trouble navigating and pretty much crawl all through Bloor Street ultimately causing very long commute times.
 
One thing i'm starting to wonder is why the bike lanes are so wide through Bloor Street? I've noticed that this design has been problematic as cars barely have any room to park, and traffic is forced to crawl through (which is what im sure the city wants). The issue is, when you have larger vehicles traveling through Bloor, they are forced to either stop and let an opposing larger vehicle pass, or cross over partially to the opposing lane to pass through a choke point.

Anytime the subway is closed, i've noticed that shuttle buses really have trouble navigating and pretty much crawl all through Bloor Street ultimately causing very long commute times.

I don't think the majority of the bike lanes are particularly wide:

1657718824860.png


That certainly doesn't seem at all excessive to me, in fact, there's limited room for proper buffering/separation in the wb direction in this pic.

If its desirable here to have wider travel lanes and/or more turn lanes, there's really one answer for that, the parking needs to come out.

I'm certainly open to that, but I'm not sure its a can of worms that demands near-term reopening either.
 
One thing i'm starting to wonder is why the bike lanes are so wide through Bloor Street?
Don't forget that there needs to be a sufficiently wide buffer to ensure that the bike lane isn't in the door zone from parked cars. As it is, the lane is barely wide enough. Anecdotally, I was biking on Bloor the other day and was barely able to make it around a pickup truck parked next to the bike lane with its passenger side door open. It's also important to have enough space to be able to dodge hazards like glass or sewer grates, and in an ideal world, there'd be enough room for to overtake another person on a bike without going into the car lane. So there are a few reasons you'd want wider lanes, but as @Northern Light mentioned, these lanes aren't even that wide.
 
One thing i'm starting to wonder is why the bike lanes are so wide through Bloor Street? I've noticed that this design has been problematic as cars barely have any room to park, and traffic is forced to crawl through (which is what im sure the city wants). The issue is, when you have larger vehicles traveling through Bloor, they are forced to either stop and let an opposing larger vehicle pass, or cross over partially to the opposing lane to pass through a choke point.

Anytime the subway is closed, i've noticed that shuttle buses really have trouble navigating and pretty much crawl all through Bloor Street ultimately causing very long commute times.
Depends what section you are speaking about in particular, some parts are narrow too. I frequent Bloor in the central part of the city where there are many big vehicles due to all the construction and haven't seen any issues. Any particular area you are thinking about?
 

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