W. K. Lis
Superstar
Lowest bidder, using just paint.
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Cycling infrastructure (Separated bike lanes)
- Thread starter MetroMan
- Start date
Lowest bidder, using just paint.
salsa
Senior Member
With the new bike lanes now in play, this gap on Gerrard Street is more glaring than ever. This stretch also happens to straddle the Regent Park redevelopment area for its entire length. If the city is being proactive, they'd ensure that redevelopment along Gerrard would set aside enough room to widen the street by a couple of metres, so that the bike lane can be extended here without reducing the number of lanes and impacting streetcar service.
Does anyone have insight as to whether any such planning is being done here?
Does anyone have insight as to whether any such planning is being done here?
DSC
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I would write to Wong-Tam's office and see if they have any idea.
Allandale25
Senior Member
SunriseChampion
Senior Member
When's King Street, Bathurst-Queen, getting a seperated bike lane? Need one now. The street is quiet with cars and it'd be nice not having to share lanes with cyclists. It's a perfect stretch of road for one. Especially at least Bathurst-Dufferin. Make it happening.
mickael
Active Member
I could see lanes on King, Bathurst to Dufferin since the road widens up there, but this seems ways off sadly.
DSC
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You can have bike lanes or 'parklet cafes' etc on King but probably not both and there are also (very necessary) calls for wider sidewalks. The wider sidewalks are, apparently, coming in 2022-23 when the City & TTC are planning on digging up street to lay new streetcar tracks. I cycle and walk and if I want to go from, say Bathurst to Sherbourne I inevitably cycle on Adelaide/Richmond - the bike tracks there are not perfect but they really are pretty good. If I were cycling from Jarvis to Yonge I might use King as there really is very little traffic (though I am always wary of streetcar tracks!). The distance from King to Adelaide/Jarvis is short (certainly on a bike) so I suggest that any $$ be spent fixing the cycle track problems on Adelaide & Richmond not on adding new ones on King. Better to have fewer GOOD tracks than more - but poor - ones!
mickael
Active Member
Through the core, yeah, King probably doesn't need bike lanes. Since Adelaide/Richmond don't properly go west of Bathurst, King would be the obvious choice to extend those lanes westward, as far as I'm concerned. West of Bathurst on King is far wider than the transit corridor stretch, and there are less businesses along there, also.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Same reason they didn't do this on Dundas between River and Parliament. The city's planners are not planning.
Cycling infrastructure (Separated bike lanes)
Puts hand up. Sorry, that's me. LOL Well, not exactly me; but many of us who work with the City on environmental issues have deep reservations about the preliminary phase 3 option. That, in combination w/the fact that the scope as designed exceeds the budget is delaying phase 3 for now...
That said, I dislike discontiguous bike lanes. We don't have orphan sections of operating roads where they just end. Every bike lane in the city should connect at both ends with another bike lane. As one of the city's business bike corridors, Gerrard is ridiculous; coming from westward you have no bike lanes east of Broadview, then a short span of bike lanes until River St, then no bike lanes until past Parliament. This should be forbidden, either you have a bike path or you do not. There's nothing unique about the road between Broadview and River that requires a bike path that the road between River and Parliament does not. It's as if there's some idiot at city hall who looks at the map and says, hmm.... let's stick a few hundred feet of bike lane wherever it's not needed, because there's already enough separation between car and bike, such as the Gerrard bridge over the DVP.
Even more annoying, the TTC recently tore up and replaced the streetcar bed and tracks on Gerrard. This was the perfect opportunity to move the tracks a few ft. to the south while cutting back the extremely wide and underused south sidewalk. This would have allowed for two lanes of traffic and a separated bike lane in both directions. This city desperately needs a new leader, no not some left-wing socialist, but a centralist with a city building mindset, get it done. I'll willingly accept an increase in property taxes if I can see proper bike lanes as I suggest above.
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SunriseChampion
Senior Member
I was suggesting King from Bathurst west because a lot of cyclists use this section as the Richmond lane ends just west of Bathurst.
H4F33Z
Active Member
C'mon car addicts, you'll need a better argument than that. These lanes will make a positive difference in people's lives every day.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
Plus the parade has run just fine because of the lanes. They only detoured last year because of the road construction on Bloor between Bathurst and Spadina, not because of the lanes.
The Yorkville BIA has long been an obstacle to bike lanes on that stretch of Bloor.
The sad thing is that the lanes likely could have been accommodated when the BIA did their streetscaping years ago and seen the 4 lanes maintained. But the BIA didn't want that and chose the super wide sidewalks instead, so now we are here.
The Yorkville BIA has long been an obstacle to bike lanes on that stretch of Bloor.
The sad thing is that the lanes likely could have been accommodated when the BIA did their streetscaping years ago and seen the 4 lanes maintained. But the BIA didn't want that and chose the super wide sidewalks instead, so now we are here.
ADRM
Senior Member
Yeah, this is a trope that is tired, ignorant, and harmful, and of course one that has been thoroughly and completely debunked. This is nothing more than a regressive -- if powerful -- BIA grasping at straws to justify their own selfish position.
To pick a couple obvious examples, the national malls in both London, UK and Washington, DC both have separated bike lanes -- two cities that of course never have big parades or gathering on those stretches...
It's funny/tragic -- when the Bloor-Yorkville BIAs opposed the bike lanes prior to the last round of streetscape improvements, they used NYC as evidence that bike lanes could not coexist in such an environment, and that no "serious city" would "take over" important thoroughfares for bike lanes. Today in NYC, there are separated bike lanes on: 1st Avenue, 2nd Avenue/Chrystie, 4th Avenue/Lafayette, 6th Avenue, 7th Avenue, *Broadway*, 8th Avenue, 9th Avenue, Avenue A, Avenue C, The East River Bikeway, and the West End Highway (that's fully *the majority* of major north-south thoroughfares in Manhattan for those counting at home).
Here is the contact information for those two BIAs -- I have emailed both of them to voice my extreme displeasure and CC'd Brad Bradford and Mike Layton's offices on each, and would encourage you all to do the same:
t: @BloorYorkville
e: info@bloor-Yorkville.com
p: 416-928-3553
t: @GreekTownBIA
e: bia@greektowntoronto.com
p: 416-469-5634
salsa
Senior Member
I think the BIA knows that their arguments are bullshit. Aside from the usual bias toward cars, I bet what's really going on here is that they see cyclists as not worthy of their business since they don't fit the profile of the typical Yorkville customer (i.e a rich snob driving in with their Beamers and Porsches).
picard102
Senior Member
Now who's being a snob.