Cycling infrastructure (Separated bike lanes)

[andrewpmk]

Are these ever going to be properly separated with a physical barrier?

Even with a "separated" barrier, these "bike lanes" are always covered with snow in the winter, they are often removed for condo construction sites, and the barrier often gets removed and cars park in them.

I don't know whether anyone here has seen Margaret Wente's anti-bike articles in the Globe and Mail. See for example <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/where-are-all-the-women-cyclists/article25369940/>. There are so many hazards for anyone who bikes downtown - potholes, uneven road surfaces, garbage accumulating on the side of the road, streetcar tracks, cars opening doors, parked cars, construction, aggressive drivers, rain, snow, you name it. Just putting a handful of these "separated" bike lanes on a couple of major roads doesn't mean that riding a bike in downtown Toronto isn't insanely dangerous. Also the bike share system is only used by a few thousand people a day (compared to around 400000 people who work downtown), has lost money, and only still exists because TD's marketing department bailed it out for a few years. Not surprisingly, only 2% of Toronto's population rides a bike to work and only 1% of the GTA's population does (Statistics Canada). I think that the vast majority of Toronto's population realizes that bicycling is dangerous and would never dream of doing it, but the incompetent city council of this city keeps wasting money on this nonsense.

 

[reaperexpress]

"Separated bike lanes" are a fad. One of the many dumb things that city council wastes money on. Riding a bike in Toronto is extremely dangerous with or without separated or unseparated bike lanes.

Really?

Just because most of Toronto's bike lanes are not great examples of safe infrastructure does not mean that safe cycling infrastructure is impossible.

I don't know whether anyone here has seen Margaret Wente's anti-bike articles in the Globe and Mail. See for example <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/where-are-all-the-women-cyclists/article25369940/>. There are so many hazards for anyone who bikes downtown - potholes, uneven road surfaces, garbage accumulating on the side of the road, streetcar tracks, cars opening doors, parked cars, construction, aggressive drivers, rain, snow, you name it. Just putting a handful of these "separated" bike lanes on a couple of major roads doesn't mean that riding a bike in downtown Toronto isn't insanely dangerous. Also the bike share system is only used by a few thousand people a day (compared to around 400000 people who work downtown), has lost money, and only still exists because TD's marketing department bailed it out for a few years. Not surprisingly, only 2% of Toronto's population rides a bike to work and only 1% of the GTA's population does (Statistics Canada). I think that the vast majority of Toronto's population realizes that bicycling is dangerous and would never dream of doing it, but the incompetent city council of this city keeps wasting money on this nonsense.

It is definitely true that the main reason that 98% of trips are not made by bicycle is the public's perception of safety. That's precisely the reason that we are "wasting money on this nonsense" by building safer-seeming bicycle infrastructure.

I encourage you to watch Richmond/Adelaide at rush hour along the existing bike lane. The bike lane carries far more people than each of the car lanes, which suggests that installing them increased the capacity of the street. Isn't reducing congestion a goal we all share regardless of where we live or how we travel?

 

[MetroMan]

What kind of permanent design should we expect on Adelaide and Richmond?

I'd personally like to see a design similar to Queens Quay where the bike lane and the sidewalk are at the same level above the road and pedestrians and cyclists are separated by a row of trees. Adelaide has a wider than average sidewalk with excessively large concrete planters that can be removed and replaced with with grates level with the ground and Silva Cells below. If reconfigured in this way, there is a lot of room for a pedestrian realm alongside bike lanes.

Both Richmond and Adelaide can become model complete streets with plenty of room for cars in one direction and wide sidewalks and bike lanes under a canopy of thick trees.

 

[reaperexpress]

What kind of permanent design should we expect on Adelaide and Richmond?

I'd personally like to see a design similar to Queens Quay where the bike lane and the sidewalk are at the same level above the road and pedestrians and cyclists are separated by a row of trees. Adelaide has a wider than average sidewalk with excessively large concrete planters that can be removed and replaced with with grates level with the ground and Silva Cells below. If reconfigured in this way, there is a lot of room for a pedestrian realm alongside bike lanes.

Both Richmond and Adelaide can become model complete streets with plenty of room for cars in one direction and wide sidewalks and bike lanes under a canopy of thick trees.

I'd actually take the opposite approach to complete streets. Rather than trying to equally accommodate every mode on every street, we could prioritize/optimize streets based on what they do best. That way we can actually provide enough space for each mode to operate efficiently, and it also cuts down the number of turning conflicts.

To me, Richmond and Adelaide, as well as Eastern, Wellington and Front, are ideal car-priority routes. They share an interchange with the DVP, which is basically impassable for bicycles. So the permanent design i'd like is the one we used to have, with 4 car lanes in one direction.

Meanwhile, King and Queen are destination streets that carry vast numbers of people in streetcars, on foot and also by bicycle, and are not conveniently connected to the major arterial road network for cars. Yet the relatively small number of cars that do drive on them cause massive delay to everyone. The focus in these cases would be to divert car traffic onto the car-priority streets using measures ranging from reconfiguring streets with 1 lane per direction with no possibility of passing streetcars (like Roncesvalles but with bike lanes and left turn lanes) to prohibiting car traffic altogether on blocks which aren't needed for local access.

Quick sketch of my idea of route prioritization. Blue is bicycle-priority routes and orange is car-priority routes. I had to omit street names since they were obscuring the colourization.

Blue Routes: Bicycle Priority
Dedicated bicycle space (bike lanes, cycle tracks, dead-end-for-cars streets), no more than 1 car lane per direction, signals uncoordinated or co-ordinated for bicycles.
For example: Queens Quay, Bremner, King, Gueen, Shuter, College/Carlton, Harbord/Wellesley, St.George/Beverley/Peter, Simcoe, Bay/Davenport, Church/Davenport, Sherbourne

Orange Routes: Car Priority
At least 2 car lanes per direction, no on-road bicycle facilities, signal co-ordination for cars, etc.
For example: Lakeshore, Front/Wellington/Eastern, Richmond/Adelaide/Eastern, Spadina, University/Avenue, Yonge, Jarvis/Mt Pleasant, possibly Parliament


There would also be transit priority routes, but these are omitted for clarity. I think we all know them anyway (Queens Quay, Bremner, King, Queen, College, Dundas, Bathurst, Spadina etc).

 

[aquateam]

I'd actually take the opposite approach to complete streets. Rather than trying to equally accommodate every mode on every street, we could prioritize/optimize streets based on what they do best. That way we can actually provide enough space for each mode to operate efficiently, and it also cuts down the number of turning conflicts.

Not saying that what you're saying is a bad idea, but by definition "complete streets" are streets that accommodate every mode.

Meanwhile, King and Queen are destination streets that carry vast numbers of people in streetcars, on foot and also by bicycle, and are not conveniently connected to the major arterial road network for cars. Yet the relatively small number of cars that do drive on them cause massive delay to everyone. The focus in these cases would be to divert car traffic onto the car-priority streets using measures ranging from reconfiguring streets with 1 lane per direction with no possibility of passing streetcars (like Roncesvalles but with bike lanes and left turn lanes) to prohibiting car traffic altogether on blocks which aren't needed for local access.

How about a transit mall?

Quick sketch of my idea of route prioritization. Blue is bicycle-priority routes and orange is car-priority routes. I had to omit street names since they were obscuring the colourization.

Blue Routes: Bicycle Priority
Dedicated bicycle space (bike lanes, cycle tracks, dead-end-for-cars streets), no more than 1 car lane per direction, signals uncoordinated or co-ordinated for bicycles.
For example: Queens Quay, Bremner, King, Gueen, Shuter, College/Carlton, Harbord/Wellesley, St.George/Beverley/Peter, Simcoe, Bay/Davenport, Church/Davenport, Sherbourne

Orange Routes: Car Priority
At least 2 car lanes per direction, no on-road bicycle facilities, signal co-ordination for cars, etc.
For example: Lakeshore, Front/Wellington/Eastern, Richmond/Adelaide/Eastern, Spadina, University/Avenue, Yonge, Jarvis/Mt Pleasant, possibly Parliament


There would also be transit priority routes, but these are omitted for clarity. I think we all know them anyway (Queens Quay, Bremner, King, Queen, College, Dundas, Bathurst, Spadina etc).

Love the map. The only issue I have is that what you call orange, other people call yellow (I hope this doesn't turn into a black and blue, white and gold dress thing)

 

[ShonTron]

I'd like to see Yonge Street a pedestrian/cyclist priority route, and keep Bay Street a through auto route. There are more buses on Bay, more trucks, no streetcar tracks unlike parts of Bay and Church. Yonge needs wider sidewalks, and since it really doesn't get a lot of traffic, at least south of Davenport/Church, it can do with all this.

 

[the lemur]

Even with a "separated" barrier, these "bike lanes" are always covered with snow in the winter, they are often removed for condo construction sites, and the barrier often gets removed and cars park in them.

I don't know whether anyone here has seen Margaret Wente's anti-bike articles in the Globe and Mail. See for example <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/where-are-all-the-women-cyclists/article25369940/>. There are so many hazards for anyone who bikes downtown - potholes, uneven road surfaces, garbage accumulating on the side of the road, streetcar tracks, cars opening doors, parked cars, construction, aggressive drivers, rain, snow, you name it. Just putting a handful of these "separated" bike lanes on a couple of major roads doesn't mean that riding a bike in downtown Toronto isn't insanely dangerous. Also the bike share system is only used by a few thousand people a day (compared to around 400000 people who work downtown), has lost money, and only still exists because TD's marketing department bailed it out for a few years. Not surprisingly, only 2% of Toronto's population rides a bike to work and only 1% of the GTA's population does (Statistics Canada). I think that the vast majority of Toronto's population realizes that bicycling is dangerous and would never dream of doing it, but the incompetent city council of this city keeps wasting money on this nonsense.

Um, the separated lanes on Adelaide and Richmond were plowed for at least part of the past winter.

Margaret Wente has zero - ZERO - credibility on bike issues (in the days following her piece on the lack of women cyclists, I actually saw more women riding bikes than men) and is, like you, a ridiculous concern troll.

The hazards you mention mostly apply to drivers and pedestrians - parked cars and uneven road surfaces, oh my! - and yet no one suggests those are 'insanely dangerous'. Seriously, stop the hand-wringing and get a clue.

 

[the lemur]

I'd actually take the opposite approach to complete streets. Rather than trying to equally accommodate every mode on every street, we could prioritize/optimize streets based on what they do best. That way we can actually provide enough space for each mode to operate efficiently, and it also cuts down the number of turning conflicts.

To me, Richmond and Adelaide, as well as Eastern, Wellington and Front, are ideal car-priority routes. They share an interchange with the DVP, which is basically impassable for bicycles. So the permanent design i'd like is the one we used to have, with 4 car lanes in one direction.

I think Richmond and Adelaide actually work as bike/car routes because they're one-way, meaning that there is no oncoming traffic resulting in time-consuming left turns, and because they have very little transit to speak of. Wellington doesn't work that well for bikes, but Front could also use some bike infrastructure - it currently has unusually wide curb lanes between Spadina and York/University, and again, no transit really. Having a bike connection between the Union Station area and Portland St/Puente de Luz would help a lot.

 

[Tuscani01]

It helps that Richmond and Adelaide have synchronized lights too. I went all the way from Parliament to Spadina without having to stop yesterday! So much better than the Gardiner and way less volume.

 

[andrewpmk]

Really?

Just because most of Toronto's bike lanes are not great examples of safe infrastructure does not mean that safe cycling infrastructure is impossible.



It is definitely true that the main reason that 98% of trips are not made by bicycle is the public's perception of safety. That's precisely the reason that we are "wasting money on this nonsense" by building safer-seeming bicycle infrastructure.

I encourage you to watch Richmond/Adelaide at rush hour along the existing bike lane. The bike lane carries far more people than each of the car lanes, which suggests that installing them increased the capacity of the street. Isn't reducing congestion a goal we all share regardless of where we live or how we travel?

The number of people riding bikes on Richmond/Adelaide is a few thousand people a day. Compared to the 400000 people who work downtown or the 7000000 people who live in the GTA this is a rounding error.

In 2010 according to Statistics Canada out of 2,582,780 people in the Toronto CMA (which is most of the GTA) who had jobs, 1,666,420 drove, 601,365 used transit, and 30,135 rode bikes. It ought to be pretty obvious which methods of transportation city council should be spending its money on.

The city's own data shows that "bike lanes" are unsafe and that it basically makes no difference whether there is a bike lane or not. It is not perception, it is reality. Bicyclists regularly get killed in the GTA even though only a tiny tiny minority of the population rides a bike. Bike lanes are a fad. Ten years ago they were uncommon and twenty years ago they were practically non-existent. Anyone who rides a bike in this city with or without bike lanes is putting their life at risk. I do not think there is much public support for the bike fad, the vast majority of people agree with me that bike lanes are a bad idea and would never dream of riding a bike in Toronto (except on off road bike paths). City council is incompetent and so is Jennifer Keesmaat who pushes the bike lane fad as well as crazy ideas like demolishing the Gardiner Expressway that I suspect that the vast majority of the population does not support.

There was an article in the New York Times about how Los Angeles is wasting money on this nonsense. Hardly anyone either uses transit or rides bike there. I think if they actually improved their transit system (i.e. if they completed the Wilshire subway and improved the bus system and improved their commuter rail system) then people would use it a lot more because LA traffic is even worse than Toronto. The number of people who ride a bike to work there is 1% and always will be. Basically all "bike lanes" do is make traffic worse (by reducing road capacity) while they are so dangerous that no one in their right mind rides a bike on them. And Los Angeles doesn't have winter like Toronto does.

 

[smably]

The number of people riding bikes on Richmond/Adelaide is a few thousand people a day. Compared to the 400000 people who work downtown or the 7000000 people who live in the GTA this is a rounding error.

crazy ideas like demolishing the Gardiner Expressway that I suspect that the vast majority of the population does not support.

LOL. This dude wants to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to keep the Gardiner up to serve 5000 cars per day, complains that only a few thousand people per day use the Richmond/Adelaide lanes, which were basically free in comparison.

 

[the lemur]

The number of people riding bikes on Richmond/Adelaide is a few thousand people a day. Compared to the 400000 people who work downtown or the 7000000 people who live in the GTA this is a rounding error.

In 2010 according to Statistics Canada out of 2,582,780 people in the Toronto CMA (which is most of the GTA) who had jobs, 1,666,420 drove, 601,365 used transit, and 30,135 rode bikes. It ought to be pretty obvious which methods of transportation city council should be spending its money on.

The city's own data shows that "bike lanes" are unsafe and that it basically makes no difference whether there is a bike lane or not. It is not perception, it is reality. Bicyclists regularly get killed in the GTA even though only a tiny tiny minority of the population rides a bike. Bike lanes are a fad. Ten years ago they were uncommon and twenty years ago they were practically non-existent. Anyone who rides a bike in this city with or without bike lanes is putting their life at risk. I do not think there is much public support for the bike fad, the vast majority of people agree with me that bike lanes are a bad idea and would never dream of riding a bike in Toronto (except on off road bike paths). City council is incompetent and so is Jennifer Keesmaat who pushes the bike lane fad as well as crazy ideas like demolishing the Gardiner Expressway that I suspect that the vast majority of the population does not support.

There was an article in the New York Times about how Los Angeles is wasting money on this nonsense. Hardly anyone either uses transit or rides bike there. I think if they actually improved their transit system (i.e. if they completed the Wilshire subway and improved the bus system and improved their commuter rail system) then people would use it a lot more because LA traffic is even worse than Toronto. The number of people who ride a bike to work there is 1% and always will be. Basically all "bike lanes" do is make traffic worse (by reducing road capacity) while they are so dangerous that no one in their right mind rides a bike on them. And Los Angeles doesn't have winter like Toronto does.

Just because it's a small modal share doesn't mean it's not valid as a mode. You yourself have claimed there is 'no need' to bike around town because it is 'easy to get around using walking and public transportation', ignoring the fact that beyond a certain distance, walking is impractical - besides being just as much of a 'rounding error' in terms of mode share - and that public transit is not entirely reliable or practical for everyone either.

The city's own data shows bike lanes are unsafe? Citation?

Bicyclists regularly get killed in the GTA

How 'regularly'? Also, we're talking about biking in Toronto, not in the GTA as a whole, where numbers and safety are entirely different.

Ten years ago bike lanes were 'uncommon'? What the hell was I riding on in 2005 then? Or in 1995, such as the St George/Beverley lanes?

Anyone who rides a bike in this city with or without bike lanes is putting their life at risk

Same as walking or driving then. Anything is dangerous if you make risky choices or aren't analytical.

Yeah, it's such a fad that the numbers are going up year over year in terms of the number of riders and the amount of bike infra being built. Of course.

the vast majority of people agree with me that bike lanes are a bad idea

Oh, you've spoken to them all, huh?

Basically all "bike lanes" do

Why the quotes? It's not as if bike lanes are imaginary.

is make traffic worse (by reducing road capacity) while they are so dangerous that no one in their right mind rides a bike on them

Bikes are traffic and the road capacity remains the same because bikes are vehicles too. Separated bike lanes are safer AND they have little to no negative effect on traffic flow because different types of vehicles are kept out of each other's way.

I get it, you don't like bikes. But if your argument boils down to 'Insanely dangerous! Stop doing that!' without any data to back it up, sorry, that's just a bunch of hand-wringing alarmism.

 

[the lemur]

LOL. This dude wants to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to keep the Gardiner up to serve 5000 cars per day, complains that only a few thousand people per day use the Richmond/Adelaide lanes, which were basically free in comparison.

In 2010 according to Statistics Canada out of 2,582,780 people in the Toronto CMA (which is most of the GTA) who had jobs, 1,666,420 drove, 601,365 used transit, and 30,135 rode bikes. It ought to be pretty obvious which methods of transportation city council should be spending its money on

Yes, let's build our way out of traffic congestion! More roads, wider roads - those'll never fill up with cars again, right?

 

[Tuscani01]

In 2010 according to Statistics Canada out of 2,582,780 people in the Toronto CMA (which is most of the GTA) who had jobs, 1,666,420 drove, 601,365 used transit, and 30,135 rode bikes. It ought to be pretty obvious which methods of transportation city council should be spending its money on.

Your logic is completely flawed.

You assume that the city ISNT spending more money on roads and transit, and that bicycle infrastructure is getting an equal share of funding.

That is not the case. Cycling is currently getting the least amount of money compared to roads and transit. It's pennies compared to the other methods. So yes, the city is aware of what it should be spending its money on, and already does so accordingly.

That doesn't mean the city has to or should completely eliminate its budget for cycling infrastructure. 30,000 is a lot of cyclists and accommodating these commuters with cycling infrastructure is MUCH cheaper than accommodating them on transit or roads. Improving their safety also leads to an increase in cycling, thereby reducing the pressure on transit and on roads.

You're just being ridiculous.

 

[mdrejhon]

"Separated bike lanes" are a fad. One of the many dumb things that city council wastes money on. Riding a bike in Toronto is extremely dangerous with or without separated or unseparated bike lanes.

Drum roll...

Allow me to present New York City.

Thanks to New York City's forward-looking creativity in installing bike infrastructure, certain New York City streets now has more bikes than cars during some times of the day.

The massive expansion New York City did in bike infrastructure, has created massive growth in people switching from overcrowded driving/transit to cycling.

Now we actually see parents and kids cycling in the middle of New York City!

And get this, there's ways to install protected bike lanes with minimal infrastructure cost and disruption to traffic:

New York City did these kinds of creativity, and then some.

I am a car owner, I drive,
...but I understand what New York city is doing.

Statistically, only 8 percent of cyclists would just use a simple painted line.
But more cyclists uses semi-protected lanes (e.g. parking protected, etc)
Then even more cyclists use fully protected lanes (e.g. full curb-separated cycle track)
Then usage snowballs when all the cycle lanes connect to each other in a good grid (Sherbourne improved when connected to the new Queens Quay)

You can also image that a subway network is not very useful if it's full of dead-end not-connected short-routes. Likewise for a protected bike network. It needs to be safe enough that you can let your grandma or your 10 year old kid ride a bike through downtown Toronto.

With that, bike traffic as road-surface share can become competitive or surpass with car traffic. (e.g. if 1/6th of road surface is allocated to bikes, then it's fair to have 1 bike for every 6 cars. Looks are deceiving when you realize how little space bike infrastructure takes. This is routinely far surpassed in some cities that do bike infrastructure properly! Yes, even New York City during good days! Roads moving more people during peak hour, than if was 100% allocated to cars. Roads are for people, not just cars.

Even the a car driving magazine (Wheels Magazine) just endorsed more bike infrastructure. A car driving magazine! (Link #2: TheStar commentary on this surprise) Now, today parents ride with their kids through downtown New York City nowadays. Can we do that in Toronto yet?

(end textbook case study drum roll)

*bows*