Cycling infrastructure (Separated bike lanes)

[TransitPolicyChanger]

Ford wants to get rid of the Jarvis bike lanes now. I never quite agreed with the Jarvis bike lanes in the first place (even as a rider that used to ride up Jarvis), buy it seems a bit odd to do this now... unless they can get those separated bike lanes in place sooner rather than later.

I think we all saw this coming. Jarvis was the "fast way" to get around the core, and these bike lanes have ruined that. By which I mean with an extra lane the drive may have been slightly faster in one direction, but by no means great. Jarvis has two bottlenecks, you may speed from the Mt. Pleasant turn to Shuter, but once you hit Queen forget it.

This is Ford's way of slowly converting the City to his dream of every square foot of road space must be occupied by a car.

Personally, I would go with the separated bike lanes, in median style, and ban all lefts on Jarvis. Never going to happen, and may not be practical. But its worth a try, even if we use removable bollards and only operate it outside of the winter months.

 

[nfitz]

Has it really created that much congestion on Jarvis? Walking around the neighbourhood, the only place I've really seen lots of congestion on Jarvis is south of King. But as the 5-lane piece never was south of Queen, it would appear to be unrelated.

 

[GraphicMatt]

There is no evidence that the removal of the middle lane on Jarvis has significantly impacted travel times. Before the bike lanes were installed, the average trip up or down Jarvis street took between six and eight minutes. Since the bike lane was installed, the average trip takes between six and nine minutes. (A bad left-turn signal northbound at Gerrard is causing extra delays, but that's not really material to this conversation.)

More here: http://www.thestar.com/news/transpo...otorists-on-jarvis-after-bike-lanes-installed

 

[nfitz]

Maybe the answer is just to re-time the lights slightly ... seems a lot of gravy to spend.

 

[Eug]

There is no evidence that the removal of the middle lane on Jarvis has significantly impacted travel times. Before the bike lanes were installed, the average trip up or down Jarvis street took between six and eight minutes. Since the bike lane was installed, the average trip takes between six and nine minutes. (A bad left-turn signal northbound at Gerrard is causing extra delays, but that's not really material to this conversation.)

More here: http://www.thestar.com/news/transpo...otorists-on-jarvis-after-bike-lanes-installed

According to the radio report, the city has measured a 3-4 minute increase in travel times southbound, and a 1 minute difference in travel time northbound.

1 minute is not a big deal, but 3-4 mins is pretty significant.

BTW, I didn't catch if that was morning or afternoon rush hour, or referred to aspects of both.

EDIT:

According to that article you linked, it is in fact 4 minutes for the northbound afternoon rush. Why did you leave that out?

"But the northbound afternoon rush is taking longer with some car trips taking up to 14 minutes — four minutes longer than the eight to 10 minutes forecast by the city."

14 minutes just to go up Jarvis in the afternoon? That would majorly suck.

If that's the case, maybe I do support the removal of these bike lanes after all... but they need to push some money into those separated bike lanes on those other streets too.

The more I think about it, the more I think Ford will try to push this through. This will win him a lot of votes in midtown Toronto.

 

[GraphicMatt]

I referred to that part specifically -- the extra delay going northbound is due to cars turning left at Gerrard Street, something the Transportation Services department has plans to fix this summer. It has nothing to do with the bike lanes.

 

[Eug]

I referred to that part specifically -- the extra delay going northbound is due to cars turning left at Gerrard Street, something the Transportation Services department has plans to fix this summer. It has nothing to do with the bike lanes.

Didn't that exist before? (I can't remember.) If so then the delay is still the delay.

They can still remove the bike lines AND remove the left turn.

Or are you saying they added that when they added the bike lanes?

 

[TrickyRicky]

I'm comfortable both biking and driving in mixed traffic. Personally, my perference is not for separated bike lanes.

That said, the delay times for vehicular traffic are poor arguments. The reality is that traffic will get worse and worse every year no matter what, and bike and pedestrian traffic will increase.

To be honest I would rather see expanded sidewalks as a preferred alternative to silo-ed transportation usage. Meaning the roads shouldn't be delineated for cars or bikes or trucks or public transit or donkeys.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Didn't that exist before? (I can't remember.) If so then the delay is still the delay.

They can still remove the bike lines AND remove the left turn.

Or are you saying they added that when they added the bike lanes?

Prior to the installation of the bike lanes, Jarvis was five lanes wide. The middle reversible lane served as a de facto left-turn lane at intersections. Now that Jarvis is four lanes, they simply need to make an adjustment -- either to signal timing or adding a protected green arrow or whatever -- to remove the bottleneck. The problem is that, at this intersection, cars waiting to turn left and to turn right impede all through traffic.

 

[GraphicMatt]

I'm comfortable both biking and driving in mixed traffic. Personally, my perference is not for separated bike lanes.

That said, the delay times for vehicular traffic are poor arguments. The reality is that traffic will get worse and worse every year no matter what, and bike and pedestrian traffic will increase.

To be honest I would rather see expanded sidewalks as a preferred alternative to silo-ed transportation usage. Meaning the roads shouldn't be delineated for cars or bikes or trucks or public transit or donkeys.

Truthfully, I'd rather the city had stuck with a more holistic approach to the beautification of Jarvis Street. The reversible lane always needed to be removed, but I might have preferred wider sidewalks to bike lanes. Or a landscaped median. As it happened, discussion of further improvements to Jarvis seemed to grind to a halt after the bike lanes were installed.

But the lanes were installed and removing them now would be the definition of silly.

 

[nfitz]

Well they don't call it Silly Hall for nothing ...

 

[Eug]

Prior to the installation of the bike lanes, Jarvis was five lanes wide. The middle reversible lane served as a de facto left-turn lane at intersections. Now that Jarvis is four lanes, they simply need to make an adjustment -- either to signal timing or adding a protected green arrow or whatever -- to remove the bottleneck. The problem is that, at this intersection, cars waiting to turn left and to turn right impede all through traffic.

So, in other words, you did leave out important info to serve your argument. I'm sure many of the drivers would advocate expanding it back to 5 lanes and removing that left turn signal, in order to speed things up, considering that Jarvis was relatively slow even before the bike lanes were put in. Adding the bike lanes just made it that much worse.

 

[GraphicMatt]

So, in other words, you did leave out important info to serve your argument. I'm sure many of the drivers would advocate expanding it back to 5 lanes and removing that left turn signal, in order to speed things up, considering that Jarvis was relatively slow even before the bike lanes were put in. Adding the bike lanes just made it that much worse.

I didn't leave anything out of my argument. I referred to the bottleneck northbound in my original post. Traffic Services believes they have a fix for it. It's not material to this discussion beyond that. Once this bottleneck is removed, the installation of the bike lanes will have added an average of one to two minutes to the average peak travel time.

 

[whatever]

Though I don't have any numbers to back it up, my personal observation of living on Jarvis is that since the bike lanes have gone in it's become much more difficult to get a break in traffic to cross midblock as a pedestrian, northbound traffic seems to be backing up much worse than before in the afternoons, and it feels like there's been a massive increase in cyclists using the sidewalk.

It isn't all the light at Gerrard, either. Traffic backs up badly at Maitland as well. It's not uncommon to see it jammed from Maitland back past the Ballet School.

Restoring it to the original state would be an improvement, but ultimately I still want to see the landscaped median that the community was pushing for during all of the consultations.

 

[Eug]

I didn't leave anything out of my argument. I referred to the bottleneck northbound in my original post. Traffic Services believes they have a fix for it. It's not material to this discussion beyond that. Once this bottleneck is removed, the installation of the bike lanes will have added an average of one to two minutes to the average peak travel time.

The point is you're not comparing apples to oranges. You're comparing what you want to compare only because it makes your argument sound better. Too bad it's not the whole truth. An honest comparison is an apples to apples comparison ie. with bike lane vs. without bike lane. If you want to remove that turn, then the valid comparison is with bike lane without that turn vs. without bike lane, without that turn.

Without that turn (or those turns as the case may be), and 5 lanes, the Jarvis trip by car would likely be even faster than it was before.