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Cycling infrastructure (Separated bike lanes)

I forgot about Russel Hill. Yes it would be amazing if the city could connect Russel Hill to Belt line and St. George lanes together somewhere over Dupont.

I don't think Rosedale residents should get much say. Bike lanes should be connected and it's not like hey bring pollution of much noise. The roadsnthere have plenty of space to support dedicated lanes. City priorities should trump local area concerns. Besides the residents would have full access to a much better connected network of lanes .
 
WislaHD said:
I believe if we gave Toronto a long, hard look, we could conceive of some potential routes for cycling super-highways.
Click to expand...

West Toronto Railpath, once it makes it all the way downtown, would be excellent, and grade-separated.

Although I wish all the new trails were designed so that they aren't multi-use, but have two separate areas, one for cyclists, and one for pedestrians. Multi-use is okay in less congested stretches, like the hydro corridors, but becomes annoying (for both pedestrians and cyclists) in places like some parts of the Martin Goodman Trail, or the Railpath. Ideally, I'd love to see 4 m for bi-directional cycling and 2 m for walking, with a small curb, or some tactile surface (like rough paving stones) as separation. There's an example of this on the trail at Eglinton.
 
I strongly believe we also need more and better direct, protected N-S connections to facilitate uptown-downtown bike commuting. I've long thought Avenue Rd. from roughly Lawrence to downtown would be a good candidate to take a lane from; most people I've talked to about that have a problem with the degree of incline up from Davenport to Upper Canada College, but you've gotta get up the hill somewhere.
 
ADRM said:
I strongly believe we also need more and better direct, protected N-S connections to facilitate uptown-downtown bike commuting. I've long thought Avenue Rd. from roughly Lawrence to downtown would be a good candidate to take a lane from; most people I've talked to about that have a problem with the degree of incline up from Davenport to Upper Canada College, but you've gotta get up the hill somewhere.
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That one is a tough one to navigate - I personally really don't like cycling up hills and I am a young fit 20 something guy. The end-goal should be that everyone no matter age, fitness and ability, who can cycle, could use the infrastructure for travel.

Avenue Road is not a street to wage a cycling vs auto war on, I'll tell you that. If the outcry over Jarvis was any indication, I think cyclists would have less luck trying to convince the drivers of Deer Park, Summerhill, Forest Hill and Glencairn-Lawrence area that they should part with a lane, especially with the road as congested as it is during rush hour.

But, with that being said, I do think that the road width is large enough at many points that we can squeeze more room into the existing cycling lane (that exists north of UCC) without sacrifizing a driving lane. Adding some sort of bollards or other barrier would do a wonder of good for both cyclist and driver. Or, even more innovatively, extend the sidewalks and put the cycling lane onto the sidewalk. I know that is crazy talk in this city, but sidewalk-graded cycling lanes really does work!

Alternatively, a nearby N-S street could be the location of this infrastructure. Russell Hill was mentioned above, or perhaps Forest Hill Rd + Poplar Plains Rd, or combination of both?
 
WislaHD said:
That one is a tough one to navigate - I personally really don't like cycling up hills and I am a young fit 20 something guy. The end-goal should be that everyone no matter age, fitness and ability, who can cycle, could use the infrastructure for travel.

Avenue Road is not a street to wage a cycling vs auto war on, I'll tell you that. If the outcry over Jarvis was any indication, I think cyclists would have less luck trying to convince the drivers of Deer Park, Summerhill, Forest Hill and Glencairn-Lawrence area that they should part with a lane, especially with the road as congested as it is during rush hour.

But, with that being said, I do think that the road width is large enough at many points that we can squeeze more room into the existing cycling lane (that exists north of UCC) without sacrifizing a driving lane. Adding some sort of bollards or other barrier would do a wonder of good for both cyclist and driver. Or, even more innovatively, extend the sidewalks and put the cycling lane onto the sidewalk. I know that is crazy talk in this city, but sidewalk-graded cycling lanes really does work!

Alternatively, a nearby N-S street could be the location of this infrastructure. Russell Hill was mentioned above, or perhaps Forest Hill Rd + Poplar Plains Rd, or combination of both?
Click to expand...

Yeah, totally hear you on every point. I don't like Russell Hill personally because it's not separated and because drivers treat it like the Nurburgring, and I think it's also problematic for commuting both because it has no real useful southward access point other than St. Clair and because it's super windy and not particularly direct.

I bike north up Poplar Plains every so often -- it's a helluva climb, to be sure, but I'm not sure how you construct a N-S commuter route that doesn't require a hill-conquering somewhere. I like the notion of Avenue over some of the other options because it's so direct -- it satisfies the "get it over with" component, as it's pretty much a straight shot up over the most extremely inclined stretch.

To your point, it's also wide enough to land a 747 on over that same stretch, so it'd conceivably be less offensive to the safety-hating motorist set than, say, Yonge or Bathurst. Plus, Carmichael Greb is currently engaged in discussions regarding how to slow traffic along part of it (though I of course question the level of commitment to those efforts) and I believe community council (or perhaps PWIC) recently approved the removal of one lane of traffic along the public school on the west side of Avenue just south of St. Clair due do pedestrian safety concerns.
 
2) Martin Goodman Trail - If made wider and more direct at certain stretches, could double as one, although obviously lower speed than ideal, and a mixed-use trail once it reaches the Harbourfront area.

I think in some way there needs to be a MGT bypass through downtown...maybe on the north side of lakeshore, or via Bremner (if we're not building a streetcar). MGT is great, but congested...potentially it would add better connections to the rail corridor and the north/south routes.
 
You can take the old trail on the south side of Lake Shore but it's in pretty crappy condition and the crossings at intersections aren't great
 
I can't seem to find it now, but I thought there were some plans at some point to make an alternate trail on Lake Shore, based on the original trail, to bypass congestion on Queen's Quay. The planned bike lanes on Harbour would be part of it. There is also the Bentway project, under the Gardiner. Not sure how far that will stretch.
 
Yup. I believe the plan long term is to connect the Bentway with a bike trail running under the Gardiner to where the GO Transit Don Yard is, and reconnect there.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Yup. I believe the plan long term is to connect the Bentway with a bike trail running under the Gardiner to where the GO Transit Don Yard is, and reconnect there.
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I believe all that's right, though I'm positive we'll wind up with very MGT-esque pedestrian vs. cyclist issues along the Bentway stretch.

Even after all of this is done, we still won't have (even a nascent) London-esque cycle superhighway structure. Toronto councillors and staff simply haven't embraced cycling as a real method of commuting in the city, unfortunately, and they're not currently designing or planning for any infrastructure that signals a change in that regard.
 
The Bentway is for "relaxed, recreational" biking -- it's not going to function well as a by-pass or cycle highway.
 
I mean a lot of this has already been laid out in the 2012 bikeway expansion plan

toronto-trails-meeting.png

and the 2016 bike path plan
Council_Approved_CityMap.JPG
 
robmausser said:
I mean a lot of this has already been laid out in the 2012 bikeway expansion plan

toronto-trails-meeting.png

and the 2016 bike path plan
Council_Approved_CityMap.JPG
Click to expand...

True, though I don't think this is a particular useful or helpful plan (especially for commuters), and the 10-year network plan is a bad joke.

If we get a legit progressive mayor post-Tory in 2022, I think that's our next shot at seeing the city's first legit bike infrastructure proposal.
 
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