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Toronto’s Bike Lane Feud at an All-Time High
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Cycling infrastructure (Separated bike lanes)

Admiral Beez said:
Bummer. You should see the Don Valley trail, it's been nothing but a mud-filled trench for two summers now.

What bugs me is that the city does the demolition work and removing the use of the trails, and then scours the earth to prepare for the replacement trail.... and then seemingly does nothing afterward.
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In this case, as discussed at great length in UT, the contractor discovered that the underground conditions were unstable so they had to do more engineering and get more $$$. See https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threa...arated-bike-lanes.15478/page-362#post-2091951 is the latest, I think.
 
This was being installed on Bloor West today, The worker doing the task commented “we keep trying different things to get the drivers to turn where they are supposed to…. The bollards are getting pretty beat up”

- Paul
IMG_8503.jpeg
 
crs1026 said:
This was being installed on Bloor West today, The worker doing the task commented “we keep trying different things to get the drivers to turn where they are supposed to…. The bollards are getting pretty beat up”

- Paul
View attachment 569579
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This is fairly standard patterning. Its the interim measure since they're not reconstructing the road here. When the road is re-done, they'll actually move the curbs, put-in bump outs and medians and physically separate the cycle track wherever possible.

But for now, while in Flexipost mode, the patterned paint is a visible cue as to how to drive the area.
 
pav said:
Adelaide St & York St intersection new protected bike island ..
but the cyclist are confused and using the outer side to go throughView attachment 568571
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slicecom said:
I rode through here yesterday and was the only cyclist to actually follow the painted lines. Unfortunately pedestrians were all over the bike path and I got squeezed into that curb and hit my pedal on it. If this is the final design, it will definitely need some revisions.
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There will be modifications. Not quite sure what. But its being looked at.
 
This is probably not the place to mention it, but I had to do advance voting for the mayoral election in Mississauga, and I was having a hard time making a decision.

CBC showed a summary of their platforms, and I noticed only one candidate actually had anything close to a decent cycling platform, which happens to be Carolyn Parrish.

This section of her platform is what sold me:

Lines of paint do not make our busy roads safe for cyclists. Before repaving any roads serious consultations must be had to evaluate the need for speed humps and cycling curbs for the safety of those who choose cycling as their mode of transportation.
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Source: https://www.carolynparrish.ca/

When cycling I much, much prefer bike lanes with actual curbs and there's a real scarcity of proper bike lanes in Mississauga. Someone on her campaign must be a cyclist.
 
Admiral Beez said:
Thanks. Damn, couldn't the contractor have spot tested the underground conditions before destroying the existing trail?
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I think they did but their spots were OK while others were not. Building along a river bank is clearly risky but I agree 100% that it has all taken FAR too long! This is now on the Project website:

May 2024​

Work is progressing with revised foundation construction for the elevated sloped path. This foundation work will help stabilize the ground to address poor soil conditions discovered in late 2023. This additional work, and delays in obtaining the required structural steel, have impacted the sequencing for the fabrication and installation of the elevated ramp at Riverdale pedestrian bridge and the new staircase at Dundas Street bridge, delaying the project completion date.

While this work will continue through winter 2024/2025, other landscape and site restoration work will need to be completed in spring 2025 because it cannot be done during the winter. With construction ongoing until July 2025, the active construction site will stay closed for public safety.

The City continues to work closely with the contractor to identify opportunities to complete the work sooner and investigate where work can be phased to allow for earlier opening at sections of the trail, if feasible.

See: https://www.toronto.ca/city-governm...ents-expansion-redevelopment/lower-don-trail/
 
DSC said:
I think they did but their spots were OK while others were not. Building along a river bank is clearly risky but I agree 100% that it has all taken FAR too long! This is now on the Project website:

May 2024​

Work is progressing with revised foundation construction for the elevated sloped path. This foundation work will help stabilize the ground to address poor soil conditions discovered in late 2023. This additional work, and delays in obtaining the required structural steel, have impacted the sequencing for the fabrication and installation of the elevated ramp at Riverdale pedestrian bridge and the new staircase at Dundas Street bridge, delaying the project completion date.

While this work will continue through winter 2024/2025, other landscape and site restoration work will need to be completed in spring 2025 because it cannot be done during the winter. With construction ongoing until July 2025, the active construction site will stay closed for public safety.

The City continues to work closely with the contractor to identify opportunities to complete the work sooner and investigate where work can be phased to allow for earlier opening at sections of the trail, if feasible.

See: https://www.toronto.ca/city-governm...ents-expansion-redevelopment/lower-don-trail/
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Can never be angry w/DSC for reporting the news, but the Red Face is called for.........to indicate that the way in which this project has been managed is not acceptable.
 
DSC said:
While this work will continue through winter 2024/2025, other landscape and site restoration work will need to be completed in spring 2025 because it cannot be done during the winter. With construction ongoing until July 2025
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Which in government-speak means winter 2025, so first use of the trails in spring 2026. FFS, it's still spring 2024. I know communist dictatorships are bad, but I have to admire how the PRC gets things like trails, roads and railways done fast and seemingly sufficiently well.
 
I think we poked much fun at them in the fall when they put out the last update indicating things were taking longer than normal because they'd recently discovered that the site was narrow and located between the Don River and a rail corridor, which complicated things.
 
Admiral Beez said:
Which in government-speak means winter 2025, so first use of the trails in spring 2026. FFS, it's still spring 2024. I know communist dictatorships are bad, but I have to admire how the PRC gets things like trails, roads and railways done fast and seemingly sufficiently well.
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They mean everything will be open by July next year.

Whether they achieve that.........given the track record here..........
 
Toronto Star columnist Matt Elliot's take on the 2025-2027 bike plans. tl;dr he basically agrees with Rob Z about the lack of ambition or prioritizing of bike infra, and that the city is patting itself on the back for achieving middling success rates at building what they promised three years ago.

Some key bits for those paywalled:

The report says they’re “on track to deliver 75 kilometres of the 100 kilometres of new bikeways committed by the end of 2024.” The report implies that’s an achievement, noting that it represents an upward trend over the previous rate of installation, but, well, let’s be real. In school, scoring 75 out of 100 generally earns you a B. It’s not a failure. But it’s not great either. It’s just … OK.
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Remember those 25 kilometres of bike lanes that were part of the previous plan but not built for whatever reason? They’ve been carried over and included in the new plan. So a full quarter of the new three-year plan is just parts of the old three-year plan that the city never got around to finishing.
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It also acknowledges that the scale of this bike plan will “fall below” the commitment council made in their TransformTO Net Zero climate change mitigation plan to increase the share of people who use their bikes to make short trips to work or school to 14 per cent by 2030. (It was last measured at 5.6 per cent in 2016.)
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crs1026 said:
This was being installed on Bloor West today, The worker doing the task commented “we keep trying different things to get the drivers to turn where they are supposed to…. The bollards are getting pretty beat up”

- Paul
View attachment 569579
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I literally rode the entire Bloor West bikeway yesterday... how did I miss this? Must have gone in in the afternoon.
 
slicecom said:
I rode through here yesterday and was the only cyclist to actually follow the painted lines. Unfortunately pedestrians were all over the bike path and I got squeezed into that curb and hit my pedal on it. If this is the final design, it will definitely need some revisions.
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Quick video I shot there the other day. When this many cyclists all go the wrong way, it's an issue of design. I assume more paint is going in, and possibly permanent bollards/posts instead of tippy traffic cones. But it's still not a good placement, likely due to the streetcar tracks.

https://imgur.com/a/92x7aVO
 
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