Cycling infrastructure (Separated bike lanes)

[MisterF]

^That 20,000 number will go down and the 400 will go up. The way we build our streets has a big impact on how people use them, as has been shown with other similar projects.

In any case, I'm not sure what these observations are trying to prove exactly. It takes time for people's habits to respond to infrastructure changes. It doesn't happen overnight or even in a single year. And a single street having cycle tracks isn't going to get the same results as an interconnected network. The current cycling numbers are just the beginning.

 

[turbanplanner]

"is a few dozen cars worth people biking dying over"?

Thanks for putting words in my mouth!

Where does it say the bike traffic was over two hours? I saw it's over 14 hours but I could be misreading it and that's ~400 bikes, vs up to 10,000 cars.

Also this is at a PEAK cycling time of year, if you consider rain/extreme heat and the cold months that we have 5 of each year that 400 a day figure could be 40 or less. Again it'll be interesting to see the longer term figures but my money is that you have LESS people overall per day moving across the road hence making it less efficient.

 

[turbanplanner]

Not sure what these observations are trying to prove exactly. It takes time for people's habits to respond to infrastructure changes. It doesn't happen overnight or even in a single year. And a single street having cycle tracks isn't going to get the same results as an interconnected network. The current numbers are encouraging and will only go up from there.

What if this long term "network" still doesn't shift enough behavior to offset the decrease in capacity?

It also shows a 50-60% increase in vehicle travel times, with vehicle travel times increasing from about 8 minutes to 12-13 minutes.

About 20,000 vehicles a day use the road according to that data compared to about 400 bicycles a day, post-bike lanes.

So 98% of trips on the roadway experienced a 50-60% increase in travel times in order to better accommodate 2% of trips made on the street.

I'm not sure this report is as resounding as many want to make it out to be.

The other thing people aren't mentioning is the weekly TTC rush hour shutdowns are slowed even more as shuttle busses are caught up in the longer travel times to move around...

 

[TRONto]

Sorry, I should’ve said six times A small number is still a small number, it’s just funny if anybody in Scarborough for a Subway the usage is too low, but a few dozen bikes is worth cutting road capacity in half

It's not cutting the road capacity in half. At all times, whenever there is a second lane, there is someone illegally parked there which dramatically backs up traffic at rush hour. In addition to that, we have our usual construction anywhere and everywhere.

 

[innsertnamehere]

It's not cutting the road capacity in half. At all times, whenever there is a second lane, there is someone illegally parked there which dramatically backs up traffic at rush hour. In addition to that, we have our usual construction anywhere and everywhere.

It may not be cutting capacity in half, but the data is showing that it's increasing travel times by 50-60%.

 

[TRONto]

Toronto doesn't have a good solution due to the nature of our road system. We need some streets to allow for fast movement around the city and others should allow for fast bike travel across the city. Due to where our bike lanes are setup, we should have some of the other streets like Dundas West optimized for car travel. One weekend, I was driving on Queen street, all the parking was removed and most importantly, the TPA was driving along the parked lanes removing all the cars. That should be how it is for every rush hours (and always in certain spots like around Eaton Centre). I also think that Toronto got a bit ahead of itself putting bike lanes west of Jane on Bloor. The many condos will come with no car parking and tons of bike parking, but right now that's 7-10 years away.

 

[turbanplanner]

It's not cutting the road capacity in half. At all times, whenever there is a second lane, there is someone illegally parked there which dramatically backs up traffic at rush hour. In addition to that, we have our usual construction anywhere and everywhere.

The sections they added it to don't really have anywhere to illegally stop for it is either all residential with a large setback or has a parking cutout into the curb. This area is one of the few in the city that I see police and tow trucks when someone is blocking the road.

I'm ok with the bloor west village part just seems silly to have extended it westbound.

I'm in this area very often and the first is a photo of the tow truck called in by the police at rush hour, the rest are roads pre bike lane extension.

 

[smably]

I'm ok with the bloor west village part just seems silly to have extended it westbound.

What's your suggestion for a better safe east-west cycling route?

 

[Northern Light]

It also shows a 50-60% increase in vehicle travel times, with vehicle travel times increasing from about 8 minutes to 12-13 minutes.

Ummm

In only one 2-hour segment, in one direction, did travel time increase greater than 50%.

I agree that's material........ but its not the same as travel time in increasing by that much across most day parts or both directions.

***

That said, a closer examination reveals the majority of the impact occurs from a single block on the route:

Clearly the Kingway - Jane Segment is the real problem. The other increases are much less substantial. Add the other 3 segments together and the impact is ~1M to AM Peak EB travel times. Its that large difference in the one segment that's a real problem. Its fixable.

The City is on it:

About 20,000 vehicles a day use the road according to that data compared to about 400 bicycles a day, post-bike lanes.

Not correct. If you're using the maximum value for each peak automotive volume over 24 hours is 20,000 on one segment, peak cycling volume is 835

So 98% of trips on the roadway experienced a 50-60% increase in travel times

How did you arrive at this number? Most dayparts do not not show increases greater than 50% in either direction. So you're assuming in order to get a 98% that that 98% of all trips occur EB in the AM Peak? That seems suspect.

in order to better accommodate 2% of trips made on the street.

4.4% when using an apples to apples metric.

I'm not sure this report is as resounding as many want to make it out to be.

I don't think it is 'resounding' yet.

What it does show is a material increase in the rate of cycling, but a low attrition of the number of vehicles ~1%

But its worth adding some additional notes.

1) The configurations of the cycle tracks/parking etc have been involving as recently as May '24.

2) The cyclist measurements were from June '23, to April/May '24, that may slightly understate the cycling numbers.

3) Changes are ongoing.

 

[turbanplanner]

What's your suggestion for a better safe east-west cycling route?

How far west should it go? I'm ok with sections that make sense (east of jane basically in my book)

 

[innsertnamehere]

Ummm

In only one 2-hour segment, in one direction, did travel time increase greater than 50%.

I agree that's material........ but its not the same as travel time in increasing by that much across most day parts or both directions.

***

That said, a closer examination reveals the majority of the impact occurs from a single block on the route:

View attachment 577604

Clearly the Kingway - Jane Segment is the real problem. The other increases are much less substantial. Add the other 3 segments together and the impact is ~1M to AM Peak EB travel times. Its that large difference in the one segment that's a real problem. Its fixable.

The City is on it:

View attachment 577605



Not correct. If you're using the maximum value for each peak automotive volume over 24 hours is 20,000 on one segment, peak cycling volume is 835



How did you arrive at this number? Most dayparts do not not show increases greater than 50% in either direction. So you're assuming in order to get a 98% that that 98% of all trips occur EB in the AM Peak? That seems suspect.



4.4% when using an apples to apples metric.



I don't think it is 'resounding' yet.

What it does show is a material increase in the rate of cycling, but a low attrition of the number of vehicles ~1%

But its worth adding some additional notes.

1) The configurations of the cycle tracks/parking etc have been involving as recently as May '24.

2) The cyclist measurements were from June '23, to April/May '24, that may slightly understate the cycling numbers.

3) Changes are ongoing.

My travel time analysis comes from this graph:

You can see travel times jump from a pretty consistent 8-9 minutes to 12-13 minutes. This is about a 50% increase in travel time across the entire corridor. The bar charts you show are small snippets of individual sections of the corridor.

Similarly, vehicle traffic is relatively consistent across the corridor, generally 15-20,000 vehicles a day (7,500-10,000 vehicles per direction):

Cycling traffic is indeed higher on the eastern end of the corridor. But it drops off quickly as you move westward:

About half the corridor is operating with cyclist volumes of around 350-400 trips a day, which is very low - about one cyclist every 2 minutes.

We can acknowledge that the cycling counts are not 24 hours and thus likely slightly undercounted, but that generally they remain only a small fraction of trips on the corridor.

I'm open to continue monitoring it - I haven't identified the lanes for removal, but this report (at least so far) is not painting a particularly rosy picture of the lanes. If a subsequent report at the end of this summers cycling season is identifying similar patterns, I think cutting the lanes back to Jane St may be an appropriate response to where cyclist volumes are highest and where the lanes have minimal impact on travel times.

 

[MisterF]

What if this long term "network" still doesn't shift enough behavior to offset the decrease in capacity?

The other thing people aren't mentioning is the weekly TTC rush hour shutdowns are slowed even more as shuttle busses are caught up in the longer travel times to move around...

Bikes take up a lot less space than cars. So the same amount of space moves more people on bikes than in cars. I wouldn't be so quick to conclude that capacity is being decreased at all.

Vehicle travel times are just one of many measures of the success of city streets. There's a reason that the most successful streets don't have multiple lanes of free flowing traffic. And overall mobility is arguably improved now that you can safely get around on a bike.

 

[turbanplanner]

Bikes take up a lot less space than cars. So the same amount of space moves more people on bikes than in cars. I wouldn't be so quick to conclude that capacity is being decreased at all.

Vehicle travel times are just one of many measures of the success of city streets. There's a reason that the most successful streets don't have multiple lanes of free flowing traffic. Any increase in vehicle travel times will probably be temporary as travel habits adjust. And overall mobility is improved now that you can safely get around on a bike.

That's only true if bikes end up making more than 2% of the traffic. Where are travel habits "adjusting" to? The subway is packed at peak times, the Gardiner capacity reduction has been in place for months but travel times are still way up.

I'm curious why nobody ever mentions poor weather days or the winter months as if they don't exist. I'm very hopeful usage goes up but as someone who lives near this area, I don't really see things increasing much more

 

[smably]

How far west should it go? I'm ok with sections that make sense (east of jane basically in my book)

Well at the very least there probably needs to be a connection between the existing cycling network and the upcoming Etobicoke Civic Centre and all the density coming soon to the area.

 

[afransen]

Sorry, I should’ve said six times A small number is still a small number, it’s just funny if anybody in Scarborough for a Subway the usage is too low, but a few dozen bikes is worth cutting road capacity in half

Road capacity is a function of intersections not travel lanes. Going from 4 to 2 is absolutely not cutting capacity in half. This has been demonstrated time and again.