News   Aug 07, 2024
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Cycling infrastructure (Separated bike lanes)

No, the dump truck didn't swerve into the bike lane, so the root cause was not the dump truck. The cyclist swerved due to a dumpster not the dump truck. We don't know that the dump truck driver didn't see her or was driving too fast as that wasn't discussed on the news.
The cyclist may well have swerved into the dump truck. We don't know. Some of the headlines and bylines were stupidly written. It's as if no one in the professional news business goes to journalism school anymore, takes a simple English class nor cracks open Truss' famous and useful book.

A cyclist is dead after she was struck by the driver of a large commercial truck in Yorkville Thursday morning,
On Thursday morning, a 24-year-old female cyclist was killed by a truck driver
Dump truck driver hits and kills cyclist on Bloor near Queen’s Park

These headlines suggests a person, who tangentially happens to be a truck driver struck, hit and killed the cyclist. Imagine a similar headline of: Boeing 737 pilot hits a goose. Did he walk into the park and punch a goose, or did the aircraft he was operating collide with a goose? The driver did not hit the cyclist, the truck he was operating did. Let's see if the driver made any errors or if the cyclist, upon encountering the dumpster, exited her lane and rode into/under the truck.
 
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No, the dump truck didn't swerve into the bike lane, so the root cause was not the dump truck. The cyclist swerved due to a dumpster not the dump truck. We don't know that the dump truck driver didn't see her or was driving too fast as that wasn't discussed on the news.
It's almost as if what I mentioned is a repeating trend, large trucks with poor visibility hitting peoeple....




 
dan leckie bike lane update:

Full installation delayed till 2025. Curb cuts to be done in august

Effectively delayed a full year. Thats both the portland side and the dan leckie side

Though unsure if the dan leckie side gets installed in october 2024 or 2025?
Screenshot_20240729_162400_Drive.jpg
 
dan leckie bike lane update:

Full installation delayed till 2025. Curb cuts to be done in august

Effectively delayed a full year. Thats both the portland side and the dan leckie side

Though unsure if the dan leckie side gets installed in october 2024 or 2025?View attachment 584364

The Dan Leckie portion is slated for this October (2024); Portland street is deferred to 2025.
 
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Temporary vs permanent, we've been over this. This is the interim condition, more will be done at a future date.
Like I said before something that exists for years is more than just "temporary." It is, in fact, a piece of infrastructure. For how many years do you accept some insufficient half-measure because it might someday be improved?

What we need is good quality infrastructure now, present tense, built in line with the city's own guidelines, plans and best practices.

What we often get is a watered down solution that becomes a "norm" because it sits there for years, as thousands of cyclists have no choice but to accept it.

Huh? Show me the design you have in mind. I don't know what options were examined, but we have barriers that let water underneath, the challenge in an underpass such as this is that there is a solid barrier in the middle which does not allow water underneath, that raising the cycle track would preclude drainage without moving the catch basins, that water naturally flows down hill, the location of existing catch basins matter, etc etc.

I didn't say anything about raising the cycle track. I am talking about putting in curbs or true physical protection under the Railpath bridge. I don't see this causing drainage issues if installed as elsewhere with gaps between each curb.

This gap uner the Railpath is not not the worst by any means, and I am happier with the new flex posts than with nothing, of course. But the idea that we should accept it without complaint because it's "interim" is a losing argument for true cyclist safety.
 
News Release

July 29, 2024

City of Toronto parking fines to increase on August 1 to support safer roads and reduce congestion

On August 1, the City of Toronto will increase parking fines for 123 offences to help curb illegal parking, stopping and standing in designated areas. Increasing fines can help reduce congestion by discouraging drivers from parking and stopping their vehicles in high-traffic areas and encouraging people to consider other modes of transportation such as walking, cycling or public transit to promote a smoother flow of traffic.

Some examples of the increased and new fines include:

• parking without paying at a parking meter (increase from $30 to $50).

• parking a prohibited vehicle on a bicycle path (increase from $60 to $200).

• non-electric vehicles or electric vehicles parked and not actively charging in an electric vehicle charging stall will be issued a $75 fine.
I thought the fine for parking in a bike lane was already $150? This is a bike path as in an off-street path?
 
Damn i was hoping it was going to be this year. That sucks.

Sorry, my bad, I've corrected it, I said 'this October'' and then wrote 2025, my mind tracking to the end of the sentence.

To clarify. Dan Leckie is THIS year, 2024; Portland is 2025.
 
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The cyclist may well have swerved into the dump truck. We don't know. Some of the headlines and bylines were stupidly written. It's as if no one in the professional news business goes to journalism school anymore, takes a simple English class nor cracks open Truss' famous and useful book.

A cyclist is dead after she was struck by the driver of a large commercial truck in Yorkville Thursday morning,
On Thursday morning, a 24-year-old female cyclist was killed by a truck driver
Dump truck driver hits and kills cyclist on Bloor near Queen’s Park

These headlines suggests a person, who tangentially happens to be a truck driver struck, hit and killed the cyclist. Imagine a similar headline of: Boeing 737 pilot hits a goose. Did he walk into the park and punch a goose, or did the aircraft he was operating collide with a goose? The driver did not hit the cyclist, the truck he was operating did. Let's see if the driver made any errors or if the cyclist, upon encountering the dumpster, exited her lane and rode into/under the truck.
From a firsthand witness to this tragedy (who has video, though I am going off his recollections) the cyclist exited the bike lane and as she shoulder checked seemed to lose balance and swerve into/under the truck. This isn't to put any blame on the cyclist, or take any off the driver. But I don't think the facts on hand, or the accounts I've heard, indicate the driver was doing anything clearly illegal. If he was distracted or otherwise driving carelessly below the level of care he is expected to have, that should be discovered and factored into whether he is charged.

In terms of the language mentioning "the driver hit X:" this is the result of years of cycling and road-safety advocates pushing for media practices that incorporate the driver as an agent of what their vehicle does. As a journalist myself I don't fully agree with this change, but it is very popular in advocacy circles and that has trickled into writing style. It comes from the same POV that argues the word "accident" implies lack of fault and therefore "collision" or "crash" is preferable. That change I have less issue with, though I am less bothered by "accident" too.
 
Like I said before something that exists for years is more than just "temporary." It is, in fact, a piece of infrastructure. For how many years do you accept some insufficient half-measure because it might someday be improved?

What we need is good quality infrastructure now, present tense, built in line with the city's own guidelines, plans and best practices.

What we often get is a watered down solution that becomes a "norm" because it sits there for years, as thousands of cyclists have no choice but to accept it.



I didn't say anything about raising the cycle track. I am talking about putting in curbs or true physical protection under the Railpath bridge. I don't see this causing drainage issues if installed as elsewhere with gaps between each curb.

This gap uner the Railpath is not not the worst by any means, and I am happier with the new flex posts than with nothing, of course. But the idea that we should accept it without complaint because it's "interim" is a losing argument for true cyclist safety.
This reminds me of the barriers we put up at Union around 2017 and the only change has been a coat of paint on some of them
 
In terms of the language mentioning "the driver hit X:" this is the result of years of cycling and road-safety advocates pushing for media practices that incorporate the driver as an agent of what their vehicle does.
I get that, and I too never use “accident” to refer to collisions. And I understand the thinking, for example we don’t say a knife murdered someone, but instead that X murdered someone with a knife. But in this case the media do not know if the driver is at fault, and thus any more an agent of what the vehicle did than if I stepped in front of a GO Train. So, to report at this stage that the driver struck, hit or killed the cyclist is at best premature and potentially inaccurate. Did the Titanic hit an iceberg, or was it Helmsman Robert Hitchens?
 
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