General cycling issues (Is Toronto bike friendly?)

[TwinHuey]

Ironically enough, Mexico City has lots of bike lanes and they make it pretty easy to get around if you don't want to cram onto the metro or metrobus.

Apologies if this is too off topic for the thread, but interesting to hear about bike lanes in Mexico City.

We're currently in Merida, Yucatan's capital city.

Paseo de Montejo, one of the major streets in the city centre, has protected cycle infrastructure..

Paseo de Montejo has a scaled down University Avenue vibe.

Every Sunday from 8am to noon several km are closed to traffic, Merida's version of Open Streets TO. Very popular, we rode it Sunday amongst throngs of locals.

Added to Paseo de Montejo, several more streets are closed creating a 12 km circuit around the core passing several historic sites.

Brilliant!

 

[MisterF]

Apologies if this is too off topic for the thread, but interesting to hear about bike lanes in Mexico City.

We're currently in Merida, Yucatan's capital city.

Paseo de Montejo, one of the major streets in the city centre, has protected cycle infrastructure..

View attachment 613307

Paseo de Montejo has a scaled down University Avenue vibe.

Every Sunday from 8am to noon several km are closed to traffic, Merida's version of Open Streets TO. Very popular, we rode it Sunday amongst throngs of locals.

Added to Paseo de Montejo, several more streets are closed creating a 12 km circuit around the core passing several historic sites.

Brilliant!

View attachment 613308

I've heard good things about Merida but I haven't been there myself. But your first pic is similar to what impressed me about Mexico City - the amount of greenery and landscaping on their major streets. Trees, shrubs, linear parks, and the sidewalks are largely made of stone or unit pavers. Here in Canada you see a lot more expanses of poured concrete and asphalt and an overall lower level of streetscaping. Yes, you could argue that this mainly exists in the richer Mexican neighbourhoods where foreigners go, but Canada is so much richer than Mexico that we have no excuse. So when we've made good progress on streets like University Avenue with its new landscaping, it makes it all the more infuriating when the province wants to undo that.

The state of Mexico City's bike infrastructure is actually pretty similar to that of Toronto. Lots of quick-build lanes on major streets, boulevard paths that tell you to dismount at intersections, and outlying parts of the city being a lot less bikeable than the central areas. Of course they'll be well ahead of us once Doug Ford is finished swinging his axe.