General cycling issues (Is Toronto bike friendly?)

[RC8]

It definitely won't be optimally convenient, but it will be far from impossible. In other countries they sometimes have bidirectional cyclepaths of a similar width:

I'd be surprised if this is a major issue. The bike lanes on College and Beverly are entirely within the door zone and people still ride in them happily. Why can't you go into the door zone to pass a fellow cyclist? Perhaps signal with your bell so that he/she can move to the right?

I definitely agree that more space would be better, but I don't think this is a massive flaw in terms of utility cycling.

 

[the lemur]

I'd be surprised if this is a major issue. The bike lanes on College and Beverly are entirely within the door zone and people still ride in them happily. Why can't you go into the door zone to pass a fellow cyclist? Perhaps signal with your bell so that he/she can move to the right?

^

I find that passing a fellow cyclist while using a bike that is not wide enough to allow passing usually involves moving out of the bike lane and passing on the left. If there is enough room to do so in the live traffic lane, it's a lot better than passing between the cyclist and parked cars and potentially both being doored.

 

[RC8]

I understand those concerns, but the dynamics of it are different when parking is on the left and cyclists being passed can move a lot closer to the right edge of the bike lane without worrying about a curb or parked cars.

 

[the lemur]

I understand those concerns, but the dynamics of it are different when parking is on the left and cyclists being passed can move a lot closer to the right edge of the bike lane without worrying about a curb or parked cars.

Which would be the case on a one-way street with parking on the left and a bike lane immediately adjacent, but I can't think of any examples. What kind of configuration are you thinking of?

 

[reaperexpress]

It definitely won't be optimally convenient, but it will be far from impossible. In other countries they sometimes have bidirectional cyclepaths of a similar width.

This example differs from Eglinton in that:
1. Is considerably wider (it looks about 2 metres wide based on the parked car)
2. The entire width of the path is useable since there is no physical obstruction immediately adjacent to the path.
3. No part of it is in the door zone.

Those are exactly the three things I am asking for on Eglinton. And this layout is exactly how to do it. Rather than having a 0.9 m buffer space that is completely useless, we could place the utilities/furniture between parked cars and the bike lane, freeing up that 0.9 metres to widen the bike lane to a respectable 2.1 m.

I'd be surprised if this is a major issue. The bike lanes on College and Beverly are entirely within the door zone and people still ride in them happily.

People may be happy in the existing door-zone bike lanes, but it does not mean they are safe. It is easy to forget the risk of dooring since it's not as obvious as some of the other risks on the road, such as fast-moving traffic.

I refuse to consider any bicycle facility in a door zone as acceptable. Dooring collisions are really awful, often causing very serious injury or death to the cyclist. And they are so easy to avoid. Simply place the bike lane more than a metre away from a parked car and no one will ever be injured or killed by a car door.

Why can't you go into the door zone to pass a fellow cyclist? Perhaps signal with your bell so that he/she can move to the right?

People will probably manage to pass, but it will be very tight. The person being passed will have to be very close to street furniture and utility poles, while the person passing will have to be right up against parked cars, which makes it impossible for them to avoid a very serious collision if a door opens.

 

[WislaHD]

It's my impression from this document that Eglinton won't have a uniform plan for bike path throughout the entire stretch of the underground LRT, but instead have different solutions for different part of the road:

http://www.toronto.ca/eglinton/pdf/egconnects_travelling_may13.pdf

See page 22.

 

[W. K. Lis]

It's my impression from this document that Eglinton won't have a uniform plan for bike path throughout the entire stretch of the underground LRT, but instead have different solutions for different part of the road:

http://www.toronto.ca/eglinton/pdf/egconnects_travelling_may13.pdf

See page 22.

Not included is the bike path from Jane Street to Black Creek. They are putting in a path on the north side of Eglinton and a side street until Mt. Dennis Station.

 

[reaperexpress]

It's my impression from this document that Eglinton won't have a uniform plan for bike path throughout the entire stretch of the underground LRT, but instead have different solutions for different part of the road:

http://www.toronto.ca/eglinton/pdf/egconnects_travelling_may13.pdf

See page 22.

Yes, this is correct, but the unidirectional lanes all have a width of 1.2m except for the short segment where there is only one car lane per direction, where the bike lanes will be 1.6m wide. The bidirectional path widths are fine.

Not included is the bike path from Jane Street to Black Creek. They are putting in a path on the north side of Eglinton and a side street until Mt. Dennis Station.

It also remains unclear how the northside path will connect to the existing south side path which goes west from Jane into Mississauga. I have my money on "get off and walk across the street".

 

[reaperexpress]

The Eglinton Connects project proposes to have bike lanes traveling across on-ramps to the DVP with no protection other than bike symbols painted on the road. The design is here, with the intersection in question on the far right (DVP northbound).

Instead, they should build separated bike lanes, protected from turning vehicles by separate signal phases (my design here).

Unfortunately, single turning lanes likely wouldn't provide enough capacity when restricted exclusively to DVP signal phase, and double turn lanes would be undesirable because they would create large platoons of cars trying merge onto the freeway at once.

I would suggest that the right turn signals default to green, switching to red when a cyclist approaches the intersection or a pedestrian presses the crosswalk button. That way the capacity for turning cars is very high, yet cyclists are not likely to be delayed.

Through phase:

Cross phase:

If the bicycle detector is located 50 metres ahead of the intersection, it would allow all speeds of cyclists to pass through on a green light. The pedestrian countdown varies based on the crosswalk width, so the following diagram would apply only to the north side (the south side countdown would be around 13 seconds).

Note that the westbound right turn and bicycle signals are almost completely independent from the rest of the intersection, being affected only during the cross phase if the northbound through (bus only) signal is triggered by an approaching bus. Otherwise they are independent of the signal cycle, being dictated only by approaching cyclists and pedestrians.

What do you think about this design compared to the one proposed?

 

[M II A II R II K]

Toronto nearing deal to save Bixi bike-share service

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_ha...ring_deal_to_save_bixi_bikeshare_service.html

.....

The city government and Bixi have resurrected a deal to keep the troubled bicycle-sharing service alive — a deal that may involve a $5 million toilets-for-bikes trade.

“I’m extremely optimistic,” city cycling manager Daniel Egan said in an interview Tuesday, a day before the meeting at which council will vote on Bixi’s future.

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, chair of the public works committee, said two weeks ago that he was not sure it was “possible to save Bixi.” He said Bixi had attempted at the “11th hour” to change the terms of a proposed agreement. Egan suggested Tuesday that the problems have been resolved. “There were some shifts, but now things are looking good,” he said.

.....

 

[drum118]

Great idea for parking bikes
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=pcZSU40RBrg

 

[devjohnson]

Two police cars parked in the Sherbourne bike lanes today....really Toronto....

 

[M II A II R II K]

Green paint being added to Bloor East Bikelanes!

http://bikingtoronto.com/blog/2013/..._campaign=Feed:+bikingtoronto+(BikingToronto)

 

[M II A II R II K]

City way behind on bike lane target

Read More: http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=196065


After another year of paltry progress on expanding Toronto’s bike lane network, it could be time to declare the city’s official cycling plan officially dead. According to advocacy group Cycle Toronto, last year the city added only 2.4 kilometres of new bike lanes to its streets. That addition, almost all of it on a single street—Shaw, in the downtown west end—brings us up to a grand total of 114 km of on-road bike paths, a long way off the 495-km target that council endorsed in the 2001 Toronto Bike Plan.

The original goal was to complete the entire 495-km network by 2011. But at the rate we’re going it would take 158 years to finish, says Cycle Toronto's Jared Kolb. He believes the time has come to set a new target, one that's reachable in our lifetime. --- "Now's probably a good time to get back into a discussion about revisiting those goals because none of us are going to be alive in 2171," he says. "But we do need an ambitious goal, one that we can shoot for, strive for, and achieve." --- With the 2014 municipal campaign set to kick off in the new year, Kolb hopes cycling infrastructure will become a major election issue.

.....

http://panampath.org/

The Pan Am Path is a multi-use path to connect Toronto’s trails and create an active-living legacy for the TORONTO 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Am Games. It will connect over 80km of trails across Toronto and bring together residents, local organizations, artists and businesses to create truly vibrant public spaces that are reflections of those communities along the route.

Starting at the Claireville Reservoir in the west end of the city, the Pan Am Path follows the Humber River down to the waterfront, traversing the Martin Goodman Trail to the Don River where it continues North before transferring to the Hydro Corridor in the East end of the city. The trail follows the corridor to Highland Creek where it ends at the shore of Lake Ontario, just a few minutes south of Rouge Park.

[video=vimeo;78111880]http://www.vimeo.com/78111880[/video]

 

[W. K. Lis]

City way behind on bike lane target

Read More: http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=196065


After another year of paltry progress on expanding Toronto’s bike lane network, it could be time to declare the city’s official cycling plan officially dead. According to advocacy group Cycle Toronto, last year the city added only 2.4 kilometres of new bike lanes to its streets. That addition, almost all of it on a single street—Shaw, in the downtown west end—brings us up to a grand total of 114 km of on-road bike paths, a long way off the 495-km target that council endorsed in the 2001 Toronto Bike Plan.
...

That should make the Ford brothers very, very, very, very, happy!