Tuscani01
Senior Member
The report clearly shows that riding a bike is much more dangerous than walking. Keep in mind that there are orders of magnitude more pedestrians than cyclists. In most parts of the city pedestrians are everywhere but there are only a handful of cyclists; only a tiny minority of the population rides a bike on busy roads in Toronto. Sure most bike accidents aren't actually fatal but the number of people who end up in the hospital is pretty large. Also you can clearly see from the map showing dots for bike accidents that bike lanes are unsafe, there are many bike accidents on roads like College St and Harbord St that have them. The statistics clearly show that riding a bike is the second most dangerous method of transportation (only motorcycling is more dangerous).
We need to spend money on real methods of transportation (i.e. subways and GO train electrification) not this nonsense. Bike lanes and bike sharing are a fad. Until 5-10 years ago they are pretty uncommon in North America even though bicycles have been around for a lot longer, and now we seem to have this craze where large numbers of cities all over the world are wasting money on this nonsense. In practically all of them, only a tiny minority of the population rides bikes because the vast majority of the population is too scared to ride a bike and practically all bike share systems have gotten into financial trouble because few people use them.
You have clearly never used a bike before. I hop on a bixi before I even think about using transit, and only do so because I live by numerous bike lanes. More lanes = more safety = more cyclists.
Say what you want, but the stats out of Richmond/Adelaide's pilot show that bike usage has significantly increased while traffic has not been affected at all, and in some cases now moves faster than before. The Sherbourne lanes are pretty busy all day too. Bloor Street, which doesn't even have bike lanes is also packed with cyclists.
And not 'practically all' bike share systems have faced financial difficulties. You cant just make up stories to suit your narrative. Decisions aren't made based on 'andrewpmk's stories'. Just because you are too chicken to use a bike and choose to live in a bubble, doesn't mean everyone else is going to follow suit.