Blogs

In this Globe and Mail produced interactive map of cyclists collisions from 1986 to 2010 there is a sea of pins representing reported collisions by cyclists and colour-coded for injury severity. It's a thing of beauty and nice to zoom in and out. But that soon gets old once you realize that there is little else that we can currently conclude from it. Can we tell if my route or neighbourhood is safer than another? Can we tell if cycling in Toronto has gotten safer over time? Not really. We are missing a key denominator - bike traffic. Not surprising since the City has only begun to collect this data in a more systematic manner. At the very least, the authors could try to explore some of the other interesting data in the dataset that they've hosted.

That doesn't seem to stop them from trying to reach some broad conclusions without all the information.

They claim: "Toronto falling behind pack in averting bicycle collisions, data reveals". Well, the data doesn't reveal that since you haven't compared the number of cyclists and bike trips over time and between cities. What are the cycling populations in each city? Have the number of bike trips grown or not?

City Transportation staff are developing a trails report and asking the public to review the proposed trail connections for Toronto before the report is submitted to Public Works and Infrastructure Committee. The open house will be in North York, 40 Orchard View Blvd (1 block north of Eglinton and west of Yonge), Monday February 6, 2012, 5:30 to 7:30pm) or comment via Facebook.

Our new mayor made the bike trails the primary focus of bicycle infrastructure. It's exciting that we might have more bike trails in our City! But let's not give the mayor too much credit. The vast majority of these connections were identified in the 2001 Bike Plan. What the mayor did was make these trails a priority over the rest of the bikeway network. In fact, the mayor has supposedly scrapped the Bike Plan because he claims that the roads are no place for bikes (or streetcars for that matter).

City Transportation staff presented their vision of an improved Sherbourne Street for cyclists. The cyclists were pleased and there did not seem to be much political opposition from any group with the left mostly on side and with Councillor Minnan-Wong on board. You can view all the presentation slides now.

When determining how to best separate cyclists from motorists, City staff needed to take into account that it would still need to be permeable. Their design considerations included:

• A rolled curb will separate the bike lane from the vehicle lanes
• Bikes may enter and exit the cycle tracks
• Emergency vehicles and Wheel-Trans can access cycle track when required
• Garbage collection maintained as usual
• Cycle tracks will be maintained all year

Sherbourne, North of Gerrard

Typical Intersection - the separation narrows bringing cyclists into clearer view with motorists. Note the indirect lefts, which I covered in a previous post..

Cross section in mid-block

Tonight, Thursday, January 26, 2012 is the open house for "upgrading" the Sherbourne bike lanes to provide better separation between cars and bikes. Please drop by from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School, 444 Sherbourne Street (at Wellesley), to provide your feedback.

Back in 2010 Dutch cycling consultants came to our city for ThinkBike, to work with urban professionals to rethink our cycling infrastructure and promotion is done in Toronto. Luckily they chose Sherbourne as one example and one of the teams produced a presentation, which you'd do well to preview before providing your feedback tonight.

A couple thoughts in response to their online notes:

1. It would be good if they continued the separation north of Bloor. There is really no reason why not since as far as I recall there isn't any on-street parking for the first couple blocks. The first block is a bridge over Rosedale Valley which would benefit from better separation from cars, at least to prevent cars from parking in the bike lanes.
2. From Bloor to Gerrard (a good portion of Sherbourne), there is no major roadwork scheduled so staff have suggested that more temporary installation take place, including flexible bollards and painted buffers. Likewise the work from Front to Queens Quay will be figured out in 2013 to coincide with road reconstruction.

Thanks to some warm winter weather and possibly to a bit of persuading on my end (by directing some emails to Street Furniture and to Councillor Vaughan's office), City staff have installed post and rings along Portland and Richmond next to the new Loblaws.

As I noted in the other post, Councillor Vaughan and Jennifer Chan of his office were quite helpful in pursuing the case of the missing bike parking to get it solved. Lisa Ing of Street Furniture was also helpful in spelling out the details of this location and the limitations of her office.

It's super that we now have some bike parking for Loblaws. Now what about the rest of the stores along that block on Queen? Short-term bike parking should be no more than 15 metres from the entrance of destinations, according to the Bicycles at Rest design guide. Are post and rings just not "aesthetic" enough to get installed there?

The "season" for installation of bike parking ends in the fall - it gets too difficult to install with lots of snow and the City ends its contract with the company that installs the bike rings. It is remarkable, then, that these post and rings appeared. Who installed them? There were plans in the works to install them but not until the spring. Did public pressure on City staff quicken that process?

Montreal separated bike lane - probably not exactly how Sherbourne will look

You are invited to an open house to review designs for separated bike lanes on Sherbourne, likely to be approved and installed this year.

When: January 26 5:00 PM-8:00
Where: Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School Gym - 444 Sherbourne St. (at Wellesley)

You can read up on City's info on separated bikeways. What is likely to be a contentious aspect of the separated bike lanes is the removal and offsetting of all on-street car parking, some of which will be moved to side streets. Hopefully this won't hinder it.

If you can't attend you can call the cycling infrastructure voicemail: 416-338-1066 or email: bikesherbourne@toronto.ca

From City's page:

The existing Sherbourne Street bike lanes were installed in 1996. On July 12, 2011, City Council directed City staff to proceed with detailed design and consultation to upgrade the Sherbourne bike lanes with the aim to better separate cars and bikes and improve safety for cyclists. The construction of the upgraded bike lanes is scheduled to start in summer 2012 in combination with the resurfacing of Sherbourne Street.

Separated bike lanes have been implemented in Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver and are popular in hundreds of other cities around the world. Sherbourne is the first of a series of separated bike lanes approved by Council to improve the cycling network in downtown Toronto.

City Hall is back in business after the holiday season, but the gifts keep on coming. Parking on busy streets during rush hour, or blocking a bike lane any time has been increased by $150 fine if passed by city hall.

Public works and infrastructure voted 3-2 Wednesday to hike the fine from the current $60 for parking in a no stopping or standing zone and $40 for parking in a no parking zone.

The two dissenting votes were cast by councillors Shiner and Parker, who worried the hike is a “feel good” motion when the real problem is enforcement.

Tickets are issued by parking enforcement officers who work for Toronto police.

Shiner said their quota system — called “targets” by police — that sees parking officers expected to issue a certain number of tickets per day means they hit lots of cars at expired meters or on side-streets, rather than one car blocking busy traffic and causing a huge headache.

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, the committee's chair, agreed with the dissenters and said city staff will talk to police about better enforcement.

“We are moving forward in trying to address congestion,” said Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong chair of the public works committee. “This is a positive step forward.”

The increased fine is one part of attacking the problem, he said, and proper enforcement is another.

The fine hike would need to go to council for approval before coming into effect.

Photo: Herb. Bells on Bloor 2011, popular as ever, even though City Council voted to stop the Environmental Assessment

Cycling and politics were a hot item in 2011, from the vote to remove Jarvis Bike Lanes, the vote to install protected bike lanes, the launch of Bixi, and the politicians who took cheap shots by trying to make cyclists into urban terrors. Here's a recap of 2011's top 11 blog posts, ranked by the number of comments. It's not the only way to rank blog posts, but the easiest to come by.

1. Separated bike lane proposal and battle heating up
   Bixi bikes are on the streets and the fight continues to get separated bike lanes approved for downtown. Some lefty councillors oppose, some support.
2. Few bike lanes: the cause of most sidewalk cycling
   A pedestrian dies after colliding with a cyclist in North York. There is a strong call to crack down on cyclists yet the pedestrian's family say he was an avid cyclist and understood how bad cycling infrastructure is in the burbs. And where are the critics when a pedestrian is killed by a motorist?
3. Public Works committee votes to take out Jarvis bike lanes: total -8 km bike lanes this year
   The vote to take out the Jarvis bike lanes made international news. What big city in this era votes to take out bike lanes?