Councillor Adam Vaughan told the press yesterday, in regards to the news that the Environmental Assessment on Richmond and Adelaide bike lanes will be starting, that he is willing to consider bike lanes but that "he hasn’t made up his mind. The entertainment district needs to be considered as a destination, not just a series of thoroughfares". (Thanks to Tino for photo of Sherbourne.)
Vaughan hasn't made up his mind yet? Bike lanes are "thoroughfares"?! Bike lanes for Richmond and Adelaide have been in the City's Bike Plan for 12 years (some say it came up even earlier). Let's take a look back over the last 12 years.
2001 Bike lanes are proposed for Richmond and Adelaide in the Bike Plan (appendix, map).
2001 Bike Plan makes a promise that "All Toronto residents will be within a five minute bicycle ride to the bikeway network." The Bike Plan plans a grid of bike routes throughout the entire city. Even then there are gaps, even downtown. Progress is slow right from the start.
2001-present A smattering of bike lanes are built (and some stopped and some removed), most of them in the suburbs where roads are wider and don't require taking out car lanes.
2009 Councillor Kyle Rae declares Bloor at Yorkville a "destination" and didn't think bike lanes were "appropriate" (in his speech supporting bike lanes on Jarvis). The sidewalks are expanded and no bike lanes planned nor installed, despite protest from cycling advocates.
2009 A Ward 20 Cycling Committee is formed with the help of Councillor Vaughan's office. Many of the committee members eventually leave because of Vaughan's reportedly heavy-handed involvement but not before producing a report (see below).
2010 The City's Cycling Unit holds packed public meeting on the Bike Plan of over 200 people in February in Metro Hall. Dan Egan, manager of the Cycling Unit, outlines their priorities for the downtown bikeway network for 2010-2011. He mentions staff will advance Richmond and Adelaide bike lanes in their spring report to Public Works and Infrastructure Committee. The March report mentions nothing about bike lanes on Richmond and Adelaide. It's not clear why not? As a Miller-controlled committee, PWIC could have pushed for bike lanes on Richmond and Adelaide. It often happens that staff won't propose something if they know a local councillor is opposed.
2010 The Ward 20 Cycling Committee goes "rogue" and produces a report requesting protected bike lanes on Harbord, University and Richmond/Adelaide.
2010 Rob Ford wins election that fall.
2010 Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong proposes cycle tracks for downtown, including Richmond/Adelaide.
2011 Vaughan sends letter to residents condemning "barricaded" bike lanes and accusing the Bike Union of not working with the local "community". Through a Vaughan initiated process the community didn't identify any east-west street through the city's core. It's not clear how Vaughan defines "community" but presumably it doesn't include people who commute to work in the area or who have to travel through the ward.
2011 Vaughan won't consider bike lanes on the well-used bike corridor, John Street, because he says it is meant to be a destination and not a transportation corridor (much as he's saying now about Richmond and Adelaide). Vaughan doesn't advance request to make alternative route on Peter/Soho safer crossing at Queen St.
2012 City Council approves an Environmental Assessment for Richmond and Adelaide.
2012 At the Harbord Village Residents Association meeting on bike lanes, Vaughan says to the group "Now when we build bike lanes they must be separated. Painted lanes are good but they aren't safe enough. My son needs something safer than just painted bike lanes." And he also says "People in this neighbourhood [Harbord] cycle but they can't do it safely. We don't accept such unsafe conditions for drivers, nor for pedestrians, but we accept it for cyclists. We need to change that."
2013 Richmond and Adelaide EA begins.
If Vaughan sees the big benefit of cycle tracks for the safety of cyclists, why hasn't he yet supported cycle tracks on Richmond and Adelaide? They were in the plan since 2001 and Vaughan was a major powerbroker when Miller was mayor. Richmond and Adelaide weren't brought to PWIC during that whole time.
And if Vaughan thinks Richmond and Adelaide aren't appropriate for bike lanes, then where? Richmond and Adelaide are nicely situated between two cycling corridors, King and Queen, but don't have the major drawback of streetcar tracks. The staff creating the Bike Plan were unable to find any other streets south of College that were useful for bike lanes.
Toronto seems to have a quite particular opposition to bike lanes by some progressives. The codeword is "destination", and it's been applied to a major arterial such as Bloor and now Richmond and Adelaide as a reason for not installing bike lanes. It's as if somehow the arterial road will cease to being a major street and turn into a residential street.
Vaughan says he supports cycle tracks. When will Vaughan make up his mind about Richmond and Adelaide?
