Deliberate attempt at dooring on Davenport?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/loewenherz/354569988/in/set-7...
and my friend Pat quipped, that in Caronto the bike lane is the door zone as they mark it.
Biking along Davenport in the core near Ave Rd. made me think he was right.
Maybe write the City solicitor?...
(keep a copy, copy councillors etc.)

I hate being forced to drive in the door zone. I've has so many close calls. Thankfully I've never actually taken the hit yet. I would have given the idiot who popped their door open on your husband a very public and very loud piece of my mind.

This is something that constantly happened to me while riding in TO in the past. The driver would see me coming in the rear view or on the over the shoulder check even making solid eye contact. Just as I would pass the rear of the car they pop the door catch and open the door just a crack. The door would never come flying open all the way but it would scare the hell out of me every time. Of course after that my blood would boil but by that time I'd be out of range for telling them what I really think of them.

http://kincycling.blogspot.com

... and from my perspective, it's pretty good as far as Toronto bike lanes and the door zone goes.

If you are right at the left edge of the lane, you normally have enough room to get past someone exiting a car (assuming they don't open the door as wide as it will go). My main concern on Davenport is making sure the exiting driver doesn't walk right into may path (the bell works wonders here).

It is tight, but I've ridden far worse in TO.

The saving grace, in my experience, is that the traffic on Davenport moves relatively slowly and there is enough room in the traffic lane to make moving the the extreme left of the bike lane (or even strattling the line) reasonably safely.

I agree, though, that all of this requires some judgement and I wouldn't feel very comfortable letting children under 10 ride this lane.

But, that said, there are not very many places in Toronto in my experience that are forgiving enough to allow pre-teen children (who developmentally don't assess risk as well as adults) ride among traffic safely in my opinion. I'm not sure that would be changed greatly by wider bike lanes as it doesn't address cars turning right (or left through intersections), cars turning onto roads from side streets, and other risks that require split-second decisions.

It's an issue for me because my 5 year old is starting to ride and it's difficult to find places he can ride at his level safely. And, I'd like him to learn to love riding as much as I do!

Although much of Davenport is a door-zoner, it's not terrible for the majority of its length.

However. towards the eastern end, it gets so narrow that in some places a bike can barely fit between the bike lane stripe and the closed door of a properly parked car. This is by far one of the worst stretches of so-called bike lane.

Not sure who the following quote should actually be attributed to, but even the City says that this part of Davenport is sub-standard. And I would argue that even the "standard" door-zone bike lane width sucks.

From: http://www.bikeplan.com/narrow.htm

TORONTO

Our bike lane/parking width standards are listed below. (Note: These numbers are converted from metric measurement, which explains the uncharacteristic numbers.)

· Parking -- 6.6' minimum / 7.2 'desirable
· Bike lane next to parking -- 5.9' minimum/ 6.6' minimum desirable
· Bike lane next to curb -- 4.9' minimum / 5.9' desirable
· Bike lane under bridges and underpasses -- 6.6' desirable

On 46' wide streets (one of our typical street widths) we would redistribute space like this:

- 6.6' parking / 5.9' bike lane / 10.5' traffic lane / and the same on other side. Parking is dropped at signalized intersections so that a left turn lane can be established.

This seems to work with minimal impact on capacity for streets with up to approximately 18,000 average daily traffic volume.

On narrower roads (40' wide) we provide parking on only one side, like this:

- 6.6' parking / 5.9' bike lane / 11.1' traffic lane / 11.1 ft. traffic lane / 5.2' bike lane

We have one street (Davenport Road) with substandard widths as a result of a political compromise in order to maintain parking on both sides. In this case we have:

5.9' parking / 5.4' bike lane / 10' traffic lanes (four traffic lanes at this width with frequent bus service and 30,000 average daily traffic) and the same parking/bike lane width on the opposite side. While I hesitate to recommend these widths as general practice, they seem to be working on this street.

We conducted face to face surveys with 84 cyclists on the Davenport Road bike lanes shortly after implementation. Here's their feedback:

- 89% of the cyclists said the bike lanes have made cycling safer on the street; and

- 92% of the cyclists said the bike lane is about the right width. (They could respond: too wide, too narrow, about right, don't know.)

I conducted many of the interviews myself because I was quite concerned with the narrow widths. After the survey I talked to several cyclists further about the width and the message I received was "Sure, the bike lanes could be wider but this is much better than it was."

I agree that as far as bike lane designs go, Davenport isn't so bad. I'm a lot more comfortable on Davenport than on College heading West (shudder).

I don't agree that a sufficiently wide bikelane justifies putting bikelanes in the door zone. If we're supposed to "hug the left" or "straddle the line" to be safe, then that's where the bike lane ought to be, and its true width should be evident, not made to appear wider than it is by including the door zone as part of the lane. I have to say that even though I'm safe from car doors when I hug the left on Davenport, there are parts of the lane where hugging the left is uncomfortably close to the passing cars. It's all relative - cars pass just as close on many other steets, but on Davenport it's their speed that makes it feel more dangerous.

I've biked all over the place with both my kids, and they've biked alone as well. Speed is the biggest issue is determining how comfortable I feel with the kids. Davenport and the Bloor Viaduct both have bike lanes, but riding with kids can be a hair raising experience. I'd prefer physical barriers when cars are going very fast. Crowding is another issue - designated bike routes with bumper to bumper traffic are extremely uncomfortable with kids. Signalled intersections haven't been a problem at all, probably because we've only been places where there are a lot of cyclists so cars seem to be used to looking out for us. The 4-way stops with lots of cars are a bigger problem - for some reason the kids have a hard time with the timing on those.

Age isn't as much of a determinant as route in deciding to let our kids bike alone. My daughter was biking to school on her own at 10 - all residential streets, crossing one busy street at a traffic light. I'd prefer it if the streets weren't as crowded (parked cars on the right, cars squeezing past on the left) . My son is 14 and only bikes to school (Christie to Northern Secondary) when I'm going that way, and my husband bikes over at the end of the day to accompany him home. I really wish all kids in high school could feel safe biking to school (though given events this week, maybe I should just rephrase that to "I just wish all kids could feel safe in high school"). Admitedly, his route is quite a bit longer than most, but for a school of 1800 students, there are woefully few bike racks outside the building. It's gotten to the point where biking is for adults only, and bike lanes are designed with adults in mind. That's really sad.

AnnieD -- from everything I've read, your kids are right at the age where it becomes more reasonable for them to start to deal with the vulgarities (and uncertainties) of traffic. But, what did you do when they were younger? Did you stick to bike paths or use the trail-along bikes? Or, did they mostly just bomb around a quiet residential neighbourhood?

How do kids go from being non-cyclists to being a least ready to (supervised, at least) deal with traffic at an appropriate age?

My five year old loves riding, but it's already apparent that it will take some time and training before he's ready to move from the sidewalk (and we're still working on dealing with pedestrian traffic and street crossings!) to low-traffic roads. Basically, rides right now consist of me walking/jogging as he rides so I'm there to talk him through dealing with hazards.

I find taking transit to bike paths is the safest bet for kids. My kids are 6 and 8, and love to ride the Don Valley bike path from Broadview subway (there's a path around behind the adult high school). We've gone as far as Bloor to Cherry Beach and back a number of times.

We rode the GO Train to the Trans Canada Trail and Waterfront Trail between Ajax and Rouge Hill this summer. Even at 15km, we took our time and took breaks, and the kids loved it. Next we'll be checking out the Humber River bike path from Jane subway station. Check the Toronto Bike Map for many transit and trail intersections.

I hope when my bambinos are 12 or 14 they'll too stick to transit and trails for much of their biking enjoyment. Off road biking in the Don Valley is also a safer bet - I trust trees. As yet I have no idea what age I will let them ride in traffic. We'll see... at the rate this city's going, 22 sounds about right.

We used bike buddies for many years - that's what we would have been using when they were 5. The nice thing is that it lets them experience real riding (busier streets and all the choices we have to make) but they aren't entirely passive (try pulling a kid along who decides they want to sway their body from side to side "Stop that!!! Lean INTO the turn!"). And if you're lucky, they'll even peddle.

I'll have to check with dh and the kids to see if they remember better than I do, but I think that even as they were riding on bike buddies, they were also riding their own bikes at the playground and bikepaths (I distinctly remember feeling pathetic for DRIVING to the bikepath) but not on the street or sidewalk. I don't recall ever doing the "parent on street with kid on sidewalk" thing - I think they went straight from playground to street for short trips, with us following as ever present (and probably a bit annoying) "back seat drivers": "OK, we're approaching a stop sign so start slowing down and prepare to stop. It's time to brake now. Wait until the green car is gone and then we can go ahead again." Basically, you're vocalizing the internal dialogue that you hold with yourself, the idea being that if you repeat it often enough and consistently enough, they'll internalize it. Or not. The jury is still out on that one.

I know that biking is the best health decision for our kids and will hopefully set up habits that they'll carry with them into adulthood. Still, it's more dangerous than many of the alternatives and sometimes I worry that my political ideals are leading me to make poor parenting decisions. I don't know if I really want my kids to be the pioneers in their circle of friends. Hopefully it will become more common. Soon.