Roncesvalles Redesign Public Meeting Mar 24

Regarding the 2.0m door zone bike lane, my recollection is that the TAC bikeway guidelines recommend a width of 2m for door zone bike lanes (as opposed to 1.5m for bike lanes right against the curb). The city's engineers generally don't sign off on substandard bike lanes (any more). Also, I think you meant Alternative 4, since Alternative 3 merely widens the streetcar lane by a metre. Unless there's something done to tell cyclists where to ride (or even just an extra 20cm each way of centre-lane to meet shared roadway guidelines), it's still not going to be a particularly bike-friendly design. (Too bad too, since it really seems to do nice things for transit accessibility, pedestrian space, and stormwater management).

These differ from those of Open House #1:

http://www.toronto.ca/involved/projects/roncesvalles_stree...

^display boards

http://www.toronto.ca/involved/projects/roncesvalles_stree...

^presentation slides

http://www.toronto.ca/involved/projects/roncesvalles_stree...

^comment sheet

P 14 shows alternative #3 from Open House #1 brought forward as the proposed option. The street is narrowed 1.2 m with dedicated 2 m parking lanes and the streetcar bed widened by 1 m. Trucks will not fit in 2 m wide parking spots. Streetcars will not be able to allow 1 m in passing bicyclists as required of motor vehicles in 12 states presently: http://www.bikingbis.com/blog/_archives/2009/3/18/4126649....
"Currently, 12 states require the 3-foot minimum passing distance: Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin.".
This "preferred option is threatening if not outright dangerous for bicyclists as parked vehicles will impede on this 1 m track bicyclists will be expected to ride and impatient streetcar operators forcing their way by whether there is space to pass or not.

Alternative #3 from meeting #2 showed 2 m bikelanes on both sides of Roncesvalles with parking removed from the southbound lanes.

Bike lanes on both sides of Roncie?

Well, if they put 'em in for sure I will be spending time shopping over there! Right now, it's freaking treacherous.

HONKA! HONKA!
http://trikester.wordpress.com/

No kidding. I'd like to shop there more often (can't get pierogi, kielbasa, or packi as good -- not to mention plums in chocolate, at all -- anywhere else in the city except maybe Bloor West Village), but find riding around the area to be onerous enough not to bother a lot of the time.

...a couple of orange flags on the corners of the rear basket and ignore the honking. No car will hit you, trust me.

Same here. However it's hardly bike friendly and the cars are just plain nuts there.

They have far better markets than here on Queen but I don't want to risk my life getting sandwich fixin's

HONKA! HONKA!
http://trikester.wordpress.com/

I noticed that. Cars are intimidated for some reason. Occasionally they honk or look disgusted but they seem to be afraid I'm going to go cycling postal and smash up their lovely paint jobs.

I have an orange flag on the outer side. I'm thinking of hooking up a pirate flag on the curb side!

Of course, it could be they think only a crazy lady would ride a trike. So chalk one up for the good guys:-)

HONKA! HONKA!
http://trikester.wordpress.com/

After looking at the new presentation, I put together the following response:

Hi Christine,

Ok, I finally got my hands on the new presentation and have comments.

Predictably, I think that Concept 3 is a better alternative design concept than Concept 2. On balance, I think the transportation benefits in Concept 3 outweigh the socio-economic environment benefits of Concept 2. A designated bicycle route on Roncesvalles would provide a much-needed continuous connection between the proposed (Queensway-)King-Liberty and Harbord-High Park Connector bikeways (not
to mention any possible extention of the College Sharrow Pilot along Dundas West). As the proposed West-End Bikeways currently stand, the westermost continuous connection between King-Liberty and the more northern proposed routes is actually along the (proposed) Shaw bikeway at the eastern end of King-Liberty (though I'll readily admit that some discontinuities in the closer connections are not particularly large).

While I ordinarily prefer a shared lane of at least 4.3m in width to most other types of bikeway, I'm a little concerned by the prospect of sharing a lane with a streetcar when that lane is adjacent to parked cars. I see such a shared lane as presenting the rather unpleasant options of riding in the door zone, blocking the streetcar right of way
(and slowing the trip of a lit of transit riders), or ducking into the door zone when a streetcar comes and then having to merge back into the traffic once it has passed. While I can reasonably comfortably do the latter, I'm not sure that it's suitable to require this sort of compromise from less-experienced cyclists who would be attracted to a designated bikeway.

In addition to what I experience as the underestimation of the importance of the transportation criteria, I think that the socio-economic criterion of available parking has had its importance overestimated. In particular, I'd like to draw attention to the Clean Air Partnership's report: "Bike Lanes, On-Street Parking and Business". This report suggests that bike lanes provide a greater socio-economic benefit than on-street car parking does.

I don't know if there's enough flexibility in the evaluation system/criteria to reflect this information, but if there is, could you please make sure that these things are considered before the preferred solution is confirmed.

Thanks,
Kris Coward

Great response. Thank you for taking the time to think through some solutions that could help so many of us.

Your dedication is appreciated.

HONKA! HONKA!
http://trikester.wordpress.com/

...the SUV's of the bike world. :)

I kind of like to see it as Arlo Guthrie's ugly old Volkswagen van in "Alice's Restaurant" :-)

HONKA! HONKA!
http://trikester.wordpress.com/

...not a red VW Microbus with shovels and rakes and other implements of destruction...lol

No but I might have video implements of mass destruction in the back...

Whaddya think?

HONKA! HONKA!
http://trikester.wordpress.com/