Sheppard LRT and cycling
The Sheppard LRT will become a reality - and there are new opportunities for the use of bikes.
Traveling in the burbs by TTC is a bit different from down town. Typically travel distances are longer, service is less frequent and the walk to/from the TTC stop usually takes significant time. Here are some ideas how bikes can help:
- let's advocate that the bike is used to get from the door to the RT stop, thus reducing a 10 to 20 minute walk to 2 to 5 minute bike ride. That's a twenty minutes gain, per day.
- point out that the bike can be used to avoid a transfer - transfers involve waiting for the connecting bus/LRT and thus waste one's time. For example, to get from my home to Sheppard, I could use the Brimley bus to get me down to Sheppard. That's a walk to Brimley of about 10 minutes, waiting for the bus for 5 minutes if I time it right, travel 6 minutes to Sheppard and then wait again for the LRT. Total time is about 21 minutes which I could reduce to a five-minute bike ride.
- point out the usual health benefits - a daily stint on the bike can replace some of the formal efforts to a fitness club and thus save time and money
What we should be asking for:
* sufficient bike parking at the LRT stops. We need a safe place where we can leave the bikes for the day
* create safe routes from the residential areas down to the LRT stops. This could be accomplishes by designation streets for that purpose and make those routes safer: either by lowering the speed limits there, by using existing multi-use trails or even installing bike lanes.
* a promotion program to get the idea of combining bike use and TTC to the commuter's advantage. Without actual promotion things change too slowly and the benefits will not be realized...
The transit city bike lanes will also get bikes off the sidewalks. Bike lanes also get bikes out of the way of cars so they can go their speed and we can go our speed. We must make sure the planned bike lanes are not sacrificed for a "compromise" on transit city. We all need complete streets.
I think downtown TO is ready for the concept of "complete streets" - and even there the bike lanes of Jarvis were used to attack the plan. In Scarberia, we are a little bit behind the times in such matters and would easily get misunderstood.
I personally would be happy if we could stay out of a fight for Sheppard and get a paralleling minor road as a bike artery instead. Huntingwood runs parallel, less than a km to the north, and is quite suitable for that purpose. It has the same number of traffic lights as Sheppard - so it ain't any slower than Sheppard for us cyclists....
Every Transit City line should also mean bike lanes across suburban arterials, especially Finch for York University students. The suburbanites who drive aren't going to care that there will be bike infrastructure as long as the car lanes are maintained, which is possible since these streets are wide. We won't have an opportunity like this one for generations to make cycling viable in the suburbs! Whether the appropriate solution will be on-street bike lanes, lanes beside the sidewalk, or cycle tracks, we need to make sure this happens.
Good point, J'ist.
And it all has to be approved by City Council. Let's see how progressive the 'burbs dare to be.... ;-)
It's a good thing that Transit City has been approved. Cycling infrastructure in Transit City could be treated as just another facet of the project for planners conscious of the advantages of complete streets, yet a breakthrough for cycling in the city. If Toronto's cycling community is involved at meetings and communicating with planners and sympathetic councillors, such infrastructure could be realized without becoming much of an issue.
Bike lanes please. Councillor Shelley Carroll will be hosting a Ward 33 Transit Community meeting on Thursday April 19th 2012 to discuss details of what was decided by Council last month and to discuss the impact of the LRT on our Community. The meeting details are as follows:
Ward 33 Transit Community Meeting
Thursday April 19, 2012
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
30 Herons Hill Way, Party Room (new condo at Sheppard and Yorkland)
We anticipate that many of you will be interested in attending this meeting and we want to make sure that we can accommodate everyone. As a result, we are requesting that if you are planning to attend, you RSVP to gbancro@toronto.ca or 416-392-4099.
Ne znam koji su razlozi zasto se bunite na sve ove rijeci ohrabrenja koje su vam upucene. Lijepo je da se neko odlucio da progovori i da vam kaze istinu. Da veoma ste perfektni i ima nas dosta posjetitlja koji dijele takvo mišljenje. Svako dobro i u daljem radu i puno vas pratimo.
Isn't Sheppard LRT a light rail? How it is related to cycling?
For several reason:
Metrolinx is the first reason. Since Metrolinx produced its initial reports, they have clearly had the position that "Active Transportation" must always be included in transportation planning. Running feeder routes (ie busses) to/from aggregated routes is the biggest expense, and is also the most likely to not cover it's own costs. Often, these feeder routes travel on are of a distance that a person on a bike could easily travel as part of a multi-modal trip. Metrolinx has been clear that providing safe routes and bike parking will encourage more people to use a bike for part of their trip(s).
Second, the EA's for the surface LRT all included bike lanes as well. Only the underground portion of Eglinton did not explicitly include bike lanes.
Third, if the city is making any changes to the surface of the streets in any significant way then that is the very best time and the best opportunity to add/improve a range of cycling infrastructure as well (cycle tracks/bike lanes/bike parking, etc).