Is cycling the 905 more dangerous than the 416?
RE: “905 lagging in bike safety, advocates say” – Toronto Star, Sept. 2, 2008
http://www.thestar.com/article/488831
True, the roads of the 905 are very unsafe for cycling. Is biking in the 416 more or less dangerous? The area code is not something I think about when I too often come eye to eye with the front radial tire of death, be that downtown, in suburbia or out in the countryside.
Safer roads are however just a case study away. If we want to reduce the risks taken when cycling in and around the GTA, all we need do is role-model the (in my opinion) “beautiful” people of Burlington.
I have bicycled in Burlington four times this summer, and have been astonished each time by the way the community respects cyclists. An abundance of useful bike paths? Yes. What I’m amazed by however is my personal treatment where, all day long, three out of four car drivers approaching from behind slowed down considerably to pass me. Nine out of ten, seriously, pulled out when they went by - bike lane or not.
No matter how far you roam, you’ll never escape irresponsible jerks in race cars and pickups, who get off playing “how close can I get” with you. From my personal experience however… cyclists, you’re in “pretty” good hands in Burlington.
I can't really say that one is better or worse than the other. The 416 is a big place, and the 905 even bigger.
In the downtown core, I find that motorists seem to expect cyclists more, but they are also more used to having cyclists around so they tend to drive/pass closer, etc. The congestion also seems to cause motorists (and cyclists) to drive more aggressively.
The outer 416 is pretty much the same as many parts of the 905....
But then again, there's so much variation in different parts of the 905....
My own daily experience of riding from Bloor and Lansdowne in Toronto to the Mississauga City Centre tells me that cycling in Mississauga is actually a hell of a lot better than Toronto. The farther I ride west towards work, the less it feels like I'm surrounded by agitated motorists, and the roads open up more. Another interesting thing to note is that the roads in Mississauga seem to be in MUCH better shape, especially contrasting Burnhamthorpe Rd. or Eglinton Ave. on either side of the border.
Heck...even my nasty run-ins with Mississauga Transit all seem to take place within Toronto!
On the other hand...there are roads all over Mississauga that are simply HORRIBLE to ride on. Hurontario / Highway 10 (though I love riding fast south to the lake, keeping up with rush hour traffic!), Dundas St., Mavis, Eglinton, etc..etc... They also have a tendency to design really bad off-road multi-use paths.
As for Burlington... Jen and I just rode there this weekend. Took the GO to Appleby, then rode west a bit along a nice crushed-gravel trail, and then down to Lakeshore through some quiet streets. On Lakeshore, we had some hosers in a big pickup towing a boat yell at us (and other cyclists) that we should be riding on the bike path, which they pointed out is on the sidewalk on the south side. Yes, it's technically a trail, but it's very narrow and full of peds, and the intersections suck... (I wish I had thought to yell back "The lake is over there!" and told them to get their boat off the road.....). The big arterial roads in Burlington can be pretty bad too....but there are some nice places to cycle around there.
Hamilton is also an excellent city for cycling. They've come a long way with marking cycling routes and improving infrastructure (lanes, staircases, parking, etc..). I love going back there and finding new places to ride, any chance I get.
Anyway....Like I said in the subject line....905 vs. 416 cycling safety really depends on where you are, and also on your own level of skills and comfort. I wouldn't say that either one is better than the other, but they both have their pluses and minuses. They also each have a long way to go to make cycling more accessible / friendly to the masses.
... and have cycled in Toronto for that last decade or so. The big advantage I remember in Burlington was that typically the curb lanes are a lot wider. Even with no bike lane, you end up with a defacto bike lane. And there is very little street parking on main roads in Burlington, so the door prize is rarely an issue.
Since I've left, it seems Burlington has gone as far as to install a network of bike lanes to encourage more cycling.
The other advantage of Burlington is that it is relatively small. I lived in the west end, almost at the city limits of Burloak. Riding to the other end of town could easily be accomplished in well under an hour ... to the lake and Spenser Smith Park was probably closer to 5 miles and offered a crushed gravel path most of the way.
The downside: you have to get use to mixing with traffic that is moving a lot faster than you are. Traffic (at least when I lived there) could move on a main road like New Street or Fairview at 60 - 70 km/h. That said, I rode those roads regularly and didn't feel endangered, probably because the curb lane was wide enough that I didn't feel like the car was about to sideswipe me!
The more congested areas of Toronto definitely have more dangers to watch for (more intersections with cars turning, more street parking, more pedestrians crossing the roads). But, traffic mostly moves slowly and it usually feels as if any accident would be less destructive than something that might happen from getting hit by a faster-moving car in the suburbs. Not sure if that's true, though ... and I hope I never find out!!!
I didn't find the drivers quite so respectful. Try going down Brant Street off the escarpment towards the GO station in the middle of a weekday afternoon. You can be going 50 kph and nobody respects your right to take the lane. (trying to pass you by straddling lanes)
I used to regularly run through Burlington from the Toronto area on my way to visit my family in the Niagara area. Old highway two was always a pleasant ride even nearly thirty years ago the first time I made the run. I don't know that the drivers were any more courteous but there was plenty of room to ride and almost no one parking along the way. Number twenty through Stoney Creek was quite the opposite though. I don't even like driving there with my van. I only climbed the escarpment there a couple times on the bike before finding an alternative. My favorite was highway eight to Beamsville where there was a much easier climb.
http://kincycling.blogspot.com
http://kincycling.blogspot.com
Hazel McCallion's going to get a taste of riding to work in Mississauga.
Includes a photo and interview
And she says Mississauga has a helmet bylaw???
~dj
-dj
I clock up to 250km/wk on my bike; it is used for recreation, commuting (35km round trip) and errands. My errands are run mostly down town, my commutes for various jobs have taken me from the downtown area out to the airport, heartland-mississauga and 401/404 areas and my recreational rides are in the farmlands surrounding the GTA: Milton, holland marsh etc.
Safety, or the perception of it, is not something drawn along the boundaries of area codes. For me, it is as simple as this: cars passing me too-close-too-fast = DANGER!!! Yup, that's my pet peeve; it always gets my heart racing.
That said, I would rank the areas where I ride as follows:
and last... in a very very distant 3rd place.... The middleburbs. There's a line that you cross, west of Bloor West Village, East of the Beaches and North of ForestHill/MoorePark where everythign gets scary and dangerous. The cars think they own the roads out here, they drive faster and more aggresivley and they are not expecting to see cyclists, let alone on the road (remember, technically my 26" wheels are banned from the sidewalk!). I would like to keep some rotten eggs on hand to throw at the cars that speed by me at >60kmph, with inches to spare, IN THE DIAMOND LANE WITHOUT THE REQUISTE NUMBER OF PASSENGERS. Sometimes I wonder if I'm going to make it home and if the risk is worth the benefit.
My hasty (and biased) little sketch hopefully illustrates that there is little correlation between the perception of safety and area code.
I'll be sure to print this one off and give it to the guys i work with out on the farm in sharon yellow bike they love to hear that there appreciated when they pull to the side of the road now if we could do something about the riders that ride in groups of 20 or more on these farm roads and won't pull over to the side so that they can get by in there cars and trucks it does actually get real annoying cause a lot of these roads are narrow and when passing cyclists we like to give them a lot of room so if one of you by chance do end up reading this post put yourself in the drivers seat he wants to get by you safely so be nice and pull to the side and give him some room