Don Wesley is the co-captain of the Ward 20 advocacy group of Cycle Toronto (formerly Toronto Cyclists Union). With support of his Ward group and solicitors, Fogler, Rubinoff LLP, he is taking legal steps to ensure that the John Street EA addresses the concerns of cyclists. Local John Street business, the Urbane Cyclist bike shop, is also bringing forward their legal concerns, represented by Ian Flett.

From Wesley's letter, the main objection to the EA:

... the EA proposes to narrow existing vehicular lanes along John Street without provision for bike traffic, thereby effectively eliminating John Street as a cycling route and instead turning the route into a “ride at your own risk” corridor in which cyclist safety will be endangered due to competition for space with automobiles.

Wesley's states that the John Street EA contained two legal deficiencies. One, the EA does not comply with the Municipal Class Environmental Assessment and, two, it is inconsistent with the 2005 Provincial Policy Statement and does not conform with the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

Wesley and Urbane Cyclist are requesting a meeting with the Public Consultation Unit of the City of Toronto. In case their issues aren't resolved to their satisfaction, they will request the Minister of the Environment issue a Part II order pursuant to the Environmental Assessment Act. A Part II order allows an interested person to ask for a higher level of assessment for a class environmental assessment (Class EA) project if they feel there are significant outstanding issues that have not been adequately addressed.

Ward 20 cyclists believe that there are ways of achieving the goals of the City on John Street while accommodating cyclists and protecting their safety.

The John Street EA was approved by Council, but there were some flaws in the process that make this legal challenge important. Staff used incorrect numbers for estimating cycling traffic, which they later admitted their data was somewhat flawed after sustained effort by Dave Meslin and other activists in recording actual data with lots of media attention. Instead of the claimed percentage of 2% bike mode share during peak times, Meslin had measured closer to 30%. Though the admission was posted on the site, this information was not available for the public meetings.

Another flaw was in the process of pushing hard for a pedestrianization of John Street without a commitment to ensuring that cyclists would have the same level of access and connectivity on John or close by. Indeed, it now appears as if cyclists may not even get an adequate cycling route on Soho/Peter, and this was the route that was championed by Councillor Vaughan. The major concern was improving the connection across Queen Street since currently it includes an unsafe jog across streetcar tracks and a left turn - something very few cyclists feel comfortable in doing. A new building is being proposed for the corner that would eliminate a chance for a reconfigured intersection.

This makes fighting for a John Street that includes cyclists even that more important.

Front Street and John Street EAs have been approved. I previously wrote how both the John and Front Street EAs failed cyclists. The notice of completion for both projects has been issued and people will have an opportunity to object by June 11, 2012.

You can view the final report for John Street and the notice of completion. The Front Street report is here and the notice of completion here. Both of these EAs effectively short-changed and/or ignored the needs of cyclists, both young and old. Particularly with Front Street, there was a persistent bias that cycling wasn't a legitimate mode of transportation and could be ignored whenever it became inconvenient.

Send your concerns to:

Jason Diceman
Senior Public Consultation Coordinator
JohnSt@toronto.ca
Tel: 416.338-2830
Fax: 416.392-2974

and also send your concerns to

The Honourable Jim Bradley
Minister of the Environment
Province of Ontario
minister.moe@ontario.ca
Ferguson Block
77 Wellesley Street West, 11th Floor
Toronto, ON M7A 2T5

There will be a public meeting this Tuesday to steer the future of Ontario Place. Ontario Place is right on Lake Ontario and includes a part of the most travelled bike trail in Toronto, the Martin Goodman Trail. There has been an ongoing issue with Ontario Place using unsafe "P gates" to restrict the flow of cyclists crossing intersections. It has also been focused on automobile access with its vast parking lots to the detriment of access by other modes, including cycling. (Thanks to John Taranu for the tip-off).

In order to get better cycling infrastructure on Ontario Place's vast property cyclists will need to speak out today at the public town hall.

The Minister’s Advisory Panel on Ontario Place Revitalization invites Ontarians to participate in a town hall on the future of Ontario Place.

Date: Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Time: 6:30 - 9:30 p.m.
Location: Metro Toronto Convention Centre
South Building, Room 801
222 Bremner Blvd, Toronto

John Tory, the Chair, will ask a series of questions about how to make Ontario Place a year-round destination. If you are participating consider the following questions:

• What are the key elements of a public space that matter to you?
• What would entice you to return to Ontario Place many times during the year?

The roundtable session will be followed by a presentation on the key themes heard during the group discussions and a Q&A session.

Ideas and suggestions will be considered by the Advisory Panel as it prepares its final report to government on the redevelopment of Ontario Place.

The City had approved an EA report for a remake of Front Street in front of Union Station. It would improve pedestrian access, but in the end, provided nothing substantive for cycling access, and perhaps even made it worse in some respects. This for a major transportation hub in Canada. Cycle Toronto has expressed its concerns (pdf) about the project and has sent a letter to the City to see that its concerns are met. If not, Cycle Toronto may bring its concerns to the Province under the EA legislation. The approved EA, according to Cycle Toronto, is contrary to the City of Toronto Official Plan, Metrolinx's transportation policies, and fails to provide adequate lanes for bicycle transportation and fails to accommodate access by bicycle to Union Station, a concern that was also expressed by Metrolinx at an earlier date.

If Cycle Toronto's concerns can't be resolved with the City, they will "make an order under Part 11 of the Environmental Assessment Act that would require the Project to undergo an individual environmental assessment".

Previously Metrolinx had also expressed concerns that cyclists were being short-changed. Lesiië/ Woo, Vice President of Policy, Planning and Innovation at Metrolinx, said in February:

It is encouraging to see an emphasis in the EA on pedestrian priority and safety; however, I wouid encourage the City to consider this opportunity to concurrently improve access to Union Station for cyclists. In particular, the preferred concept identitìed through the EA provides minimal dedicated on-road space for cyclists. With the introduction of a greater number of taxi and loading zones, there may be a greater number of points of conflict between cyclists, pedestrians, and motorized vehicles. On Front Street, the consideration of on-street bike lanes or dedicated cycling facilities may help to reduce conflicts, especially in high activity areas, such as adjacent to taxi stands and loading zones.

The City's Public Works and Infrastructure Committee had previously asked City staff to consider changes to the plan, but staff came back with nothing, saying that they were unable to arrange a meeting with the appropriate people in time. So instead of delaying the approval until changes could be discussed, it was summarily accepted. Perhaps this time they'll find the time.

Reportedly they decided in the end to go with a less clichéd t-shirt for Bike Month 2012.

Walk Score had recently released a scoring system for cycling in collaboration with researchers from Cycling in Cities, a University of British Columbia research program. A number of American and Canadian cities now have scores, including Toronto.

There is something odd going on with Toronto. The places where the highest percentages of commuters use bicycles also have a high chance of being areas with low Bike Scores. I overlayed a map of the bicycle mode share across Toronto from Statistics Canada. The following is just the bike commuter mode share:

I then tried to merge the two in the following image. Where bike mode share is high but the Bike Score is poor it shows up as purplish. Where bike mode share is high and the Bike Score is good it shows up as bluish-green.

Why do Torontonians bike despite a poor Bike Score?

There are three possible explanations. Bike Score is trying to measure whether a location is "good for biking" and not necessarily correlate with high bike mode shares. Bike Score might be missing, or not giving enough weight to, some factors that make Toronto neighbourhoods bike-friendly. Or Bike Score data is inaccurate and misses some key bike infrastructure. I think it's a combination of the three.

Bike Score will never match perfectly with mode share. It appears that averaged across a city that there is a strong correlation of mode share and Bike Score. Yet this isn't true for areas of Toronto. Bike Score actually takes into account bike commuting mode share when coming up with the measure. An obvious way to increase the match would be to give mode share a higher weighting. But make it too high and it just becomes a a mode share measure and not one of "bikeability".

Bike Score is based on the Cycling in Cities research, which included these environmental factors important to cyclists:

• cycling infrastructure (separated bike lanes and bike paths, local street bikeways, painted bike lanes)
• topography (hilliness)
• desirable amenities (grocery stores, restaurants, schools, etc.) and road connectivity (both are components of Walk Score, which was used to capture these elements within Bike Score)

There seems to be missing data. In the Trinity Bellwoods area, for example, the mode share is one of the highest in the city, yet the Bike Score is quite poor. Part of this breakdown may be due to what seems to be missing College and Harbord bike lanes (there doesn't appear to be a green smudge where they are). These are two of the best used bike lanes in the city. Bike Score should get more accurate data from the City of Toronto.

Aside from these omissions there still seems to be disconnect so let's speculate on other factors that influence high bike mode share. One factor is destination (distance to desirable amenities and road connectivity). They include destination as a heat map and it appears to match bike mode share more closely than their overall Bike Score. Should they give destination more weighting?

Another factor is the friendliness of residential streets. While the main arteries of Toronto seldom have bike lanes, the residential streets provide respite for the speed and chaos of traffic. Local street bikeways are included but unlike other cities like Vancouver Toronto residential streets often don't have any bike-specific features yet can still be bikeable.

Another factor is cultural influence. Cycling rates have increased in Toronto at a much higher rate than the increase in cycling infrastructure. In areas where people can see "ordinary" women and men of all ages cycling, it becomes much easier for other people to see themselves as cycling as well. Since Bike Score already incorporates a mode share component it appears as if either this data is missing for Toronto or they might need to give it a higher weighting. As Bike Score says, "We believe as more people in your social network bike, there's a stronger chance that you will bike."

Since Bike Score is in beta it will inevitably improve by adding more accurate data and perhaps changing the weighting of items over time. I look forward to seeing how it will develop and be used by researchers, business and government.

I have another video; this one makes the point that we need better enforcement of bicycle lanes. Too often, drivers seem to think they can legally pull into a bike lane to load and unload, or to take (or make) a cell phone call. It doesn't help when police, as shown in this video, ignore infractions. They don't have to ticket every offender; just speak up and educate the drivers, or at least move them along.

A video I hope will interest my fellow cyclists: a comment on why cyclists take the lane, and why, whoever complains about it, taking the lane does not seriously inconvenience motorists. This video addresses the hazards of passing cyclists and shows, as clearly as I can, why passing a cyclist so rarely accomplishes anything for a motorist.