city hall

City Transportation staff presented their vision of an improved Sherbourne Street for cyclists. The cyclists were pleased and there did not seem to be much political opposition from any group with the left mostly on side and with Councillor Minnan-Wong on board. You can view all the presentation slides now.

When determining how to best separate cyclists from motorists, City staff needed to take into account that it would still need to be permeable. Their design considerations included:

• A rolled curb will separate the bike lane from the vehicle lanes
• Bikes may enter and exit the cycle tracks
• Emergency vehicles and Wheel-Trans can access cycle track when required
• Garbage collection maintained as usual
• Cycle tracks will be maintained all year

Sherbourne, North of Gerrard

Typical Intersection - the separation narrows bringing cyclists into clearer view with motorists. Note the indirect lefts, which I covered in a previous post..

Cross section in mid-block

True words by Albert Koehl in Rabble of how Mayor Ford is doing more harm to drivers than good with his archaic, anti-city approach to moving people:

Don Cherry has a lesson to teach Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Cherry has spent a career promoting the hockey fighter, sometimes known as the enforcer or goon. The problem is that the science of brain injuries has caught up with (and passed) his assertion that the violence of these bare-knuckle encounters doesn't really hurt anyone, and helps the game. Indeed, the very fighters whose role Cherry has championed are increasingly turning out to be the game's victims.

The cause that Ford championed most loudly during the election was that of motorists. On taking office he declared that the war on the car was over. He eliminated a small vehicle registration tax, then moved forward on his congestion relief plan by getting transit out of the way of motorists. Two of three streetcar lines approved by the previous administration were shelved and a third line would go underground at significantly higher cost. He even promised to build a new subway line. Cyclists, too, were targeted. The council he leads voted to eliminate three bike lanes at a projected cost of $400,000.

Science, and experience, makes it clear that Ford's solutions won't work -- and the main victim will be the motorist.

"Where the bike lane ends" by Tino

Toronto's Official Plan is a powerful policy instrument that can help improve a city wide bikeway network over time and deal with the gaps in the network. We still have until Oct. 17 to provide feedback and suggestions for the plan in the City's short survey. This is a good place for us to tell policy makers what is our priority for the city.

If you are wondering how you can provide useful suggestions for the Official Plan, one place to start would be to identify gaps in the Bikeway Network and think of how those gaps could be closed (hey, you could even suggest they put back in the recently-voted-to-be-removed Jarvis, Pharmacy and Birchmount!).

Some examples of suggestions for the Official Plan:

The City is in the first stage of its new Official Plan Reviews and currently in the midst of the September Open Houses. Next week the Open Houses are at York Civic Centre on Sept 26 and at North York Civic Centre on Sept 27.

Open Houses run 3:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and include facilitated discussions. If you cycle regularly you may be interested in attending one of the open houses and provide some input on how the Official Plan can benefit active transportation and, in particular, cycling.

The Open House material (discussion guide, presentation and display boards) will be posted under the "Events and Meetings" tab on the Review website.

People can also take the fast feedback survey which runs to October 17. It can be good alternative if you can't make one of the open houses. I completed the survey and found that they are already aware that cycling is important to take account of in planning our cities and would like to know more of how we think the official plan can reflect that.

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong lives in nice, quiet inner suburb of Toronto (not unlike the one pictured above). Note the lack of sidewalks. Note the lack of pedestrians. If you lived there you would likely drive to every place you needed to go. If you drove downtown you'd probably also see a stark difference between your quiet neighbourhood and the hustle and bustle of downtown. On downtown Toronto streets such as Jarvis and Dundas it's not as easy to drive what with all the pedestrians and cyclists. Compare that quiet suburb with the busyness of the pedestrian scramble at Yonge and Dundas:

If you lived in a quiet suburban house where everything was only reachable by car, perhaps you too would assume that all streets are built for cars and then reach the conclusion that downtown streets must also be changed to ensure that pedestrians and cyclists stay out of the way of your private automobile as much as possible. So perhaps it's not entirely surprising that Minnan-Wong sees pedestrian scrambles as a "problem" to be solved, or that cyclists need to be funneled onto certain streets so that other streets can be kept clear for drivers:

Why would anyone build a road that abuts a park and links a waterfront trail to a pedestrian / cyclist bridge – and name it after Dan Leckie, to boot – and not put a bike lane on it? Only in Toronto, eh?

Ward 20 Councillor Adam Vaughan amended the PW5.1 Bikeway Network recommendations to redress this judgement lapse, and added several other bike-friendly amendments. But when PW5.1 came to a vote at City Council on July 13, it also included the motion to remove the bike lanes on Jarvis.

So here is Vaughan’s dilemma: if he votes in favour of his own motions to add bike lanes (on Dan Leckie and other roadways), he is simultaneously voting against keeping the lanes on Jarvis. If he votes down the recommendations because of the Jarvis clause, he is voting against the whole cycling infrastructure proposal – and the Fordites can claim there is insufficient support even among downtown representatives to consider additional investment in cycling ever again.

Let’s say you were a member of the Ford team, and you were tasked with suppressing cycling and rolling back existing cycling infrastructure. How best to accomplish this?
Try this:

• First, get some authority. PWIC chair would be a nice whip hand to have.
• Get some credibility – learn to cycle, and become the poster child for the newly converted.
• Join the local advocacy group and wave your new Cycling Union membership card every chance you get.
• Scrap the existing official cycling plan. Work with the Union to come up with a new plan and get their endorsement.
• Request a Status Report from city staff on cycling infrastructure. Use this as a mechanism to introduce your changes.
• Announce that the new administration is going to spend twice as much on cycling infrastructure as the old one. Wave your membership card, get good press, get the Union to claim some success.
• Blow some of the new spend on rolling back existing infrastructure, arguing that it is not supported by the local communities, or was poorly planned by the previous administration, or is not widely used. Ignore anything in the Status Report that does not support the these statements.
• At the same time, announce plans for new infrastructure spending to distract the press and give the Union something to cling to. Offer to trade upgraded infrastructure in one location for eliminated infrastructure in another. Then amend the direction-to-staff motion so that there is no enforceable link between the two.

http://vimeo.com/25991149

Video shooting and editing by Lisa Logan (a big thanks Lisa!). Herb of I Bike TO and Lisa are asking the questions. Produced for the Toronto Cyclists Union and the Save Jarvis campaign. Join the Bike Union and come out on July 12 and 13 to raise your voice in support of bike lanes in Toronto!