University Ave bike lane: proposed summer pilot project
Separated bike lanes are planned as a summer pilot project for University Avenue. It should prove to be the new scapegoat for traffic congestion by the media, and a new focus for the so-called "war on cars", despite staff showing that traffic capacity will not be affected at all (just as many cars will flow up and down University as before). But reason be damned.
City staff have submitted a bikeway network report to public works proposing the University Ave project along with a number of other items, including sharrows on Spadina, a short bike lane on Bay, and so on.
The pilot University lane will start at Hoskin's on the north side of Queen's Park and down to Richmond. At the end of summer the bike lane will be removed and the results analyzed. It will then be up to the new city council to approve a permanent bike lane.
The Star reports:
University currently has four traffic lanes in each direction with a centre median, but it could be reduced to three lanes, with one lane given over to bicycles, a staff report says.
Having bikes run in the centre lanes beside the median would allow the curb lanes to continue to be used for stopping, parking, vendors and taxis, the report added.
