contra-flow

(Photos by Tino)

From the Urban Repair Squad folks a two-way sharrow on Macdonnel St in Parkdale. The Torontoist has a good post and interesting comments:

Longtime Urban Repair Squad documentarian Martin Reis says he first spotted the symbols over the weekend. "Toronto has so few real good north-south connections, especially in the west end," Reis explained to Torontoist. "I mean, the west end is a giant black hole of no bike infrastructure." Add that to the experience of biking north on a street, facing-down cars travelling south, and "it's a bit nerve-wracking," Reis says.

The official City inventory of bike infrastructure includes one-way sharrows and also contra-flow lanes to allow cyclists to go both ways on one-way streets for cars. The URS "innovation" is interesting, even if there are bound to be reservations about encouraging cyclists to travel over the same sharrows in both directions. If there was some reasonableness in this idea, perhaps there should be sharrows on both sides of the streets so cyclists can bike on the side they'd normally be expected to bike. But that isn't entirely the point, likely. A two-way sharrow catches the eye and makes one think "Why not?"

The comments includes the precautionary ones:

This photo was taken by Martin Koob at the City's cycling consultation session in July. A summary of that consultation can be found here.

Remember back in June when the newly minted Cycling Committee Chair, Councillor Adrian Heaps, said we'd get 27 km of bike lanes this year or else? Heaps was quoted in the Star saying, "If the transportation department has to spray paint it themselves – you can quote me on this – it's going in."

Who's counting? Martin Koob of biketoronto.ca is. He has crafted a comprehensive list of what's done, what's approved and what's left for 2007. Let's add it up!

Paint is dry:

* Logan Ave. - Eastern to point zoom south 0.2 km (contra-flow, pictured at bottom)
* Christie St. - Bloor to St. Clair 1.2 km (more pictures in our <a href="http://www.ibiketo.ca/image/tid/191">Streetscapes gallery</a>)
* Knox - Queen to Eastern 0.2
* Roselawn - Marlee to Dufferin 1 km (additional information below - <strong>UPDATE</strong>* Pictures now added below)


Approved and ready to rumble:

* Chester Hill - Broadview W 0.1 km
* Greenwood - Danforth to Queen 2.1 km
* Carlaw - Logan /Gerrard to Dundas 1 km
* Pond - Sentinel to Murray Ross 1 km