Etobicoke

Peter Milczyn, City Councillor for Etobicoke - Lakeshore has results for an unscientific survey of ward citizens and their cycling habits and views. We don't know how many people responded to the survey, and those who did respond are pre-selected to want to respond and perhaps liked Milczyn. Still there are some interesting trends for a Toronto suburb.

Some highlights:

• 90% own a bike
• 27% commute by bike
• 61% use existing bike lanes
• 41% would ride on a road with no bike lane, 39% only at certain times of day
• 55% fully support bike lanes, 26% in some locations
• most suitable locations for bike lanes: local roads 14%, collector roads 14%, minor arterial roads 19%, major arterial roads 12%, pathways and parks 22%, mixture of above 16%, nowhere 3%
• 38% see cyclist safety as the biggest concern with bike lanes, 16% see increased traffic congestion, 32% see disjointed bike lanes as biggest concern
• 58% would bike more often if more bike lanes were introduced
• 65% of drivers willng to share roads with cyclists
• 46% willing to give up a lane of traffic for dedicated bike lane, 23% only on certain roads

Renforth Dr., north of Bloor St.

On Wednesday, the City of Toronto's Cyclometer newsletter announced the following:

Renforth Dr. at Burnhamthorpe Rd.

Renforth Drive in Etobicoke now has 2.5 km of winding lanes between Bloor Street West and Rathburn Road.(Google Map)

Since I read this at work, I decided to check it out on my way home, and then again on my way to work on Thursday morning. Here's a review of what I saw and experienced.

Tonight the City of Toronto is hosting a public meeting for the West District Design Initiative. This initiative is a large scale re-design of three important parts of Etobicoke:

• Bloor and Islington (Map)
• Six Points Interchange and Westwood Theatre Lands at the Bloor-Dundas-Kipling interchange (Map)
• Etobicoke Civic Centre (Map)

Meeting Details:

7:00 - 9:30pm, Council Chambers
Etobicoke Civic Centre
399 The West Mall (Map)
South-east corner of Burnhamthorpe and The West Mall, Toronto ON M9C 2Y2
TTC: subway to Islington, then Burnhamthorpe bus #50 west to The West Mall
Website: http://www.toronto.ca/business/wddi.htm