Ward 5

Rush Hour: 5:45pm at Bloor and Forest View, Etobicoke

Bike lanes on Bloor St. may be more likely to happen than you think. Possibly even sooner than expected. I was at the Bloor Street West and The West Mall Bike Lanes public consultation last night, and can report back that it it's mostly good news for cyclists.

Two new bike lanes were being presented at this meeting: A 3.1km stretch of The West Mall, from Bloor St. down to The Queensway (map), and a 3.4km piece of Bloor St. W. between Mill Rd. and Kipling Ave (map).

One of the points that several residents at last night's meeting kept bringing up went along the lines of, "But these lanes don't take you anywhere!". Well, contrary to popular belief, I feel that these lanes will actually fill in a much-needed gap in the network, providing safer cycling in mid-town and south-western Etobicoke.

I live in Mimico and I like to keep on top of what's going on, and I'm going to share what I know here.

After asking nicely, city staff were good enough to provide me with a map of bike lanes, paths and routes in Ward 6. The map shows what is done and what still needs to be done with respect to bikeway network in the current Bike Plan. This ties in nicely with the updates that staff provided at the last TCAC meeting where they handed out a schedule of this year's bike lanes are to be approved.

Ward 6 gets six new bike lanes this year for a total of 7.2km, that's over 10% of the new bike lanes going in this year! Yay for Ward 6!

The four sections currently scheduled to be approved at the June PWIC meeting are:

• Stanley Ave (Contra-flow) from Royal York to Superior (0.6km)
• Horner Ave. from Browns Line to Judson (2.9km)
• Judson St. from Horner Ave to Islington Ave. (0.7km), and
• Royal York Rd. from Cavell to Manitoba (0.8km)

Hot on the heels of last week's West District Design Initiative public meeting, there will be a public meeting to discuss the proposed changes to the Islington and Kipling transit stations.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Open house: 6:00pm - 7:30pm
Presentation: 7:30pm - 9:00pm
Islington United Church, 25 Burnhamthorpe Rd (map)
More info here and here.

The main reasons for the revitalization of these stations are: 1) Free up the Islington Station lands for better re-development, 2) Move the Mississauga Transit terminal west from Islington to the new Kipling regional bus terminal, 3) Expand Kipling station into more of a regional bus terminal, and 4) Improve access to these stations for buses, kiss-n-riders, disabled people, etc.

Q: As a cyclist, why should I care?

Well, there are many reasons! The documentation online has a distinct lack of any mention of cycling amenities. Come to the meeting and tell Ward 5 Councillor Peter Milczyn, the TTC, Mississauga Transit, GO Transit, and the city planners that you want them to consider the following ideas (add your own too!):

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