bike trails

City Transportation staff are developing a trails report and asking the public to review the proposed trail connections for Toronto before the report is submitted to Public Works and Infrastructure Committee. The open house will be in North York, 40 Orchard View Blvd (1 block north of Eglinton and west of Yonge), Monday February 6, 2012, 5:30 to 7:30pm) or comment via Facebook.

Our new mayor made the bike trails the primary focus of bicycle infrastructure. It's exciting that we might have more bike trails in our City! But let's not give the mayor too much credit. The vast majority of these connections were identified in the 2001 Bike Plan. What the mayor did was make these trails a priority over the rest of the bikeway network. In fact, the mayor has supposedly scrapped the Bike Plan because he claims that the roads are no place for bikes (or streetcars for that matter).

Cycle 26, a group of Ward 26 cycling advocates, copied me on a report they recently submitted to the City. Ward 26 is what normal people consider the inner suburbs. It includes Leaside, Thorncliffe and Flemingdon Park; a very ethnically and economically-diverse ward. It includes the Don Trail as well as a number of planned routes in the Bike Plan, most of which are not close to being implemented. Thus the report (see attached).

From Cycle 26 member, Geoff Kettel:

Dan Egan, Manager, Pedestrian and Cycling Infrastructure at the City of Toronto spoke to the Leaside Property Owners Assn (LPOA) AGM on Wednesday and indicated the report would be used to assist in prioritizing work for 2009. We will be watching!! Councillor Parker also sounded supportive.

We are proposing to meet in January with TCU cycling coordinators from the adjoining wards - actually the central east region from Yonge to Victoria Park and from Steeles down to the waterfront. Cycling does not work unless it is linked in with routes across a wider area.

Cycle 26's steering committee is composed of Geoff Kettel, Brian Betsworth, Louis Fliss and Ian Hallett. Let's hope this spurs some changes in Ward 26!