Clearly define the bike lanes on Sherbourne in redesign

Tonight, Thursday, January 26, 2012 is the open house for "upgrading" the Sherbourne bike lanes to provide better separation between cars and bikes. Please drop by from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School, 444 Sherbourne Street (at Wellesley), to provide your feedback.

Back in 2010 Dutch cycling consultants came to our city for ThinkBike, to work with urban professionals to rethink our cycling infrastructure and promotion is done in Toronto. Luckily they chose Sherbourne as one example and one of the teams produced a presentation, which you'd do well to preview before providing your feedback tonight.

A couple thoughts in response to their online notes:

1. It would be good if they continued the separation north of Bloor. There is really no reason why not since as far as I recall there isn't any on-street parking for the first couple blocks. The first block is a bridge over Rosedale Valley which would benefit from better separation from cars, at least to prevent cars from parking in the bike lanes.
2. From Bloor to Gerrard (a good portion of Sherbourne), there is no major roadwork scheduled so staff have suggested that more temporary installation take place, including flexible bollards and painted buffers. Likewise the work from Front to Queens Quay will be figured out in 2013 to coincide with road reconstruction.

   It would be ideal to have an obvious separation that doesn't make it enticing for cars to park in the lane. The suggested design from Gerrard to Front is a "rolled curb" with a painted buffer. The rolled curb is presumably being proposed to keep emergency services happy. I'm not sure why it is important for a bike lane to have a rolled curb and not for a sidewalk. In this image from Copenhagen, vertical curbs are used.

   The City should also consider flexible bollards for the entire length of Sherbourne. Emergency vehicles can easily get over them and regular motorists will use them as a guide to stay out of the separated bike lanes. This is particularly true if the City insists in sticking with rolled curbs.