David Stern, the owner of the Queen Mother Café—with support of a group of pro-cycling lawyers— has asked the province to reconsider the John Street EA in light of new information—namely a professionally-conducted traffic count—that shows that bike traffic is much higher than the 2% that was quoted in the EA. Cycle Toronto Ward 20 and the Toronto Bicycling Network have written letters in support.
In an unprecedented challenge to the City, four legal challenges have been submitted to the City and the Minister of the Environment claiming there has been shoddy process on Front Street, John Street and Jarvis Street that have resulted in plans that exclude cyclists and make conditions unsafe. I haven't heard of any other North American city having so many legal challenges to its planning authority and process at once.
Front Street and John Street EAs have been approved. I previously wrote how both the John and Front Street EAs failed cyclists. The notice of completion for both projects has been issued and people will have an opportunity to object by June 11, 2012.
Dave Meslin organized a bike count a couple days ago to find out if the John Street Corridor EA's 2% bike mode share claim was correct or not. I joined the effort. What we found out, and suspected, was that it was quite unlikely that 2% could be accurate. The EA claimed that cycling rates on John Street were a steady 2%, morning, afternoon, weekday and weekend.
[Update: It was brought to my attention that these cyclist and pedestrian counts took place in October. Why did the City use October numbers instead of dates more representative of good cycling and walking weather? The Bicycle Cordon Count the City did last year were specifically conducted in September because it is an optimal time to count cyclists. People are back from vacation and it is still good weather for cycling. October is getting late and is not representative of peak demand.]
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