Constant Vigilance on Simcoe, Part 2

You've neglected to account for money made on tickets in your math.

This way they get all the revenue from the tickets the cops write. I don't for one moment think this was part of their decision to go with cops instead of bollards. But wouldn't it be nice if it was. Think of the funding opportunities from the city enforcing their own laws! A single cop in front of my building on Bay Street could make money all day off cars in the diamond lane. Why don't they? Mind-boggling.

Those bollards were put there after the bike lanes were finished. Too many vehicles parking in the contra-flow lane. Bollards should be placed on opposite side of the road too.

I think the revenue from the parking infraction tickets is greater than you think. In fact if I'd wager that the cops certainly offset whatever their salaries are with parking tickets if it's an area with excessive infractions. That looks like the case here. It's an income stream for the city. Parking operations brings in something around 20 million for the city each year.

Mind you I'm in favour of bollards or lane separation in some way but I'm just connecting the dots here.

Looks like Transportation Services has received bollards for Simcoe: TO_Cycling tweet

How many of those illegal parking tickets are waived for commercial companies on delivery? That might explain why a vehicle with multiple tickets simply moves further down the street, parks illegally again, and then receives another ticket.

I would like to know when they're going to start putting in some lanes for those of us who come in come the east end ... Simcoe street is no good to me (and several fellow co-workers who bike)- nor is the Richmond Adelaide lanes as they stop short of where I need them!

this city has a LONG way to go... sighs.

Parking in a bike lane is a $150 ticket. It is not necessary for too many of those to be written per hour to cover the PEOs wages.

I now wonder just what ideas some motorists have in their minds about the legalities of parking in a bike lane. We now know that some motorists have crazy ideas abut all sorts of things pertaining to the streets so maybe they have some idea that parking in a painted bike lane is allowed.
I remember on Hornby street that the previous painted bike lane was ignored by motorists all the time. It was scary sometimes too as the motor traffic speed is high. It took putting in concrete barriers and timed turning lights to solve that problem.

I think you can make a case for asking the City, or planning department or whoever, just what kind of experiment is being conducted. What kind of things would make the paint not good enough? At what point is it determined to be not good enough and it's time to go to the next level (or higher) of protection? Who decides? What criteria? Is there even an experiment being conducted at all?

And of course since there's an election coming up, now's the time to find out what candidates are planning to do something about this.

I took a walk along Simcoe Street this past Sunday (August 3) to see what compliance was like. In my first pass there were two private motor vehicles parked in the bicycle lane in a single block. On my return later in the day there were three (two cars and a motor cycle). There were cyclists using the lanes who had to go around the parked vehicles.

That being said, I didn't see any parked vehicles on Adelaide (though the disappearance of the bicycle lane for a construction barrier is problematic).

Experience in Toronto shows us that painted lines do not keep motor vehicles from using the bicycle lanes for their convenience.