It should have been easy.

The staff report (pdf) strongly recommended the installation of bike lanes. The community came out several times to overwhelmingly support the bike lanes. And staff and the community continued our push at the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee meeting on Friday. The traffic impacts were expected to be in the range of negligible to minimal, and the impact of the availability of on street motor-vehicle parking was also expected to be minimal.

So with no good reason to not put in Bike lanes and strong community support for them, why did we not get them?

Councillor Grimes delivered yet another speech. (Anyone noticing a trend?) That would mark the death of yet another bike lane. Grimes did this at the request of Councillor Saundercook who was unable to ask the committee in person. (Perhaps Saundercook was too afraid of his constituents who would be advocating for bike lane at the meeting.) Unfortunately Councillor Lee and Councillor Parker supported Grimes' motion to merely install "sharrows". These three outvoted Councillor De Baeremaeker and Councillor Giambrone's two votes. For some reason Councillor Carroll was not in attendance.

Sharrows have been discussed here in I Bike TO many times, and the opinion ranges from worse than nothing to slightly better than nothing. Sharrows offer a cyclist little by way of protection, and are as good as nothing, in my own opinion. Staff can paint sharrows anywhere without the need to go to council.

This is an unfortunate example of failed democracy. There are accusations that this is result of some backroom deal between Councillors Saundercook, Heaps, and Grimes, which I cannot verify, nor understand what purpose this would serve. In the USA it is possible to recall a city councillor, but I don't know of any examples of this in Toronto, and instead many cyclists are starting look to support who would replace Councillor Saundercook in Ward 13, but that would take two years.

Two years also happens to be the amount of time that these sharrows would exist, as explained in this article. The problem is that the side effect of the sharrows is an actual increase in the number of parking spaces, and therefore and increased demand for parking that would likely increase the impacts of a new bike lane on Annette in two years. According to the article, Heaps said he'll only push council to overturn the recommendation if he hears significant encouragement from the community.

So according to Heaps own admission there is a way out for cyclists, we have to make our voices heard, and fast. The City Council meets October 29th & 30th.

So why would you intervene and get involved in this 0.7km of bike lanes in Ward 13 when you don't live near there or would even be likely to ride on it? Because if it can be this easy for these bike lanes to not be installed then the same can happen in your ward and on the routes you would like to travel on. Because the bikeway is supposed to be a network connecting the whole city. Because bike lanes are safer and more comfortable for cyclists than sharrows. Because democracy didn't work here, and we cannot stand by and let our democracy erode. Because with you asking your own Councillor for a change, we will never get the attitudes at City Hall to change. For any number of good reasons, please send off a note to your own Councillor and to Councillor Heaps and Councillor Saundercook and let them know that your are unhappy with how this played out.