Parking on sharrows Courtesy of Peter of Why are We Alive?
Courtesy of Peter of Why are We Alive?

Peter of Why are We Alive? let me know the City is installing rush hour sharrows on College between Lansdowne and Manning.

The City is experimenting with sharrows along this difficult stretch. Without a political shift towards bikes, the staff have to make do with trying to accommodate streetcars, non-rush hour parking and bikes. They are conducting a survey of College bike commuters to gauge their perceptions before and after the sharrows are installed. Do people feel like the sharrows make them feel more comfortable? Do drivers give you more room? Or are they just confusing?

I'll give the transportation staff for trying something new - it might not be ideal and it may evolve into something better, but given the circumstances they're on the right track.

The "Radical Reverend" MPP Cheri DiNovo of Parkdale-High Park will be introducing a private members bill to amend the Highway Traffic Act, requiring motor vehicle drivers to give at least 3-feet (or 1 metre for us metric users) of clearance when passing bicycles.

There are about 16 U.S. states that have 3-foot laws, where advocacy is stronger than in Canada in educating politicians and motorists in giving 3 feet.

From the press release:

Cyclists and friends are invited to join in the launch of this Bill at Queen’s Park on Tuesday, May 18:

  • 9:30 am – Rally for Safe Cycling – bring your bikes and your kids and show your support for a new provincial 3 foot law. Front Lawn of Ontario legislature.
  • 10:00 am – Media conference. Queen’s Park Media Studio.

Take the Lane recommends people write to their MPP to ask them to support this bill. With many conservative and liberal states passing the bill (Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Wisconsin, Maine) one would think this bill would have an easy pass. With your push, maybe it will have a chance.

Four Bike Police Scuttle up the bike lane in the wrong direction

It has been well over two days since Toronto cyclists woke up to a shattered dream: the dream of a pilot bike lane project on University Avenue. No, it wasn't the right-wing bike hating extreme that put it down, but a bike lane loving councilor that blamed it on technology, or lack of sleep, or perhaps it was memories of communist day camps in the wilds of Manitoba, but regardless, Paula "fat fingers" Fletcher was the one to blame.

But if you looked on the Toronto Star website and read the story, or maybe the comments, you would think that Yahweh himself had come down and grabbed her hand and put it on the big red no button.

It was divine intervention, chimed in more than one of the many people who read the Star, comment on how crappy life is in Toronto, but don't really live here (those people who see fit to tell people who actually live here what they are supposed to think and how much Toronto sucks and everything else).

It seemed that every other member of the peanut gallery was going on how ambulances used University to get to the hospitals and how cyclists would slow them down and how putting a bike lane on University would cause the death of millions.

Well, I agree totally. If bike lanes on University are going to be the cause of untold deaths, then we should have no bike lanes on University. In fact, we should clear all traffic off of those most important of lanes because if bike lanes were going to slow down ambulances I can just think how slow traffic gets during rush hour with lanes and lanes of car traffic. How many more deaths are caused by rush hour?

So let us take all traffic from University Avenue and use it for an emergency vehicle access point so ambulances, fire trucks and the police can get faster from point A to point Z. For once I actually can get behind one of those commenter's asinine ideas.