Toronto’s lonely Steeles Avenue East bike lane is a telling piece of cycling history

article by Albert Koehl in the Globe and Mail about a bike lane segment stuck out in the northeast corner of the city. Here is a picture of it from the 2016 City of Toronto Cycling Map.

Bike lane planning in Mississauga

There is some commentary about the Bloor bike lane in this article in NOW magazine that compares the push for bike lanes in Mississauga vs Toronto.

 

Tour de Bloor program details

Here is Albert with Officer Kyle Ashley, a friend to all cyclists using the bike lanes. They are promoting the Tour de Bloor passport program.

• Passports are available at Curbside and Sweet Pete’s (Annex) bike stores
• It is also available online for you to print at home.
• Passport holders who shop at a minimum of 20 businesses are eligible for a draw
• Prizes include a Simcoe Classic bike (retail value $849)

• After making a purchase, participating merchants will initial (or affix a sticker) to the passport
• The passport is also available to non-cyclists
•  This promotion runs until mid-September 2017

 

Tour de Bloor Passport official launch

Today was the official launch of the Tour de Bloor passport (as opposed to the sneak preview a couple of weeks ago). 

check out the details at Dandyhorse Magazine.

Full programme details are at the Cycle Toronto website.

CBC coverage

Metronews story

and here are a few more photos from this morning that didn’t appear in the Dandyhorse article.

Three amigos.

Rachel Lee from Bloor Superfresh says that most of their customers walk or bike.

Ron Koperdraad, Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, says that they are happy to wrap up their popcorn “to go” for cyclists to put in their panniers.

Albert with the podium showing artwork that was adapted for the Tour de Bloor passport.

 

Community consultation meeting, Bloor from Palmerston to Lansdowne

This meeting will be held on June 20, 2017 from 7-9 pm in the cafeteria at Bloor Collegiate Institute.

Sounds like a great opportunity to advocate for a westward extension of the Bloor bike lanes!

(another) Bloor bike lane public consultation

Today was the latest in a series of public consultations about the Bloor bike lane pilot.

It was an opportunity for the city to present some of the latest results from a survey. This Toronto Star article summarizes the main points, with the somewhat hopeful title “Bloor St. bike lanes find strong support from residents”.  The strongest support comes from area residents, and not surprisingly, the strongest opposition comes from people who just drive through the neighbourhood.  This brings up the perpetual question of whose wants and needs should take priority.

The event was well attended. However, I didn’t feel much of a buzz in the room, unlike earlier meetings.

As per usual, there were detailed maps laid out on long tables where people could leave comments about specific locations.

The bearded fellow in the blazer is Shawn Dillon, the new Manager, Cycling Infrastructure & Programs (acting).  Apparently Jacquelyn Hayward-Gulati was promoted out of her position.

Some detailed changes to the bike lanes were described. The most significant were a retiming of traffic lights to cut down on delays, and the creation of some loading zones on side streets to address some merchant concerns. These changes were done in the past week. More traffic data will be taken in the month of June and will be incorporated into the final report that will go to council for the fall.

The materials presented at this meeting are available here.

Update:

From: Jacquelyn Hayward Gulati
Date: May 23, 2017 at 3:46:05 PM EDT
To: albert koehl
Subject: RE: Congrats!

Thanks Albert, appreciate the note.

A couple of corrections – I’ve been in the role since August of last year so it’s not super new, and I’ve been appointed as acting in the role until the end of 2017 so it’s not permanent!

I’m still very close to the Bloor file, as I expect there is lots of work to come on that!!

Jacquelyn Hayward Gulati
Director (A), Transportation Infrastructure Management

Update #2:

• CBC coverage.
• CityNews video

Students want the Bloor Bike Lanes to be permanent

Today, representatives from five schools held a press conference at Bloor and Christie to press the city to make the Bloor Bike Lanes permanent.

The largest group was the bike club from Central Toronto Academy, who were all wearing green shirts, and many of them were riding matching green bikes. They were announced as the largest bike club in the TDSB.

The bikes were acquired using Trillium Foundation funding. Four lucky schools in the TDSB have or will have a fleet of bicycles to promote cycling to school. CTA was the first such school.

Three CTA students spoke. Two of them were very recent immigrants to Canada. All of them mentioned the positive impact that the Shaw and Harbord bike lanes have had on the school, and that Bloor is a crucial addition to a bike lane network that ties the school to the surrounding neighbourhoods.

Three students from UTS talked about how the convenience and enhanced safety coming from the Bloor bike lane that runs in front of their school.

This speaker was from Bloor Collegiate near “the very busy intersection of Bloor and Dufferin”.  He noted that it was too bad that the bike lanes end near Ossington. In particular he noted that many students at the school would love to have the bike lanes extended west to High Park so that they could bike safely for soccer and other sports activities.

Marika was a teacher at UFA, and she presented a student petition and statement in favour of both making the Bloor bike lanes permanent, as well as extending them west to the High Park neighbourhood.

At the end, several of the speakers took questions from the press.

and then it was time for a group picture.

It was great to hear young and diverse voices in support of  the Bike Lanes on Bloor.

It was equally inspiring to see youth engaged in activism for a cause in which they believed, particularly the students who were very recent immigrants to our city, and to Canada.

Update:

• coverage in the Star
• more extensive write up in Dandyhorse

And a reminder that there will be a public meeting about the Bloor Bike Lane Pilot on Monday, June 5 from 4 to 8 pm at Trinity St. Paul’s.  This will probably be the last public meeting before the report to City Council is written. City Council will consider the future of the bike lane pilot this fall.

Tour de Bloor Passport

photo: courtesy of Carolyn Young

How many cyclists have to be on Bloor for city councillors to make the bike lane permanent?

On May 17, Albert Koehl and a group of about 30 volunteers did vehicle counts at four locations in order to assess the effects of the Bloor Bike Lane pilot on both car and bike traffic.  Albert and Chris’  report is on the Dandyblog.

Counting east bound cars in front of Trinity St. Paul.

Albert and friends at the nerve centre of operations AKA the Second Cup at Bloor and Spadina.

A few highlights:

• Over a 24-hour period, 5,515 cyclists travelled along the Bloor bike lane at Spadina.
• On Bloor at Spadina from 8-9 am, 43% of all traffic was bikes,
• On Harbord at Spadina from 8-9 am, 39% of all traffic was bikes.
• In the 7-10 a.m. rush hour period on Bloor, 80% of the passenger cars contained but a single occupant, namely the driver.

A link to the complete report is here.

Article on road safety in the Globe and Mail by Albert Koehl

“For a long time, the priority on public roads has been to move as many cars, as fast as possible.

This has left us with some troubling consequences, especially the persistently high death and injury toll for people who walk or bicycle. When politicians do acknowledge the road-safety problem, it’s often to tout education campaigns about how to avoid the danger – instead of actually dealing with it. This approach is changing, albeit slowly.”

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/safety-is-the-first-casualty-of-torontos-road-transport-model/article34338498/