It has been wonderful that the Bloor bike lanes were extended west as far as Runnymede. However, just past that intersection, cyclists are often confronted by a sight like this.
From that point in Bloor West Village and points further west, you are on your own, mixing it up with traffic.
At the same time, the city has put in some beautiful bike lanes as part of the Six Points redevelopment.
Sadly, they are not connected to any other bike infrastructure. The Toronto Community Bikeways Coalition is addressing this issue in one of their campaigns which is focused on extending the Bloor bike lanes to Six Points, and also to put bike lanes along Dundas W to the same intersection. As part of this effort, volunteers have been distributing postcards in the neighbourhoods along Bloor between Jane and points west. You can read about the first postcard drop here. Since that time, the distribution has been broken up into a series of smaller drops.
Today was the fifth such drop, centred on an area a little west of Royal York. I met Rob Z on the way. It wasn’t fun biking along the Kingsway, and there were plenty of close passes by drivers hurrying home.
Albert arrives with bundles of postcards. Here we are about to branch off to our different distribution routes.
The postcard looks like this.
Here is an uncropped version of the photo, taken back in March, showing how a cyclist can really be hemmed in by cars.
I cut my route short for the evening due to rain. I hope the other volunteers managed to stay dry!
At any rate, an extension of bike Bloor bike lanes as far west as Royal York is under study, and we shall see whether that actually leads to anything.
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