Toronto cycling advocates – and city councillors who have been hit while cycling in traffic – are getting impatient for improvements that make commuting by bicycle safer.
City council asked for a number of possible "cycling safety initiatives" last fall, ranging from requests to the province to programs Toronto could develop on its own.
Councillors on the public works committee got an update Wednesday, Aug. 13, as city workers added plastic Flexi-posts to a separated bike lane on Adelaide Street, a measure to stop drivers drifting into the lane as they made turns.
The rest of the Adelaide and Richmond street bike tracks, as well as a section of Simcoe Street, will be getting the protective posts by September.
Jared Kolb, executive director of Cycle Toronto, thanked Denzil Minnan-Wong, the committee chairperson, for helping to make separated bike lanes on Sherbourne, Richmond, Adelaide streets and a few other city streets a reality.
But ultimately, Kolb said, the city needs a Toronto-wide network of separated lanes "to really unlock the potential" of cycling.
About one per cent of residents – "kamikazes" such as himself – feel comfortable riding in any situation, he said, while six or seven per cent will ride to work if painted lines for a bicycle lane give them the "appearance" of safety.
Another 62 per cent, however, will remain "interested, but concerned," unwilling to ride anything beyond residential streets or park paths, Kolb argued, unless they can use separated lanes.
Commuters in North York or Scarborough may not ride a bicycle 15 kilometres to work downtown on such a lane network, but they may ride to the nearest GO or TTC station, he said.
The city considers a separated lane – a "bike track," as opposed to a bike lane - to be anything keeping bicycles at least a half-metre from other vehicle traffic, such as the wide painted strips on Sherbourne south of Bloor Street.
Ward 32 Beaches-East York Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon praised the beauty of Sherbourne’s painted green buffer, but said in a city with aggressive drivers, cyclists and pedestrians, physical separations are needed. "Paint is not enough," she told the committee.
"Right now, I know tons of people that would bike, but they’re too afraid in this city."
After recalling she was hit by a car while cycling, despite following all the rules, McMahon said programs are needed which educate people on sharing the road.
"The driver who hit me said I was in his lane. It’s not (his)," she said.
Another councillor, Mike Layton, said he loves a city initiative requiring warning stickers on taxicab doors, so more cyclists don’t "win the door prize" as he did two years ago when he rode into an open cab door. (Fortunately, he walked away.)
The committee backed a motion from Layton proposing council ask Ontario’s transportation ministry to include a comprehensive section on vehicle-bicycle interaction in its driver’s manuals – a suggestion made by the Ontario Medical Association, he said – and to make bicycle safety part of the primary school curriculum.
Ward 31 Beaches-East York Councillor Janet Davis said she wanted to know whether film company vans were allowed to park in bike lanes, "because it’s happening," and "there are some places where you are forced into very fast traffic" as a result.
City staff, including Toronto’s film office, were asked to look into it.
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