City committee backs off on bike-lane studies
Most of cycling-network expansion gets OK’d but committee votes Monday to hold off on looking at bike lanes on Bloor St. and other major arteries.

thestar.com
May 16, 2016
By Ben Spurr

A city hall committee approved a plan to expand Toronto’s cycling network on Monday, but watered down one of its key provisions.

The public works and infrastructure committee gave the green light to a 10-year cycling network plan that identified 525 km of new cycling infrastructure projects to be built over the next decade.

The committee also approved funding the plan at the level that staff recommended level - $16 million a year - which would approximately double the city’s annual spending on bike infrastructure.

The plan will go before city council next month for a decisive vote.

But committee chair Councillor Jaye Robinson moved a motion to hold off on a major feature of the plan: proposed studies of adding cycling infrastructure to eight major streets.

The motion passed 4-1, with Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon the lone dissenter.

Robinson said her motion would not mean that the corridor studies were permanently off the table, as the bike network plan would be reviewed in two years as part of the 2019 budget process. Studies of sections of three sections of the corridors that are already in progress would also not be halted.

But Robinson said that she wanted to first see the results of a high-profile pilot project of bike lanes on Bloor St. W. before assessing the other major streets. A report on the Bloor project is expected next summer.

“The goal was to really get the feedback and the data and really the learnings of the Bloor pilot, so we can apply those to the studies (of the other corridors),” Robinson said.

“All eyes are on Bloor.”

The eight major corridors that staff recommended assessing for bike infrastructure are Yonge St., Bloor, Danforth Ave., Jane St., Kingston Rd., Kipling Ave., Midland Ave., and Lake Shore Blvd. W. The streets were to be divided into 17 segments and studied separately.

A staff report found that the eight corridors could become important cycling routes, but more analysis is needed to determine the impacts of adding bike lanes, separated cycle tracks, or adjacent trails to the roads. Together the eight streets represent about 100 km of the 525 km of proposed new infrastructure.

If full council approves Robinson’s amendment, in addition to the pilot on Bloor between Shaw St. and Avenue Rd., studies already initiated of Yonge between Finch and Sheppard Aves., and between Bloor and Front Sts., would be allowed to proceed.