More bike madness in T.O.

Torontosun.com
May 29, 2017
By Sue-Ann Levy

There they were early Monday - the usual suspects on council and Mayor John Tory - wheeling the two kilometres down Yonge St. to City Hall to prove how bike-friendly they are - and the city should become.

It was all so darn politically correct - an effort to mark Bike to Work Day.

Not that we even need a group ride to City Hall anymore considering that the aggressive cyclist lobby has free rein among the vast majority of spineless members of council and we have a chief planner, who while spotted on her bike in heels and without a helmet at times, has made it her business to ram bike lanes down our throats.

I’m not the slightest bit against bike lanes if installed with some thought behind them.

In other words, if Tory is truly concerned about safety on our bike trails/lanes/tracks in the tragic aftermath of the recent death of a five-year-old on Lakeshore Blvd., perhaps he and his officials might start with a common sense plan for bike laning the city.

Right now all we have is a “foist bike lanes anywhere and everywhere” plan, aka The Ten Year Cycling Network Plan - safety, gridlock, business considerations and common sense be damned.

It is predictable that the $153.5-million plan passed last June when councillors had long forgotten that few people use our bike lanes for a good five months of the year and it takes about $1.2-million per year (according to the city report) to clear the snow from the lanes and cycle tracks.

As I’ve discovered, whenever the city’s transportation officials do a count of cycling lane usage, it is invariably in a peak cycling month like September.

But let’s discuss what’s being considered in that plan so magnanimously approved by council a year ago.

Besides the crazy idea of putting bike lanes on Yonge St., north of Sheppard Ave. to Finch Ave. (two of the most congested areas of the city), the plan suggests looking at 100 kilometres of bike lanes, cycle tracks or other types of trails along eight arterial roads.

This includes Yonge St. south, from Sheppard Ave. right down to Front St.

The city document outlining the plan also makes it very clear that transportation officials are positively salivating about the idea of expanding the 2.6-kilometre Bloor St. bike lanes - “informed by the results of the pilot project” of course - to a stretch right from Keele to Sherbourne Sts.

If that’s not enough, they refer to bikelaning Danforth Ave., from Broadview Ave. all the way east to Kennedy Rd.

Heck if the traffic issues aren’t enough - just spend a few hours watching what the bike lanes have done to vastly increase congestion on Bloor St., west of Avenue Rd. - what about the impact on retailers if parking is removed from these major arterial roads?

And what about the simple practicality of trying to squeeze cars and bikes on our arterial routes?

Details, details.

A photo op biking down Yonge St. at 7:30 a.m. to kick off Bike Month is as about as far removed from reality as the idea of bike laning the street itself.