We spent rush hour watching cyclists and drivers navigate an ‘absolutely terrifying’ Toronto intersection. Most did it wrong

Thestar.com
June 26, 2018
Tamar Harris

The driver of a silver four-door car merges late into the painted green lane on Richmond St., crossing a solid white line. Within seconds, the car is surrounded by cyclists: five on the passenger’s side, three on the driver’s.

When the light turns green, the cyclists proceed straight through the intersection, passing the car on both sides. The driver then turns right, onto Bay St.

That’s not what is supposed to happen.

The Star filmed drivers and cyclists using the busy intersection of Bay and Richmond Sts. for two hours at rush hour on Thursday. In total, we identified 609 infractions by drivers and cyclists. The majority of both navigated the intersection wrong, according to the city’s design.

The Richmond cycle track is the city’s most-travelled protected bike route. Bike traffic on the street has risen more than 600 per cent since the track was installed, with dramatically lower rates of collision, according to city data. No cyclists or pedestrians have been killed or seriously injured at the intersection in the last decade, according to police data.

Still, cyclists and experts who reviewed the Star’s findings called the intersection “confusing,” and said it is an example of how inconsistent infrastructure can make it dangerous to cycle in Toronto.

The Star’s analysis comes amid a wave of cyclist and pedestrian deaths on city streets as the city is implementing its Vision Zero plan, a push to reduce traffic fatalities to zero by 2021.

“Based on the information you’ve presented to us about the Bay-Richmond intersection, the Mayor will be following up with city staff about the Star’s findings and asking what modifications could be made to encourage more people to use it correctly,” Don Peat, the mayor’s spokesperson, wrote in an email to the Star.

How it’s supposed to work

Richmond St. is a one-way street with a “cycle track,” a protected bike lane that physically separates cars from bikes using bollards and planters.

Few cyclists or drivers navigate the intersection of Richmond and Bay Sts. correctly: In two hours, the Star saw 66 per cent of cyclists -- including the three seen here near the curb -- incorrectly keep right when going straight. Meanwhile, the vast majority of right-turning drivers -- like this one -- blocked cyclists from passing safely on the drivers side within the painted area.

“The overall objective of the design of the Richmond-Bay intersection was to clearly define expectations for both cyclists and drivers and to reduce conflicts between right turning drivers and through cyclists,” said city spokesperson Cheryl San Juan.

The green paint, she said, is intended to make the cycle tracks more visible, and to make road users aware that they’re travelling into a “conflict area.”

In October 2017, the city changed the road markings in the painted area “to try and better define expectations for drivers and cyclists,” San Juan said.

Drivers turning right onto Bay St. should yield to cyclists, merge into the green bike lane at the dashed line and wait single file with right-turning bikes. Once in the green lane, drivers should hug the curb to leave room for cyclists to pass on the left.

Cyclists moving straight through the intersection should keep to the left side of the painted lane, in line with the chevron and bike symbol.

The purpose of these rules is to reduce conflicts between right-turning drivers and through cyclists.

Here’s what we saw:

According to the Star’s analysis of the intersection, the majority of road users did not use the intersection correctly.

From 4 to 6 p.m. on Thursday, the Star saw 279 vehicles and 330 cyclists navigate the intersection incorrectly.

Of 235 right-turning vehicles, just 27 turned from the correct side of the painted lane. The vast majority, 89 per cent, turned from the left side of the lane, blocking cyclists from using the through lane.

31 turning drivers didn’t use the painted lane to turn at all, instead turning right from a centre lane.

Of 624 cyclists that went straight through the intersection, just 214 -- 34 per cent -- kept left, following the design.

330 cyclists kept to the right side when going straight.

Those weren’t the only problems the Star saw:

In two hours, we watched 92 red-light cycles at the intersection. Of those, 71 ended with a north-bound vehicle either blocking the box or stopped on the pedestrian crosswalk.
‘It has to be intuitive’

The Star took its analysis to experts, cyclists, biking advocates and the City of Toronto.

In response, Ken Greenberg, the former director of Urban Design and Architecture for the City of Toronto, visited the intersection. He called it “absolutely terrifying.”

The Bay-Richmond intersection “is a microcosm of the kind of confusion that we’re seeing throughout the city,” said Greenberg, who argues for cycling infrastructure with consistent, easy to understand, design.

“It has to be intuitive,” Greenberg said. “People are not going to read a manual about how to go through the Bay-Richmond intersection.”

Shawn Dillon, manager of cycling infrastructure and programs for the City of Toronto, said he’s “quite pleased” by the number of cyclists the Star saw using the intersection correctly. “While obviously I would like to see more cyclists using the left side of the lane to go straight through, this is a dramatic improvement,” from last year, he said.

“I think it’s pretty clear now,” he said, adding that the finding on drivers are encouraging. “The fact that during your review period, 87 per cent of drivers are now turning from the bike/right turn lane is a significant improvement.”

The crosswalk on the north side of the intersection of Richmond and Bay Sts. was blocked by traffic more often than not, according to a Star analysis.
Cyclist Ann McBride, who works in the Annex and commutes from the east end, said she’s seen more drivers merge into the bike lane properly than they used to, but that “most people don’t really move over to the right of the lane.

“Ideally, if they did, you could pass them on the left and there’d be enough space,” McBride said. “But that doesn’t necessarily happen.”

Gerry Brown, who both drives and cycles in the city, said it’s hard to learn different rules for different intersections.

“You’ve got cyclist and car intersections where there’s a dashed line, ones where there’s a solid line, ones where there’s green paint, ones where there’s no green paint, ones where you go to the right, ones where you stay on the left,” he said.

Liz Sutherland, director of advocacy at Cycle Toronto, said that many cyclists will be uncomfortable keeping left, between two moving lanes of traffic. “If so many people are breaking the rules, I think you can chalk that up to the design.”

Jess Spieker, a spokesperson for the group Friends and Families for Safe Streets, said it’s no surprise cyclists tend to keep right. “The right probably seems and feels safer because you could very easily get knocked off your bike by somebody merging into the lane without looking,” she said “You have to have a whole lot of trust that someone’s doing a shoulder-check.”

Ontario law requires a one-metre distance between cyclists and vehicles.

“The way this shared lane is designed, it’s essentially impossible for drivers,” to leave this space Sutherland said. “So it’s almost as if the infrastructure contradicts the law.”

“If you follow the paint,” Spieker said, “the law will be broken.”

Dillon said he recognizes that not all cyclists will be comfortable on the left.

“Having more space would certainly make more people comfortable but with only 3.1 metres of space between the curb and the streetcar tracks, our options are limited,” he added. “During future road works we will certainly consider other options for further improvement.”

What can be done

Cities need consistent design language and signalling conventions, Greenberg said.

“You cannot expect people, every time they come to a different stretch of bike lane or intersection, to change their behaviour based on some different system,” he said. “It just doesn’t work. People have to know what to expect and it absolutely has to be consistent.”

Dillon agreed that a consistent design language is needed across the city. “But again, we need to get there,” he said.

“We needed to try some different things to see what works and what doesn’t,” he said. “And absolutely as we move forward, we’re going to try and move toward a more standardized approach.”

Other groups are taking it upon themselves to review the effectiveness of city intersections.

In a recent road safety audit, the Harbord Village Residents’ Association reviewed several intersections in the neighbourhood, finding 45 per cent of drivers did not stop at stop signs; 35 per cent of vehicles did not stop at the crosswalk at Harbord and Robert Sts. while it was occupied; and vehicles were observed going the wrong way down one-way streets more than 50 times.

“We wanted to convert our complaining into action and arm ourselves with some data that we could then take to our councillor and to city council to address what appears to be a growing issue of safety on a roads,” said Andrea Poptsis, secretary of the association. “Not just for pedestrians, but all users.”

The mayor “has made it clear he is open to exploring any ideas to improve road safety and has sent a clear message to city staff to do everything possible, as quickly as possible, to make our streets safer,” Peat said.

“Beyond the physical changes to our roads that the City is making, the Mayor has been outspoken, and will continue to be outspoken, about the need for people in cars and trucks to change their behaviour.”

This week, Tory will ask city council to direct an additional $13 million to road safety measures, bringing the city’s investment in Vision Zero to $100 million over five years, Peat said.

The city installed cycle tracks on Richmond, Adelaide, Simcoe and Peter Sts. as pilot projects. A 2014-2015 public consultation summary on the pilot found that the tracks were “highly supported” by stakeholders, who generally wanted the bike lanes to be permanent and extended.

The city will also consider “options for improvement” in the future, which could include a greater separation between cyclists and vehicles, changes to pavement markings and modifications to traffic signal timing.