October 29th, 2006
Sins against the bike plan
Posted by Tammy Thorne
Will the mayor pay penance?
Mayor David Miller spoke with the Toronto Community News editorial board recently about his vision for the city.
And, behold, miracle of miracles — this vision included bike lanes. (Sound trumpets and queue shining rays of light on Bloor street, here.)
As reported by insidetoronto.ca:
Miller was contrite about the city’s failure to significantly implement the ambitious Bike Plan.
“I learned a lesson here. My approach was to say, the bike plan is underfunded, let’s put money in the budget for it, which we did. We increased the funding I think by $1 million a year. And it didn’t result in many more kilometres.
“And, the lesson I learned is, the only way for the bike plan to succeed…is we have to bring the cycling community together with the neighbourhoods and get some strategic routes in the bike plan first. It has to be a political exercise, not a money exercise. We tried to do it with money and it hasn’t worked because of local opposition so now we have to try to work together with communities and cyclists,” he said.
Am I misreading this, or is our leading municipal politician admitting that it’s not money, but a complete lack of political will that is stalling progress on bike lanes?
I’m also wondering if readers have any ideas for “strategic” routes? Bloor Street anyone? I’ll look forward to any suggestions, but you might also like to email the mayor directly with your ideas.
I also wonder if this “local opposition” the mayor refers to could be the incessant calls for reports, studies and surveys by one councillor…hmm….
Perhaps the power for the final say on installing a bike lane should be taken out of the hands of the local councillor. “Work together” is a nice feel-good phrase, but what is he actually suggesting?
The Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation (TCAT) has some very realistic, well-thought out plans for expediting the bike plan on its website.
One key suggestion is to increase the number of staff working on planning, designing, and implementing cycling and pedestrian infrastructure.
And, perhaps most relevant as it refers to the mayor’s comments here, is the suggestion to change the approval process.
“We need a new bike lane approval process that will not allow individual councillors to delay the implementation of bike lanes - a bike lane should be built in the year it is proposed and budgeted for.”
Let’s hold the mayor to his promise to change the way things are done — so that we can actually get things done.
Thanks to bikingtoronto.blogspot for the image.
Categories
Mayor, Toronto-2006, Sustainable Development, Planning, Pedestrian, Cycling
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Comments
I (as well as a Take The Tooker coleague of mine) were speaking with Miller at the YIMBY event yesterday.
I don’t remember his exact words, but he said Case Ootes has ‘got to go.’ (those 3 are exact).
Comment by Ben Wendt
October 29, 2006 @ 10:42 am
When I look at the bike lanes proposed to be implemented over the next few years in places I regularly ride, they seem to be laid out along current cycling routes (those with no bike lanes yet) in the city’s cycling map. That suggests to me that there already are “strategic routes” in the bike plan. Some of the proposed bike lanes, such as one along Bloor Street between the South Kingsway and the Kingsway (passing over the Humber River and by the Old Mill subway station) are in critical areas for which there are few other route options. Are there other places not identified in the plan that need bike lanes? Yes, unless you enjoy navigating the winding, indirect routes suggested by the cycling map. But given that many of the bike lanes already identified in the plan are being put in two years behind schedule, and others don’t yet have a projected date for completion, taking more time to identify “strategic routes” would give the city more information and give its citizens no additional bike lanes.
I think expediting the approval process is the key to the success of the bike plan.
Comment by Sara Lipson
October 29, 2006 @ 11:56 am
Having been kinda involved in bike stuff and the city cycling cttees for the last ten years or so, there is a decided lack of political will to do a lot for bikes or the smog/climate carisis.
When political will is applied and extra money is put into bike facilities, it’s often destined way more for suburban-area bike things and one costly core bike project, even though most of the riders and bike-car crashes etc. are in the older core area.
The best, cheapest, most effective fix of some of the city’s biking woes is to take advantage of the great mobility of the subway and put a long, flat, direct and cheap bikeway on Bloor/Danforth as the taketheTooker aims to do. About $200,000 could bring 8kms of Bloor St. between Sherbourne and High Park, but the civic and “progressive” priorities are the $125,000,000 a km Front St. Extension or the $25,000,000 for 1km Bloor St. re-do between Church and Ave. Rd., and not some bolder bike initiative in a too-logical place.(An idea worth thinking about for Bloor may be putting two bike lanes into one car traffic/parking lane as Montreal has apparently been doing).
Regrettably this city is “carrupt” and it deserves the lawsuits that it’s getting from cyclists and their families.
Comment by hamish wilson
October 29, 2006 @ 1:31 pm
The Bike ‘Master’ Plan is dead. Let’s start over with a huge sense of urgency and stable funding and get it RIGHT … this time.
Comment by Martino
October 30, 2006 @ 10:04 am
I live downtown now [why Parkdale is considered downtown by folks I dunno, but I’ll go with the general consensus] and biking to work along Queen means biking with loads of cyclists. Downtown isn’t where there seems to be a need for bike lanes, at least to me. Bloor, yeah, but why not a solid east-west corridor along Finch, Sheppard, Lawrence, Eglinton, and St. Clair? Then solid, unbroken north-south corridors along Jane, Bathurst, Yonge, Leslie, and something else eastwards? Biking in the suburbs is way scarier and dangerous than downtown; cars go faster, they tend to ignore you or threaten you more, and there’s way less cyclists on the streets.
Comment by andrew
October 30, 2006 @ 11:53 am
^I would also support ski-style tow ropes for bikes on certain parts of Bathurst, and the Hoggs Hallow & St. Clair Hill sections of Yonge.
Er, with that in mind, I’d rather have the North-south central bike lane on Avenue, as it avoids most of the big killer hills, except for the St. Clair Hill, which is why we need those tow-ropes, or maybe giant magnets at the top of the hill.
Comment by Shawn Micallef
October 30, 2006 @ 1:03 pm
Awesome article and visual! F!@$$%ing classic!
Comment by LC
October 30, 2006 @ 1:49 pm
I’m voting for anybody who promises giant magnets.
Comment by andrew
October 30, 2006 @ 2:19 pm
At YIMBY, the mayor said: ‘Case Ootes has got to go. We need to get him out of there [ie, off Council].’
Remember: send an email about Toronto cycling to all candidates in your ward.
http://takethetooker.ca/?page_id=84
Comment by LC
October 30, 2006 @ 2:31 pm
I agree that there needs to be bike lanes in the suburbs. It would be ridiculously easy as the roads are already very wide.
Comment by Sam
October 30, 2006 @ 4:42 pm
I agree that the city is not doing much for cyclists downtown, but I wouldn’t say it’s because money is destined for the suburbs. I do most of my cycling in the suburbs, and see nothing new. However, I am looking forward to some progress on the Finch Hydro Corridor Path next year.
For the past few years, the city has been entirely equitable when it comes to doing nothing for cyclists.
Comment by Darren J
October 30, 2006 @ 6:24 pm
I live in Ootes’ ward. The problem is that a lot of the streets north of Danforth are really narrow and residential and the ward is hemmed in by the ravine/DVP so there are several traffic chokepoints especially the Greenwood-O’Connor-Don Mills junction.
Even with the subway parking is an issue because a lot of people come from outside the area to Danforth restaurants and stores.
One idea could be a BROW (bike ROW) down the middle of Danforth rather than at the street edge. The land above the subway ROW could work too but local opinion seems to be for either a park or parking, not bikes.
The NDP challenger has a lot of signs up (and was handing out sausage on Danforth last weekend) and Adam Vaughan claims Layton tried to bully him into running in 29. I’d say Ootes has known for a while they are coming for him. We had about four or five letters over the last year regarding the acquisition of a nearby Catholic school for a park.
Comment by Mark Dowling
November 3, 2006 @ 10:48 am