The Victoria Transport Policy Institute has issued an interesting study comparing cycling in six major Canadian cities. Despite Toronto’s many cycling initiatives, it has the lowest number of cyclists as a percentage of work trips of any major (over half a million inhabitants) city in Canada – way behind the other large cities of Montreal and Vancouver, and behind even Hamilton. To be fair, this statistic is for the GTA – it’s somewhat better in the City of Toronto – but we clearly still have much work to do.
Read the full report (PDF format).
An interesting aspect of the report is the tendency for cycling injuries and deaths to be reduced as cycling increases in frequency. This can be partially attributed to an increase in cycling facilities such as bike lanes. Perhaps, as well, an increase in the number of cyclists leads to higher awareness and respect among drivers.
