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A sign of things to come if the Jarvis Bike lane is removed

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Jarvis Street is undergoing some construction right now and this innocent sign doesn’t have any idea of the civic strife it’s inadvertently referencing. When travelling around Europe in April I was with a group of journalists meeting with various government and civil society people. As one does when travelling (well, if you’re from Toronto and that ever-so-slight sense of insecurity has you wondering) you ask what people know about where you’re from. On more than one occasion (including a member of the Finnish Parliament) people knew Toronto first because it’s just about the only place in the world that is removing bike lanes. So, at least we’re getting famous.

Yet, the bike lanes are working and Jarvis is more orderly than it ever was before. As a sometimes-driver who lives by Jarvis, I don’t avoid the street anymore because it’s a stress-free roll down to the Gardiner (or up) — except south of Queen when bikes mix with traffic and the dodge and weave begin. The pictures above is exactly what will happen if they are removed. The working balance will be gone and the battle for space will begin again.

It is probably a good thing the sign above was not one of those signs that can be adapted for different situations (Like the DANGER DUE TO _______ signs). There are a couple dozen city councillor names that could be listed there, unless they change their minds.

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3 comments

  1. There’s currently road work going on on King near Yonge, marked by a big orange diamond in the curb lane saying BIKE LANE CLOSED. The funny thing is, there was never a bike lane there before, so I guess the intention is really ‘Don’t bike here anymore’.

  2. This is actually a symptom of how Toronto just doesn’t “get it.”  Bike lanes don’t close in the same way that sidewalks don’t close.  By this I mean that cyclists and pedestrians still exist, they’ve just been ousted from a safe transportation route by careless road construction.  In Denmark, for example, when there is road construction that impedes a bike lane, they re-route the bike lane along the road in a safe way.  That is, they make provision for a functioning bike lane while construction is on-going.  In Toronto we just don’t care, or perhaps we’ve just never thought about it before.  You see this all over Toronto.  For example, on the east side of University heading north to College; on the north side of College heading west from University.  There’s construction and no provision for a safe bike route with or without a bike lane being already there.