Following the Jarvis bike lane debate

15 comments

1. I’ve been watching it on and off all day.

   What a depressing day. How can they waste 8 hours arguing over this?

2. Just got this email from the Bike Union:

   “Hey Folks,
   What a fantastic way to kick off Bike Month – a day-long City Council debate about a single, bike related issue… The redesign of Jarvis St., including complete bike lanes, was passed at 6:20pm today – 28 to 18 in favour of incorporating sustainable transportation infrastructure into a major redesign project in the downtown core!!”

   Eat that, Minnan-Wong!

3. oh thank heavens:
   http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/639881

4. The Star is still saying that the east boulevard will be widened, in addition to the bike lanes. This is incorrect, yes? The plan to widen the sidewalk/boulevard was abandoned when the Works Committee decided they wanted to put in bike lanes instead? Did anyone actually see (or attend) enough of the Council meeting to determine what the hell these guys actually approved?

5. Brent > you’re right. The Globe also put in the wrong plans in its coverage on Friday. What was approved was the bike lanes (no widened boulevards).

   It’s insane that council spent all day on this. It’s not even funded – goodness knows when it will happen.

6. Just a thought:

   Why not have it with 4 lanes separated by broken white lines, and two bike lanes. This way we can have 3 lanes for rush hour flow, and 1 lane going against it. During off-peak periods, it would be 2 lanes in each direction.

   Even better, also run the 141 Mt Pleasant Downtown Express all day with frequent service, and during rush hours make one of the lanes a HOV lane (so it would be a HOV rush hour flow lane, 2 open rush hour flow lanes, and 1 lane against the flow), and build a carpool lot on Mt Pleasant north of Bloor where commuters could park their cars to carpool or take the express bus downtown.

   Basically I’m trying to find the best compromise for future developments and commuters.

   PS: While I don’t have any urban planning education yet, if Adam Vaughan is reading this (he was following the previous thread) and you like my ideas, if you could get me a job with Toronto Transportation that would be great. My email is bjsmith85@rogers.com

   Benjamin Smith

7. Hate to spoil the party but I still think this is not such a good idea. The original recommendation (widen the sidewalk) is clearly better and really address the original goal (improving the streetscape). The new bike lane is too close to Sherbourn lane to be very useful. Instead, we should have pursued to convert Church into Sherbourn-like (1 traffic lane + bike lane + permanent parking lane). Church makes much more sense in that it is furthur away from Sherbourn and closer to Yonge, and it can connect Davenport lane to the north and go all the way down to the Esplanade to the south, instead of ending at Queen as Jarvis lane has to. I guess our cycling community is in a sort of desparate mood to pounce on each and every chance to create bike lanes (I am not blaming, given the Toronto reality), rather than focusing the energy on more strategitic goals, such as Bloor crosstown. I was at the Council in the morning, one of the councilor on the right asks “why are we keeping creating these piece-meal bikelanes, rather than really creating something that is well-connected and goes somewhere?” I almost wanted to jump up and shout, “good point, forget about Jarvis, give me Bloor crosstown, you can keep Jarvis or even add one lane of car traffic if you like, how about that?” I was pretty sure he was going to eat his word right on the spot.

8. In all this foofarah I’ve not heard anyone mention that there already is a bike lane from Bloor to Front only one block over, on Sherbourne – is one block really too far to ask cyclists to travel? Personally, as a cyclist, I don’t really want to cycle on 4-lane arterials, prefering narrower 2-lane roads (with bike lanes) where drivers tend to go slower. Even with the lanes on Jarvis, I would choose Sherbourne. I am finding that this whole debate over bike lanes seems to have gotten a bit irrational – it doesn’t make sense to have them on every single arterial in the downtown – these lanes just aren’t used by enough people and we have to remember that the “car” lanes are also used for goods movement, transit, cabs and even emergency vehicles. I’m all for road pricing in the core, but we need to keep the capacity there, at least on some major routes.

9. I just like to see tools like Minnan-Wong lose. My opinion is that no bike lanes should have on-street parking alongside them: how many times have you nearly been dorred?. Now, the city would not ever give up that money; perhaps they could enforce no-parking in bike lanes with hefty fines to make up the difference!

10. It’s good that there will be bike lanes on Jarvis but the main thing for me will be the comprehensive streetscaping makeover with trees. Let’s hope it turns out well and makes Jarvis a pleasant street to walk and bike again despite the fact that the sidewalks won’t be widened.

11. jameasmallon: I don’t even think the money is that big a factor. It’s more the outcry that follows every time street parking is removed.

12. Hi, jameasmallon,

    I ride along Sherbourn every weekday for over 2 years now. Door-prize or near-miss? None. I had a couple of near-miss elsewhere, where there were no bike lane. But on Sherbourn, the lane is wide enough that I can stay a good 3-4 feet away from parked cars and door prize is not an issue there. While parking beside bike lane is not perfect, it does seem to prevent drivers from simply stopping on bike lane and force cyclist out into traffic, I see that as a big benefit.

13. Well good for you, ‘yu’. What’s your point? I have mostly the same experience on Sherbourne, because it is roomier than most streets with bike lanes in this town. Now, try cycling blythly on all of the others and see how that goes for you.

14. Hi, jameasmallon,

    my point is simply that parking alongside of bike lane is not such a bad thing, especially when the lane is wide enough. Without a parking lane to the right, you will see a lot of car simply park right in the bike lane, forcing you out into the traffic. In a perfect world you can say let us get rid of all on street parking (at least where there is bike lane) and every motorist happily complies, well I’d love that too, but …

    Yu

15. Why does this bike/car debate always get so ridiculous? Its not like in European cities that hold bike lanes so high have abandoned the car altogether. They’re still considered a reasonable way to get around. If you havent noticed,almost any car worth buying is from there.

    Yu: your point is well taken. If no parking lane, cars will just use the bike lane. This happens all the time with a website dedicated to local and international examples of this (toronto.mybikelane.com). Technically, this is double parking since the bike lane has as much right as the travel lanes. Yet, forcing bikes to drive around a illegally parked car (they are still allowed to stop if no prohibition posted) is not ideal, and if our streets are to accomodate all of those who wish to bike, not just adults, then abusing the curb is not acceptable.

    jamesmallon: You make a good point too. Getting doored sucks, but is that the cars fault for being there or the idiot opening the door?

    Yeesh.