{"id":4936,"date":"2009-06-24T15:00:41","date_gmt":"2009-06-24T19:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=4936"},"modified":"2009-06-24T15:11:28","modified_gmt":"2009-06-24T19:11:28","slug":"reaching-the-summit-new-approaches-to-street-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/06\/24\/reaching-the-summit-new-approaches-to-street-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Reaching the Summit: New Approaches to Street Design"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Just three days into this year’s Bike Month, a damp May 28th was host to <\/em>Bike Summit 2009<\/em><\/a>, a day-long conference on cycling policy co-hosted by the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation (TCAT) and the Clean Air Partnership. \u00a0International and local presenters covered everything from bike parking to economic and health improvements, sharing perspectives and recommendations that could greatly improve our city’s cycling potential.\u00a0Spacing\u00a0will revisit and follow up on some of these ideas, perspectives, and words of two-wheeled wisdom, in hopes of continuing this momentum and encouraging Toronto to actually reach some of the best practices presented at the summit.<\/em><\/p>\n

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I thought the above photo rather apt, as a pretty basic don’t<\/em> in bike-friendly street design. \u00a0This is Annette Street. The small, predominately residential, west-end strip that has been home to all sorts of controversy<\/a>, confusion, and convolution around the implementation of new bike lanes — a saga which seemed to see an innovative\u00a0community advocacy organization come out on top<\/a>. \u00a0While it’s been a few weeks since the bike route was finally painted in, unfortunately, the pavement painting folks and the parking signage folks seem to be out-of-synch. \u00a0Certain patches of the Jane to Lansdowne route have had parking signs appropriately changed, meanwhile other blocks seem arbitrarily left parking-oriented, allowing cars, like the one above, to sit leisurely (and legally) in the way of safe biking along this new route. \u00a0Now with the city-workers’ strike, it’ll be another delay before the signs are changed and west-end cyclists can enjoy Annette as a safe, consolidated, well-designed bike route. \u00a0And all this ironically in time for this year’s\u00a0Bike Blitz<\/a> on cyclist safety.<\/p>\n

In contrast, panelists at the Bike Summit session, New Approaches to Street Design<\/em>, had all sorts of insight as to smart approaches in designing multi-use infrastructure. \u00a0Joshua Benson of the New York Department of Transportation shared stories from the Big Apple’s much-buzzed-about new bike facilities; while Norma Moores of\u00a0IBI Group and Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals discussed signage, pavement markings, and other indicators that work best in Canada; and the city’s Nigel Tahair swung it back to a local focus, discussing cycling and transit design for Toronto’s waterfront.<\/p>\n

Some key themes resonated throughout, including:<\/p>\n