Semantic Werks

There’s a proposal out to put bike lanes on Bloor Street, a major east-west arterial in Toronto. My feeling: waste of time.

Yesterday I rode from downtown Toronto at College and Spadina to Bloor and Lansdowne. There are official, marked bike lanes all the way along College (less busy than Bloor) to about Dufferin. And they are totally useless. There must have been at least a dozen trucks, couriers, and cars parked in the lane, forcing the bicyclist to merge into traffic. The lanes are downright dangerous at right-turns, because cars just make the turn anyway. And cyclists seem to ignore them, as I passed two groups riding two abreast. Further point of information:  I was seriously injured while riding in a bike lane. So I’m not the biggest fan.

I actually felt safest on Lansdowne, which I gather has been criticized for its lack of ‘official’ bike lanes (it has a bike symbol but no solid white line). There, there are no cars parked in the north-bound lane, and the road is plenty wide enough for all but large trucks to share with cyclists.

I gather the cycling advocates like any idea that gives more visibility to cyclists, but this idea of a bike lane on Bloor would divert money from more useful ideas. Here’s one: completely close off streets to non-local automobile traffic (say, for example, King Street). Last time I checked there were about 5 good ways of getting across Toronto in a car: why can’t one be dedicated to transit and bikes?

I guess the only other idea I had was to actually enforce the Traffic Code, namely towing people who park in an official lane. Solid white means don’t cross, but this law, along with no-idling, no running red lights, etc., don’t seem to be enforced. Courier companies, I’m pretty certain, see traffic tickets as a cost of doing business (and likely can deduct them on their taxes anyway!).

Update: Apparently some advocates are getting annoyed too…

The new Railpath, looking north from the Dundas overpass

Today I biked from my place at Spadina and Richmond to Lansdowne and Dupont. My idea was to explore the new Railpath project, a bike path that should go from Dupont and Dundas W to Dundas and Lansdowne, and, hopefully, all the way to downtown (seems unlikely). Sadly, as the photo shows, this path is not yet complete.

This  left me on the newly remodeled Lansdowne, which is a great improvement — as Toronto streets go, which means the chance of death is just below 10%.

Anyway, eventually (when?) you should be able to cycle fearlessly along this path. Coming up from Lansdowne (from Queen), take a left on Dundas to the bike path, then veer right at the second road. This path will start just before the final bridge on Dundas.

I sure hope they manage to secure the rights to the rest of the corridor — it goes all the way downtown to Union Station. If you look at the cycling map, there is a big black hole of cycling-safe roads in the box between King and College, and Spadina to Roncesvalles. I don’t understand why we need four major east-west car corridors (King, Queen, College, Dundas) and no cycling routes. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.