An article in today's Toronto Star quotes Toronto Mayor David Miller saying,

"We need cyclists in neighbourhoods to come forward when pieces of the bike network are proposed in public consultation. ... They need to say, 'This is important. I live in this neighbourhood, I use a bike for transportation, and I need this to get around the city safely."

Alright, fair enough. Dear David Miller. Dear your worship David Miller. I live in this neighbourhood in the west end of the city. It's called the Junction. You know, after the conjunction of a variety of rail lines. There used to be trolley transit lines out here, too, along Annette and Keele and Dundas, but those are long gone. So's prohibition, which our neighbourhood finally voted out in 1998. Perhaps not so long ago. There are other junctions here, I've noticed. Junctions of some major Toronto streets: Dupont, Bloor, Dundas West. Jane, Keele. Major transportation arteries.

But for cars, not bikes.

Why cars, not bikes?

Why not?

You, see, there's a conjunction in the question, too, just like all the other interesting conjunctions in the Junction. It's not just a rhetorical question: it's one just begging for an answer.
Why? You see, I live in this neighbourhood, I use a bike for transportation, and I need bike lanes to get around the city safely. And by "get around the city" I mean needing to travel safely to York University, where I teach; to Kensington Market, to downtown, to points east and west all across this city. Because I commute everywhere by bike between April and November. Even though I work from home during the academic off-season, I log about 100 kilometres every week travelling to meetings and other excursions. Double that in the spring and fall. And although I consider myself a safe cyclist, often those are dangerous kilometres.

You are quoted in today's Toronto Star article as having felt the need to be "exceptionally vigilant" during your photo-op bicycle commute along Bloor Street during Toronto Bike Week. Sure Bloor Street can be dangerous. It has no bike lanes along most of its length. Vehicles -- cars, trucks, and bikes -- travel quickly and erratically in their headlong rush to downtown or away from it. But I'd like to see you try commuting by bike along Keele Street, say all the way between Bloor and Finch. Now that's a dangerous commute.

Most casual cyclists I know who don't commute regularly by bike say they won't do so because it's too dangerous. But it's not cars (or tractor-trailers, along Keele) that are the greatest hazard to cyclists. It's the City itself, foot-dragging on bike lanes, that kills off cyclists long before we even get a chance to hit the pavement.

Build bike lanes and you will encourage an entire population of bike commuters. In my neighbourhood -- the Junction -- it would be nice to add another conjunction, in the form of networked bicycle lanes enabling fast and safe commuting to points across the city. Bloor Street needs bike lanes across its entire length. There is plenty of room for a veritable bike autobahn along the Keele road allowance.

Bike lanes give car drivers a break -- and an alternative. Bike lanes help preserve the sanctity of the sidewalk from cyclists regularly leaping the curb to escape imminent death. Bike lanes encourage ordinary people, not just cycling activists or athletes, to try commuting by bike. People like me, cruising along in high-heeled sandals. People like my 69 year-old mother-in-law, a retired engineer who routinely logs 35 kilometres a day. People like my husband, who carries building materials (and sometimes a saxophone) in his steel panniers. People in my neighbourhood. People in every Toronto neighbourhood.

You see, your Worship, this is important. We live in this neighbourhood, we use bikes for transportation, and we need bike lanes to get around the city safely.

1. Let’s face it. The City committee responsible for our bike lanes is hopelessly behind schedule. Cyclists are not a significant political force so they get shuffled to the bottom of the city’s things to solve – since we live in a culture that no longer plans for the future but reacts to the past.

   Posted by Mitch  on  06/11  at  09:50 AM

2. I live not far from the junction and cycle there reasonably frequently. I also do a good deal of bicycling through the rest of Toronto. I applaud the call for more bike lanes. I also strongly support measures to m,ake it easier for cyclist to use “minor” or “residential” streets where appropriate. And I also strongly, strongly support removing the “no winter maintenance” signs from the bike path; nothing says the city doesn’t take cyclists seriously quite as eloquently as those signs.

   Having said all that, it still doesn’t suffice. Yes, we should pressure the city to do all these things. But unless we can guarantee that a bike path will go everywhere we want to go (an impossibility), we also have to address the culture prevailing among some drivers, in which a car has an unquestioned right to travel at the maximum legal speed (if not faster) and for a cyclist to hinder that amounts to an act of aggression. Until we make the point that cyclists, like the operators of any other vehicle, have a right to use the road, bike paths alsone will not make us safe.

   Posted by John Spragge  on  06/12  at  08:43 PM

3. I would like to support the idea of increasing the bike lanes.

   In addition, I think that more mountaibike/hibrid lanes should be created in the parks/green areas increasing alternative and shortcut rides.

   It is hard to be a cyclist even in Toronto; actually, it is hard to be even a TTC rider.

   I am sorry to assume but why go “Green” when the most part go “Grey”?

   Posted by  on  06/13  at  06:27 PM

4. Hi,
   I’m new to this forum, but I’ve logged over 130,000 miles by bicycle since I started cycling in 1972.
   I am also a driver, and a Flight Instructor. Let me say a few comments , before I get to what I want to say. As a Flight Instructor I must admit that I can’t teach everyone to fly a plane. A couple of things about riding a bicycle transfer naturally to flying a plane:

   Example 1). Banking turns. An aircraft must be leaned to the side that it is turning, just like a bicycle. If you can’t understand that, I won’t teach you to fly. I can’t let you into the cockpit of my airplane, if you bother me any further, I will call the FBI and report you.
   Example 2). Constant attention required. An automobile does not require your absolute undivided attention for every moment of the trip. If one takes their attention off of where they are going in either a plane or a bicycle , the result will be a crash into the ground. This has been a known fact for over 100 years, the Wright Brothers also made note of it.
   Example 3). Saving Weight. You cyclists all know that saving 27 grams can make it easier for you to climb a hill. It is easier to carry my bike on an aircraft than to bring a car onboard. An extra 3000 pounds onboard an airplane will NOT make it any easier to fly. In fact, quite the contrary, after all, it’s only held up by air.

   My Daughter Mellisa is a dispatcher for a Truck Driving Firm (Teamsters). Not only will I refuse to teach you flight instruction if you don’t know how to ride a bike, but she will refuse to teach you truck driving at the Firm’s Driving School. Trucks are rear wheel drive, like a bicycle, so you already know that. Trucks have a hard time accelerating , and have to shift through a lot of gears, like a bike. (Truck driving instructors will tell the student that it’s okay to roll a stop sign, unless someone is coming, just as if you are riding a bicycle, because we don’t want traffic to get stalled). Trucks rely on having ninety pounds of air in the tires, like a bicycle. And if you ever moved a bicycle and the handlebars/front wheel got turned more than ninety degrees, and it fell over, you already understand how a tractor/trailer can “jack-knife”.

   In the old days, driving instructors asked newbie students if they intended to drive more than fifty-five miles per hour. Why? Because an airplane can lift off the ground at 55 MPH, and avoid hitting things, like trees. If a student wanted to go more than 55, the driving instructor would drive him to the nearest Air Force Recruiting Station.

   But I digress. What I want to say is that , like 99% of adult bicyclers, I also drive a car. When I see a bicycle, I first check my speed to make sure I don’t startle him, and I move over to the left , giving him at least six feet of room. Because I would want at least six feet of room if a car was passing me. And you know what? Cyclists never make an obscene gesture or curse at me.

   Thank you for reading my blog, if you think I got the message across, feel free to pass it along.

   Posted by Jim Donohue  on  09/07  at  07:37 PM

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