Love this! One lesson about cycling infrastructure in Amsterdam that I think we're still struggling to apply in Toronto is the idea of fully separated rights-of-way for cycling, public transit, and private cars. In Toronto we're building a lot of mixed rights-of-way. It's safer than putting cyclists in traffic, but can be difficult to navigate as pedestrians.
This is a great critique of the bike lanes on College. The city staff and council need to be aware of these issues. The more people speak out on this the better, the more likely this will be improved over time. It sounds like you are discussing 3 separate issues: The category of design vs the many details The craftsmanship involved in construction (ie drainage) Maintenance (winter maintenance and deterioration over time) I also appreciate hearing about protocols and how people interact with cyclists and other traffic. Keep up the great work serving cyclists and advocating! Someday the bike lanes will go the full length of this busy street.
Here’s a challenge cycling advocates need to take up but rarely do because we are “afraid of conflict” aka we don’t want a shouting match. So this is the challenge: Discuss a recent presentation that opposes the Bloor bike lane WITHOUT BEING TRIGGERED... WITHOUT TRIGGERING THE OTHER SIDE !! Please keep in mind Yvan Baker is doing something rare. He’s presenting a list of all the reasons why he opposes the Bloor bike lanes in a clear organized (and calm) way. Most people who oppose bike lanes just rant, start insulting people, and generally don’t try to connect with the people who want bike lanes. I looked through his letter, had to calm down... then I wrote a line by line rebuttal to it. I want to go through it a few more times to look for ways to connect with him. I hope one day to sit down and chat with him and his staff on this. It looks like the biggest reason he opposes bike lanes is not many people ride bikes in his area (Etobicoke) compared to downtown Toronto. If they did, he would side with them. What do you think? mailchi.mp/06bb2db333ea/bloorbikelanes?e=ad4ade46d0&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1eDfs0kki_xN2QRvyfupMzAGm9ROq9nWfhF4NYNpPyq-Pgiupt3lTBIA0_aem_AbJ4SGtM6lDSZp3F6Pl4a983D0NDRgJTPzhMveaC516J_ip28nFbnH878iczBaR-0biT0XC0uLHRxNbJ9RrH-xLw
Thank you for this information. I'm moving to Toronto to do my master's, and my main mode of commute/transit, at least in the summer and good weather, will be cycling. To get to university, Google maps is recommending I use Bloor or College street coming from the West side of Toronto, so I will be using it at least a few times per week. I love my bike, and I love biking and can't wait to bike around Toronto and try some of the trails. I prefer biking over public transit that is crowded, has delays, sometimes with sketchy people, and takes longer. Plus it saves me money. As long as it isn't raining, snowing, freezing cold, or a long distance, I use my bike to travel. I am coming from Montreal that has amazing bike lanes and infrastructure. So sad to hear the bike lanes I will be using most in TO are uneven and bumpy.
You're going to love the cycling infrastructure! We're super grateful for it, and even though we have some thoughts and feedback on the execution, we'd love EVEN MORE bike lanes all over!
Maybe you can talk about the Bloor bike lanes? They recently completed the next section west of Runnymede Ave. Check out the Eastbound section from Jane St to Runnymede Ave, the way the bike lane weaves around the curb, parking, bus stops, and loading zones is something else 😅 They're also putting in that new protected intersection around St. George St., that could be something to chat about.
Great stuff! Re. the reverb on Owen's voice, I suspect that the hard brick wall on his right hand side is bouncing a lot of the sound back to the mic. It may be worth either hanging some fabric to absorb the noise, or noise-absorbing foam, or something as pedestrian as sticking some egg cartons on the wall. A rug on the floor wouldn't hurt, either. 1:37 haven't seen cars on MUPs personally, but internal combustion motorcycles are unfortunately a pest during the warm months 14:28 yeah, the sidewalk should not go between the cafe/restaurant and the patio Completely agreed on the importance of drainage, cleaning, and plowing whatever infrastructure we do have. Subject suggestion: You must often talk to customers who still drive a car at least some of the time. What stops people from ditching their cars for good? Is it distance, winter, commuting, grocery shopping, dropping kids off?
It seems that there's is a bit of bleed between the lavaliers that my voice is getting doubled in both channels...sort of a slightly out of phase thing going on mainly my voice bleeding over to Veronica's mic. I tried to do some basic noise reduction but it didn't completely solve it...but the room is quite resonant and hard- any Mic that is not a lav is super noisy and unusable plus the room is also used for our stock wheel storage so sound proofing is also somewhat limited... And I think as a future conversation piece the idea of chatting with our customers about going car-free is an interesting one! Thanks for the comments! -Owen
Toronto bike infrastructure it pretty good by North American standards. Glad to see you guys criticizing, honestly. It’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.
Toronto's infrastructure seems good....until you travel to other places. Toronto desperately needs pedestrian only spaces that can prioritize transit and people over cars. The fact that people are constantly dying in car "accidents" is proof there is a need for a fundamental change in our streetscape and culture! Our urban planning is always so short sighted.
The biggest change on College was the car parking lane was at the curb before this reconstruction. Having the cycle track at the curb makes a big difference. Drivers don’t need to cross the bike lane to park and again to drive off. This is so seamless it won’t come up in discussions because both cyclists and drivers just don’t notice. It’s no longer a problem. :) It will be a big change to have bike lanes along all College. Before this happens, we need more cyclists. Likely if we have double the number of cyclists compared to how many ride now it won’t be so hard to convince College Street merchants to ask for bike lanes. I was really surprised to hear someone complained how wide these bike lanes are (because people bike upstream). Wide bike lanes allow the number of cyclists to grow. We see the wide concrete curb between the bike lane and the car lane. That’s intentional. It’s part of the bike lane but looks like a buffer, so nimby drivers won’t complain how wide the bike lane is. Also, because the bike lane looks narrower, drivers won’t be as tempted to drive in the bike lane. We say painted bike lanes really suck. We can use paint to beautify these bike lanes. Done cleverly it can increase ridership. Cheerful, simple enough you don’t need to stop to appreciate the art, colourful designs can make a big difference. Local BIA’s might pay for it, to attract customers to the area.
College going West is great until the bike lanes end and Café TO begins. Café TO negates any of the benefits of the bike lanes by encouraging lots of cyclists in safe lanes to suddenly have to go single file squeezed into a 2 foot gap between a patio and traffic. I'll be switching to Harbord St. until Café TO ends because they run all the way from Yonge to Ossington without any Café TO interruptions. I'll also be taking my 'on the way home' spending to Harbord as well.
The bike lane is great, but it should connect with the rail path in the west end, it just ends at Manning and it becomes super dangerous to ride your bike in traffic on College. Also would have been great if they used red asphalt as they do in Europe to indicate a bike lane.
Yeah it can definitely be hard for pedestrians to tell the difference when they're at the same level! It would be great if raised bike lanes were more common so folks could get familiar with them, too, but I think folks would likely still be stepping out into them :p
Bike lanes are fine but have people riding in those lanes been taught the rules of the road? IE road signs, speed limits, watching for pedestrians etc.
I know theres that bike brotherhood going on where cyclists all support each other, but is there some kind of bike rider that you find more annoying than others? like people on the road bikes in the bikeshorts or cargo bikes or bmx bikes or electric bikes or elderly riders or young riders or any other kind? just curious
For some reason we often see drivers/car users as individuals and bike riders *need* to be lumped together in specific categories. I find...there's tons of bad road/trail users on all accounts? I find many people tend to needlessly rush- both in cars and on bikes...and yet I always seem to catch up to them at a casual pace at the next red light! Those would be the most annoying road users and often the most dangerous too!
@@urbane-cyclist Thats funny my ex bf a motorcycle guy told me that on sport bikes everyone wants to race him from light to light and each time tthey rush off only to pull up at a normal pace and catch them at the next light, the way he said it was funny.
