[evandyk]

Especially when 2 of the 4 lanes were parking for 22 hours of the day.

 

[turbanplanner]

Minus the dedicated curb cutouts which aren’t travel lanes there was no parking allowed on the new section

 

[afransen]

Toronto doesn't have a good solution due to the nature of our road system. We need some streets to allow for fast movement around the city and others should allow for fast bike travel across the city. Due to where our bike lanes are setup, we should have some of the other streets like Dundas West optimized for car travel. One weekend, I was driving on Queen street, all the parking was removed and most importantly, the TPA was driving along the parked lanes removing all the cars. That should be how it is for every rush hours (and always in certain spots like around Eaton Centre). I also think that Toronto got a bit ahead of itself putting bike lanes west of Jane on Bloor. The many condos will come with no car parking and tons of bike parking, but right now that's 7-10 years away.

The trouble is that we are driving development onto all the potential car priority roads. So Toronto's plan is to have zero car priority roads (leaving aside highways), or to force tens of thousands of people to live in condos on busy car priority roads. It's kind of insane, to my mind.

 

[TTCdinosaur]

I say let Fordlandia continue to think driving an Escalade to eat pancakes at that one restaurant is culture.

 

[generalcanada]

is it derogatory to call someone a carbrain?

 

[turbanplanner]

is it derogatory to call someone a carbrain?

Stuff like this is when the blue hair people protest ford in person, it’ll wave off opposition as “crazy people”

 

[max]

Minus the dedicated curb cutouts which aren’t travel lanes there was no parking allowed on the new section

Minus the car travel lanes, there's no where for cars! Where will it end!

 

[MisterF]

How far west should it go? I'm ok with sections that make sense (east of jane basically in my book)

There's no good reason for them to stop anywhere. Mississauga is building an extensive cycling network of its own after all, even if it is mostly poorly designed.

That's only true if bikes end up making more than 2% of the traffic.

4.4% as Northern Light mentioned. And that's only going to go up.

Where are travel habits "adjusting" to? The subway is packed at peak times, the Gardiner capacity reduction has been in place for months but travel times are still way up.

Travel habits are adjusting to the new cycling infrastructure, which is the subject of this entire thread. Travel times are certainly not way up in the bike lanes. Or the subway, which has far more capacity than anything on the surface. And car travel times being up is mostly limited to specific locations and likely temporary.

I'm curious why nobody ever mentions poor weather days or the winter months as if they don't exist. I'm very hopeful usage goes up but as someone who lives near this area, I don't really see things increasing much more

Canadians love to use winter as an excuse for the status quo. But the reality is that when cycling infrastructure is separated from traffic and ploughed in the winter, people use it all year. Just like sidewalks.

 

[Northern Light]

The trouble is that we are driving development onto all the potential car priority roads. So Toronto's plan is to have zero car priority roads (leaving aside highways), or to force tens of thousands of people to live in condos on busy car priority roads. It's kind of insane, to my mind.

Well, now.......aren't we actually driving the majority of the development to where the subways/higher-order rail are located?

Yonge, University, Downtown, Bloor, Danforth, Sheppard, next to major stations along the Spadina corridor (St. Clair West, Lawrence West, Yorkdale, Downsview Park etc......... and along Eglinton (transit pending)...

It just so happens those rails tend to align with major roads, since that's how we laid out most of the subway system.

 

[turbanplanner]

Minus the car travel lanes, there's no where for cars! Where will it end!

I’m pointing out there was no illegal parking in this new stretch. I’ll do my recording next week and see what sort of volume we see.

I can’t record trip times but it’ll be interesting to see if habits have actually changed

 

[TRONto]

There's no good reason for them to stop anywhere. Mississauga is building an extensive cycling network of its own after all, even if it is mostly poorly designed.


4.4% as Northern Light mentioned. And that's only going to go up.


Travel habits are adjusting to the new cycling infrastructure, which is the subject of this entire thread. Travel times are certainly not way up in the bike lanes. Or the subway, which has far more capacity than anything on the surface. And car travel times being up is mostly limited to specific locations and likely temporary.


Canadians love to use winter as an excuse for the status quo. But the reality is that when cycling infrastructure is separated from traffic and ploughed in the winter, people use it all year. Just like sidewalks.

Winter is no longer an excuse for Toronto at least. We barely got snow this year (thank you climate change?). This has been my best winter by far for biking.

 

[max]

I’m pointing out there was no illegal parking in this new stretch.

Illegal parking is everywhere, abandon your car in a live traffic lane if you don't believe me.

 

[slicecom]

Winter is no longer an excuse for Toronto at least. We barely got snow this year (thank you climate change?). This has been my best winter by far for biking.

Yeah our winters are so overblown. I average less than 5 days a year where I don't bike due to snow. We barely get any snow here. I think a lot of people who live to the away from the waterfront don't realize how little snow we actually get downtown. I miss more days due to rain than I do due to cold or snow.

 

[allengeorge]

It’s worthwhile to evaluate what we can do to get car traffic to flow smoother. Some ideas have been mentioned previously: removing stop lights, synchronizing lights, reconfiguring lanes etc. In other words, changes that can be made without ripping out bike lanes. It sounds like the city is considering some of this, while on others (traffic lights) we’re going in the wrong direction.

Also, given Toronto’s growth it’s impossible to service people’s transport needs using single occupant cars. We should be shifting as much of traffic off cars and onto other modes (transit, bikes, walking) so that the people who do have to use cars have a better commute. And that shift will take time.

For bikes specifically, I will simply say that there are three things that hinder usage: perception about when we can bike, safety, and an underbuilt network. On the first, people complain a lot about winter, but, we get far less snow than we jaw about. @slicecom is right: rain is a far bigger pain. Geographically and weather-wise, Toronto is actually a pretty reasonable to bike around. Next, the lack of a protected bike network make it hard to drive modal shift. I’m an avid cyclist, but I’ve had some janky calls on city streets. I would be very, very sketchy about biking around in unprotected lanes with my kids. If you don’t offer people safe options, you’re going to depress usage. Finally, the protected bike network that exists is pretty patchy, and that too depresses usage. Unfortunately, building out bike lanes is often tied to street reconstructions, which are geographically disjoint - and so you have projects that feel odd in synchronizing.

I guess at the end of the day I think it’s short-sighted to simply look at one bike lane, its usage today and say “It’s not highly used - let’s shut it down”. It ignores its value to the overall network, and a vision about what we want our city to look like and its modal shift to be.

 

[turbanplanner]

Illegal parking is everywhere, abandon your car in a live traffic lane if you don't believe me.

People don't park illegal there as there is plenty of parking AND there isn't really anything to stop for, it's an issue further east but not this section.

Yeah our winters are so overblown. I average less than 5 days a year where I don't bike due to snow. We barely get any snow here. I think a lot of people who live to the away from the waterfront don't realize how little snow we actually get downtown. I miss more days due to rain than I do due to cold or snow.

I worked at richmond near university, I'd have a good view of 2 cycle lanes. The usage wouldn't be zero but it would be a lot lower than the summer.
At the end of the day people want to get around comfortably.

I don't necessarily disagree with what everyone is saying, it's just funny this is the only system we will build for demand 10 years from now or "wait for patterns to shift" Nobody can give a ballpark of how many car trips can we slow down to speed up x number of bike trips, or what's a fair time period to see if demand has shifted.