[spider]

A 2014 Vélo Québec survey estimated that 730,000 people — half the adult population — now ride a bike at least once a week. There are young adults, there are retirees and there are road-racing types, as well as tie-wearing business folk more interested in the rat race.

Is this trying to tell me that every second adult in the test area rode a bike at least once a week every week of the year?
B.S.

 

[James]

I agree the numbers can not be 100% reliable, especially when the survey "estimated" that figure, meaning they probably took some small sample size, then applied some factor on top of it based on a set of assumptions. That said, there's still a valid qualitative aspect to this shift in cycling habits.

 

[LNahid2000]

Another inaccuracy is that Montreal did not bring Bixi to Paris. Paris had Velib for almost 2 years before Bixi even existed.

 

[Kitsune]

work on the contraflow lane for Simcoe is well underway .. the traffic lights needed are all setup it appears. The lane will likely be done soon after they are done resurfacing Simcoe.

 

[W. K. Lis]

In the 1950's and 1960's, I & other bicyclists rode our bicycles in the opposite direction on one-way streets. No signage, lane markings, or knowledge that it was wrong. Never got stopped as we rode past the police cars. Its only now that non-bicyclists get upset about it.

 

[junctionist]

One thing that's odd in Windsor and Detroit is that cyclists often ride against traffic on two-way streets. You almost never see that in Toronto.

 

[W. K. Lis]

One thing that's odd in Windsor and Detroit is that cyclists often ride against traffic on two-way streets. You almost never see that in Toronto.

I was taught that if there is no sidewalk, walk facing traffic. In Canada, that would be walk on the left towards the traffic coming to you.

The logic then would be since bicycles are slower than cars, ride against traffic so you can see them coming towards you.

 

[PinkLucy]

Elmer the Safety Elephant taught us to walk facing traffic but to ride our bikes in the same direction as traffic.

 

[James]

When I was a kid, my parents also taught me to ride against the flow of traffic whenever possible, for safety reasons. It was only until I got older that I learned, much to my surprise, that you're supposed to ride in the same direction as traffic!

 

[BurlOak]

Elmer the Safety Elephant taught us to walk facing traffic but to ride our bikes in the same direction as traffic.

Elmer was always right.

 

[salsa]

Good to hear!

Chow announced Friday she would use the city’s existing $9.5 million annual bike budget to revive Toronto’s 2001, 1,000-km bike plan — with some updates.

If elected, Chow said she would seek compressed environmental assessments and shift the city’s immediate cycling priorities from recreational trails to a safe, on-street cycling grid, including some lanes physically separated from traffic and bike boulevards, such as the one on Shaw St., with contraflow cycling lanes.

Trails in parks and ravines would get an additional $1 million annually in the second half of her term, said Chow. She said the money would come from a $197 million unspent portion of the city’s $333 million transportation capital budget.

Chow, who rode her flower-trimmed bike along the bollard-protected Wellesley St. lanes on Friday, said the city’s bike facilities have stalled under Mayor Rob Ford while he deals with personal scandals.

“There have been pilot projects. We just need to get it done,” she said.

“The environmental assessment doesn’t have to take four years. I’ve seen EAs that can happen within a year,” said Chow, who vowed to toughen enforcement of cars and trucks that block bike lanes and to clear them of snow and repair the potholes.

David Soknacki, who is also running for mayor, has said he will bundle bike lane EAs to hasten construction. He has promised to double the capital budget for bike lanes and build about the same number.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/201...revive_2001_plan_for_onstreet_bike_lanes.html

 

[spider]

In an attempt to provide a little balance to the "we need bike lanes everywhere and we need them now" people I offer an example of maybe not. I drove down Dawes Road from Victoria Park to Danforth Avenue one lovely sunny afternoon this week. Dawes Road, an otherwise typical inner suburban thoroughfare, has bike lanes on both sides of the street for a distance one or two kilometers that do not impede vehicular traffic at all because it is a wide 2 lane street with lots of room for both forms of traffic. How busy were the bike lanes? One user even though she was on an E-bike.

 

[The Golem]

In an attempt to provide a little balance to the "we need bike lanes everywhere and we need them now" people I offer an example of maybe not. I drove down Dawes Road from Victoria Park to Danforth Avenue one lovely sunny afternoon this week. Dawes Road, an otherwise typical inner suburban thoroughfare, has bike lanes on both sides of the street for a distance one or two kilometers that do not impede vehicular traffic at all because it is a wide 2 lane street with lots of room for both forms of traffic. How busy were the bike lanes? One user even though she was on an E-bike.

I bike commute to work at 8:00 am and after 5:00 pm. Rush hour isn't just for cars.
And on weekends I get out even earlier, 7:00 am or so for 'recreational' rides from Regent Park area out to the Zoo for example, so I can get there and back before there's a lot of car traffic.

 

[typezed]

How busy were the bike lanes? One user even though she was on an E-bike.

I've often walked or cycled down a street and not seen a moving automobile on it. Should we tear up the roads?

The amount of use on one isolated outer route of a broken, incoherent, sub-standard, politically kicked-about cycling network says nothing about the appropriateness of making room for other transportation choices on the roads. But I'm sure you think you're making some magnificent point, because you have your special iconoclast ring.

 

[the lemur]

I've often walked or cycled down a street and not seen a moving automobile on it. Should we tear up the roads?

The amount of use on one isolated outer route of a broken, incoherent, sub-standard, politically kicked-about cycling network says nothing about the appropriateness of making room for other transportation choices on the roads. But I'm sure you think you're making some magnificent point, because you have your special iconoclast ring.

Very well said. Anti-bike sophistry usually hinges on 'I didn't see very many bikes, so the lanes aren't warranted' AND 'There are too many bikes and that's why there's congestion'.

You might as well argue that a scarcity of pedestrians means there shouldn't be sidewalks or there are too many of them because you keep having to let them cross at the intersections you'd rather not stop at.