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allengeorge said:
Having looked at the YongeTO materials, a lot makes sense - except for the one-way driving between Elm/Edward, and Walton/Gerrard. The rationale given is that this would support delivery and ride-hailing. I'm not sure what's happening in those sections that ride-hailing/deliveries are more likely than the other pedestrian priority sections. Also, I don't think they'll be able to limit it to those two uses anyways, so I think that claim is just wishful thinking.

Can't people just ride-hail off those side streets? (I'm a little more sympathetic to the delivery issues; don't know how to solve that.)
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Agreed, walk a block and hail a ride from a side street. Ride hailing is a poor reason to compromise the design of a pedestrian street.

Pedestrian streets can be designed to allow delivery and service vehicles, at least at certain hours. Like here or here.

Northern Light said:
A much more pedestrian-friendly and attractive Yonge from College to Queen is en route.

The plans for Yonge in North York are public (the City staff and local councillor support removing one lane each way in favour of bike lanes and widened sidewalks.)

The City is likely to approve bike lanes on Yonge from Lawrence south to St. Clair, with the possibility of taking that further to either of Bloor or College.

Don't be too down on the City.

Our timid mayor stifled the plans for North York, which should have been done 2 years ago.

But City staff responded by delaying any work, hoping to get approval later.

In addition to the bike lanes; there will be considerable beautification of the sidewalks in the Yonge-St. Clair area in the not too distant future. (more and far better street trees, with proper planting conditions, wider sidewalks and upgraded paving).

There is every intention of reducing Yonge to 1-lane each way from well north of Lawrence to the Lake.

If the Mayor would just get out of the way; we'd get there a bit sooner.
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If the North York plans and the plans for bike lanes from Lawrence to St. Clair happen, the city needs to find a way to connect the two. Between the hill at Hogg's Hollow and the no man's land around the 401 interchange North York Centre is hopelessly cut off from the rest of the city if you're on a bike.
 
MisterF said:
If the North York plans and the plans for bike lanes from Lawrence to St. Clair happen, the city needs to find a way to connect the two. Between the hill at Hogg's Hollow and the no man's land around the 401 interchange North York Centre is hopelessly cut off from the rest of the city if you're on a bike.
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Agreed.

The City had it on the books to work with MTO to re-do the Yonge-401 interchange with an eye to creating safer pedestrian and cycling conditions. To my understanding, MTO pulled the plug on that process, at least for now.

That project is key to how the Sheppard area will connect to and through Hogg's Hollow.

The on/off ramps all need to see their acceleration lanes removed in favour of having those ramps meet Yonge at traffic lights with hard-rights on/off of Yonge.

Once that is done, everything else (wider/better/complete sidewalks, and cycletracks become plausible)
 
Bike lanes {at least in on the Bloor to Union stretch of Yonge, is the LAST thing they should be implementing.

Building bike lanes is a way to offer a safe environment for active transportation..................the operative word being transportation. This stretch of Yonge should not, in any way, be considered a transportation corridor. How do close off a main street whenever you want by blocking the bike lanes that have no safe alternative unlike the drivers? You can't. Bike lanes take up 3 meters of road space which is 3 meters not going to the pedestrians who out number the bikes 20 to 1.

The London's Dundas Place flex street was VASTLY more difficult to implement than any of Yonge would be. Yonge, except for the odd vomit comet, is not a bus route while downtown Dundas {along with Richmond} was the busiest bus section in the city. It was served by 10 REGULAR bus routes and in rush hour the buses literally came by more than every minute. London moved them over to parallel one-way streets of Queen & King. What's more is that they have built bike lanes on both those streets. It's called putting pedestrians above the car which Toronto flatly refuses to do.
 
I kind of agree that there doesn't need to be bike lanes on Yonge, as long as bikes are permitted in the pedestrian areas for access. For local bike traffic, not through traffic.
 
Northern Light said:
The City is likely to approve bike lanes on Yonge from Lawrence south to St. Clair, with the possibility of taking that further to either of Bloor or College.
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Are these planned to be protected or just painted lines?

Northern Light said:
There is every intention of reducing Yonge to 1-lane each way from well north of Lawrence to the Lake.
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Very interesting. Is there an approximate timeline and any further details?
 
Undead said:
Are these planned to be protected or just painted lines?



Very interesting. Is there an approximate timeline and any further details?
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There is no design yet.

The request for the lanes from Lawrence south to (any of St. Clair, Bloor or College, subject to which motions, if any, gain approval) is on the agenda for today's Council meeting.

It was on the agenda for the last meeting, but they ran out of time.

The item is here:


Its currently being held by...............guess who..............Councillor Holyday!

The intent, if passed, would be implementation in 2021
 
Putting "lanes" of any kind on yonge street seems to be the wrong approach for what the space ought to be. Ideally Yonge would be a place to BE IN - not a place to quickly move through. It has a subway under it for that purpose.

Yonge should be an open pedestrian area where pedestrians dont have to dodge bikes - if anything bikes should have to yield to pedestrians.
 
^ Completely agree. You also rightly stated that Yonge should be a place to BE IN, not go thru. This is why London also renamed it's flex street part of Dundas to Dundas Place. They want Dundas to be the destination and not a way to get there.
 
The place to "be" is farther south though. In the proposed location they make sense from a transportation perspective as well as a way of improving the sense of place and urban scale.
 
BAD news from LONDON!!!

3 days ago the City decided {much to the surprise of the people at Dundas Place} to take the bikes off King which has designated bike lanes and put them back on Dundas Place which just got rid of 2 lanes of traffic and created a flex street. I contacted the manager, , and she is also at a loss as Dundas Place has no bike lanes. Now bikes will be going down Dundas making it harder to close the street like they did every weekend in the summer. Also the street is now completely flat so bicyclists will be manuevering onto pedestrian areas. They are turning it back into a transportation corridor and taking the "place" out of Dundas Place by doing so. The city bike association is also furious as they will go from safe bike lanes to a much thinner street with none and have no safe options when the street is shut down. It's lunacy and Sewell seemed to completely agree and really wanted me to write a letter stating such which I have done.

I am P*L*E*A*D*I*N*G with all of you who care about urban renewal and making Ontario cities more pedestrian friendly to contact her stating you think it is a stupid idea and why. Even just a one line note to her expressing your dismay is something she will be able to present to her superiors and council and hopefully get the decision reversed. Her name is Savanah Sewell contact her at................... manager@dundasplace.ca

Thank You!!!
 
A bike lane main street doesn't seem that bad. (Talking about Yonge)
https://www.facebook.com/dutchcyclingembassy/posts/3558632270895143
1604886464543.png
 
From the above link:

"Nothing is set in stone — the recommendedd design concept and an environmental assessment report will go before the city's Infrastructure and Environment Committee for review in January. "
 
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