ACTION ALERT – Sign & Share Toronto’s Open Streets Petition!

Happy Friday, everybody! If you live in Toronto, I need your help!

Further to last month’s blog post calling for an open streets campaign – which got subsequently picked up by CBC – the petition calling on Mayor Olivia Chow and City Council to bring back open streets programs to Toronto by 2026 has just been launched this morning. You can sign the petition here which I encourage you to please share widely with your fellow Torontonians. I also encourage you to e-mail Mayor Chow (mayor_chow@toronto.ca) and your city councillor to show your support if you haven’t already done so.

It’s Time for an Open Streets Campaign

WHOSE STREETS? OUR STREETS!

Remember when the City of Toronto closed parts of Bloor and Yonge for Open Streets TO for walking, cycling, and other forms of physical activity? Or the hugely popular ActiveTO weekend closures on Lake Shore West during the COVID-19 pandemic? One thing that has long frustrated me is how despite their popularity, these open street programs didn’t happen at all in 2023 or 2024, while there has been nothing but radio silence on this topic for this year. While Bill 212 and next week's court challenge may have sucked up a lot of the cycling community's oxygen as of late, It’s time to break the silence and get organized on this open streets issue!

The last Open Streets TO event held on August 21, 2022

Improving Rosedale Valley Road

Earlier this week, Twitter user @TransitJakeTO floated the idea of turning Rosedale Valley Road and Bayview Avenue south of River Street into car-free zones. There is certainly a good case to do this for Bayview given the lack of destinations between River Street and Corktown Common, as well as the fact it was turned into a one-way southbound street last year to accommodate a new multi-use path.

ActiveTO on Bayview before the road was reduced to two lanes

To take some inspiration from Matt Elliott’s intersection inspections from his City Hall Watcher e-newsletter, I reviewed traffic counts on that part of Bayview which fell by 73% from 5,568 on March 29, 2018 to 1,508 on March 24, 2022. However, I would like to explore Rosedale Valley Road a little deeper.

Rosedale Valley Road is seen by drivers as an alternate route from Yonge and Bloor to the Don Valley Parkway which bypasses a fair number of intersections and traffic signals. Excluding June 2020, between 10,000 and 13,000 cars used Rosedale Valley Road daily. Given this reality, banning cars on that street would be considerably more difficult than on the southern part of Bayview.

However, it doesn’t mean that Rosedale Valley Road couldn’t benefit from some improvements. The multi-use path from Park Road to Bayview Avenue is very narrow and bumpy, which is expected to be upgraded sometime this year in conjunction with the Glen Road pedestrian bridge replacement.

Proposed Rosedale Valley Road trail (via City of Toronto)

One glaring omission from this project is the trail ends abruptly at Park Road with no connection to other bikeways such as those on Bloor and Yonge Streets.

The most logical solution would be to extend the Rosedale Valley trail west along Aylmer Avenue to Yonge Street. However, Aylmer Avenue is only seven metres wide and has a bridge crossing the Line 1 subway; making widening prohibitively expensive. Extending the trail would require making Aylmer one-way from Yonge Street to 100 metres west of Park Road where Rosedale Valley branches off to serve some apartment buildings and Severn Creek Park. There would be enough green space to build a trail on the remaining 100 metres.

As for which way the one-way treatment would be most appropriate, eastbound traffic shows slightly higher volumes and would make one way eastbound the most appropriate. Not to mention, heading towards the Don Valley Parkway would be a more direct shot. One disadvantage is the trail would need to be placed on the northbound side; thus requiring two traffic signal crossings instead of one.

Here is a very rough mock of how the proposed configuration could work.

By making Aylmer one way eastbound and extending the Rosedale Valley trail to Yonge Street, a key gap in Toronto’s trail network can be filled in which can provide people biking a shortcut from Yonge Street to the Lower Don trail system. It would be a relatively inexpensive fix and one that can help reduce traffic on Rosedale Valley over the long term.

My Highlights from 2022

Having tallied up this year’s numbers for Toronto’s bike lane installations, it’s time to reflect on some of the other highlights of 2022. With two elections, a return to the office and in person events, a new place, some long distance rides, and the first international trip since COVID-19, it’s been quite the crazy turn of events. Let’s dive in!

One of the Berber villages we hiked through in Morocco

#ActivismTO

On August 11, Dave Shellnut (a.k.a. The Biking Lawyer) and some other road safety advocates organized a ride for safe streets near High Park to protest the ticketing of cyclists there and other questionable actions by the Toronto Police. While I couldn’t make it at the time, over 800 people of all ages and abilities rode their bikes and managed to shut down the Bloor-Parkside intersection. With police continuing their ticketing operations on Shaw Street since then and have been caught rolling through stop signs, a follow up event was held yesterday called #ActivismTO which saw hundreds of people take part and started at Trinity Bellwoods Park.

RANT – Death of ActiveTO Lake Shore West

For those of you who don’t remember, Toronto stubbornly refused to provide space for people who walk or bike in March and April 2020 when virtually every other major Canadian city was doing so to allow for physical distancing early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite dragging their feet in creating ActiveTO two years ago which ended up being highly popular, Toronto City Council accepted staff recommendations to scrap ActiveTO on Lake Shore West – the program’s crown jewel – except for a limited number of occasions. It seems old habits really die hard here in Caronto and there is too much eagerness to return to the status quo with people returning to the offices post-pandemic.

Let's Make ActiveTO on Yonge Permanent!

Yesterday, Sabrina (Brie) Young posted in the Cycling in Toronto Facebook group a flyer she received calling on residents to e-mail the Infrastructure and Environment Committee, Mayor Tory, and City Council to remove the ActiveTO complete street pilot on Yonge Street. To add insult to injury, the “Be Green. Be Rational.” tagline was used along with easily debunked arguments such as bike counts during the winter months, greenhouse gas emissions while idling, and the ability for first responders to get through. Sure, the line about the Yonge bike lanes being narrow may have some merit, but it should be noted Bloor Street from Spadina to Lansdowne Avenues is similarly narrow at less than 13 metres wide and the bike lanes worked fine. A petition was started about six months ago calling for the removal of the Yonge bike lanes which got more than 1200 signatures at the time of writing (which I won't share here for obvious reasons).

Given opponents have been organizing ahead of the March 29 IEC meeting which could see the ActiveTO complete street pilot get debated, it’s time for supporters to flip the script by urging the committee and city council to take the true green and rational action of making the Yonge pilot permanent. In addition, supporters need to call for bike lanes on Yonge to be extended north and south as soon as possible to connect with the Eglinton Crosstown LRT and future projects in Downtown and North York Centre.

Below is a sample e-mail you can use for your action, though I would encourage you to personalize it to share your story on why a complete street on Yonge is important to you. Cycle Toronto sent this action alert via e-mail this morning about Yonge, along with a link to their Yonge petition which has more than 3000 signatures.

2021 Gone to the Dogs

This past year ended as it began with COVID-19 cases surging thanks to the Omicron variant. Before then, it appeared the pandemic was being brought under control in Canada with millions rolling up their sleeves to get vaccinated. Speaking of which, we got our booster shots last weekend. 2021 saw the threat of climate change brought to our doorstep with British Columbia experiencing record heat, wildfires, and floods, while democracy south of the border was under threat with the January 6 Capitol Hill insurrection. As I mark my 35th orbit around the sun tomorrow, it’s time to reflect of some significant personal changes that happened over the past year.

Mozzie when we first picked him up in Ottawa

Diving Into Toronto’s 2022 – 2024 Bike Plan

Back in July, I wrote about the upcoming bike plan update in Spacing to explore whether it would help Toronto build back better. While the overall trend would maintain last year’s annual pace of over 30 kilometres (if built), some major arterials were listed as studies at the time. Now that the final report has been released and will be debated at next Thursday’s Infrastructure and Environment Committee meeting, it’s time to look at what has changed since then and what needs to be done.

Celebrating the opening of the Esplanade-Mill bikeway (Phase 1)

Action Alert RE Yesterday’s Avenue and Bloor Tragedy

Yesterday at 6:30 PM, 18-year-old Miguel Joshua Escana was killed by a cement truck driver while biking on Avenue Road immediately north of Bloor Street. While a ghost bike memorial ride will be held on Wednesday, August 25 and my condolences go to the family of the fallen cyclist, I would like to issue an urgent call to action. Especially considering the collision happened on a road which was supposed to get the ActiveTO treatment including protected bike lanes, but was never done.

Collision scene at Avenue and Bloor on August 18, 2021 (Via Toronto Police Operations)

Please e-mail Mayor Tory and the ActiveTO team with all 25 councillors blind copied urging them to not just implement the Avenue Road ActiveTO project from Bloor to Davenport now, but also accelerate bike lane installations across the city and make last year’s ActiveTO projects permanent. Below is the e-mail I sent yesterday, though I encourage you to come up with your own submissions.

Open Letter on 2021 ActiveTO Proposals

Below is a letter I submitted to the Infrastructure and Environment Committee, Mayor John Tory, and my councillor (Gord Perks) ahead of next Tuesday's committee meeting which will discuss next steps for ActiveTO. The deadline to submit your own comments on Motion IE20.12 (ActiveTO) to iec@toronto.ca (and copy your councillor and Mayor Tory) is Monday, March 22 at 4:30 PM. You can also check out Cycle Toronto's action alert for their own analysis.

ActiveTO on Lake Shore Boulevard West in May 2020

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Greetings, Members of the Infratructure and Environment Committee.

Last year was historic for cycling in Toronto with a net 31 kilometres of on-street bike lanes installed that year, as well as the well received major road closures on Lake Shore Boulevard and Bayview Avenue. While I am pleased with the idea of ActiveTO returning this year, I am disappointed that the proposals do not go far enough for several reasons.

Cycling in the 2021 Toronto Budget

On Thursday, January 14, the City of Toronto released their 2021 tax supported capital and operating budgets. With budgets forming the basis of where Toronto’s priorities lie, it’s time to investigate what this budget has in store from a cycling perspective notwithstanding potential shortfalls exceeding $1 billion triggered by COVID-19. For this purpose, I will consult the Transportation Services budget notes.

The 2021 budget presentation can be viewed here

Revisiting Yonge Street

After almost eight years of blogging, I am pleased to announce this marks my 200th blog post! With yongeTOmorrow on the agenda for the January 11, 2021 Infrastructure and Environment Committee meeting, what better way to use this milestone post than to revisit where things stand for cycling on Toronto’s iconic north-south arterial?

Map of various Yonge Street initiatives (via Hafeez A on Twitter)

An Unprecedented Pandemic Year

When 2020 started, we had just returned from our vacation in Turkey and Spain. It was a vacation rich in history, good places to hike, delicious tapas, and even some cycling for good measure. At that time, we were keen to travel again and COVID-19 had yet to register on our radar. Once the pandemic ramped up in mid-March, it seemed everything we took for granted was thrown out the window.

Increasing Suburban Cycling in Toronto - Revisited

Back in late May, I wrote about the need to expand cycling in Scarborough, Etobicoke, and North York and suggested roughly 150 kilometres of routes that would be needed to build a robust cycling grid in Toronto. A lot has happened since then including the building of almost 40 kilometres of bike lanes – the largest expansion in Toronto’s history – and some new proposals issued by the Toronto Community Bikeways Coalition (which I am part of). Here is a review of what has been built under ActiveTO, the TCBC proposals, and which gaps remain to be filled.

Bayview from Rosedale Valley to River was one of this year's ActiveTO installations

Audit Ride Around Parkdale-High Park

About ten people from Parkdale High Park Bikes took part in an audit ride on Sunday along with Nicholas from Councillor Ana Bailao’s office. The aim was to inspect the recently installed Bloor bike lane extension and other neighbourhood hotspots such as Brock-Florence, Seaforth, Macdonnell, and the Lansdowne-College-Dundas triangle. Fellow blogger Jun wrote his take here.

yongeTOmorrow September 2020 Update

Originally, the third and final phase of consultations for yongeTOmorrow was to be held during the spring. However, the COVID-19 lockdowns at the time delayed lead to this round being postponed until last week’s virtual launch. After reviewing the consultation materials, it’s time to give a proper assessment of the recommended design.

Rendering of Yonge Dundas Square (via City of Toronto)

Brimley, Huntingwood & North Scarborough Green Loop

One part of Toronto I haven’t biked around as much is Scarborough. Sure, I biked to my old job in Pickering from Rouge Hill GO station, but only two kilometres of that trip is in Scarborough. As for longer treks, I did bike along the Gatineau Hydro Corridor and got to the Scarborough Bluffs once each. Yesterday, I joined the Toronto East Cyclists for a ride along the North Scarborough Green Loop while also checking the recently installed Brimley ActiveTO lanes.

Janet Joy and Peter - along with the Toronto East Cyclists - on the Huntingwood bike lanes

Approaching Fifteen Kilometres of Glory

This summer in Toronto has seen bike lanes installed at an unprecedented rate including the ongoing establishment of a fifteen kilometre continuous east-west cycling corridor along Bloor-Danforth. This has been a dream decades in the making and one poised to become a game changer for cycling in this city. On Friday afternoon, I had the chance to check out some of the progress.

Mixed Reviews for Quiet Streets

The City of Toronto has launched a survey collecting feedback about the over 50 kilometres of quiet streets which were created as part of ActiveTO. While I encourage people who used these quiet streets to fill out the survey and share, here are some thoughts that are street specific.

Brock Avenue

The quiet street on Brock slows down traffic but barrels are prone to being knocked over or moved

While I can’t vouch for Emerson, Brock is one route I use regularly to get to Shaw, Bloor, or Richmond-Adelaide. The quiet street implementation involves placing construction barrels on alternating sides to force drivers to slow down. While it is moderately effective, there is a tendency of the barrels getting knocked over or moved which negates this "quiet street" benefit. Even for a temporary set up, more durable barriers are needed to prevent them from being moved.