What's The Holdup, Danforth Bike Lanes?

With much of the cycling community’s focus on extending the Bloor bike lanes west to High Park, we cannot forget the need to extend the bike lanes east along Danforth Avenue. A complete streets study was announced at last year’s Bells on Danforth ride, but WTF has happened since then? Turns out there’s a lot going on with the east end’s main street.

Bells on Danforth 2018

Time to Extend the Bloor Bike Lanes!

This month has seen a renewed push for extending the Bloor Street bike lanes from Shaw Street to High Park. Cycle Toronto issued a press release confirming the bike lanes get almost one million riders annually, while the David Suzuki Foundation launched a form letter campaign calling on supporters of the extension to e-mail Mayor John Tory. Next month, there will be a public meeting to rally support with a focus on the history of Bloor, the business case, the view from council, and what supports can do to make the extension a reality and reverse the current turtle pace of Toronto’s bike plan implementation.

Montréal left Bloor, Danforth, and Yonge in the dust with this bike lane turtle derby!

However, some people are wondering how can bike lanes be accommodated on Bloor. With a little help from Google Maps to measure street widths and Streetmix to do the basic layout, I will walk you through on how the bike lanes could fit.

Cycling Towards Climate Optimism

Over the past twelve months, Cycle Toronto and advocates across the city were hard at work with the Bloor Loves Bikes campaign, which gained support from over 9300 residents, dozens of local businesses, and residents’ associations. One group which contributed significantly to the successful pilot project vote on May 4, 2016 is the David Suzuki Foundation (DSF). I interviewed Gideon Forman – their Climate Change and Transportation Policy Analyst – to learn more about the DSF’s campaign efforts and environmental leadership in general.

Yonge Loves Bikes ride in June 2016