Last month, Toronto’s cycling community learned the City of Toronto would be resurfacing Eglinton Avenue without the promised bike lanes given the Eglinton Crosstown LRT continues to be faced with delays. This prompted me to prepare this action alert, while Cycle Toronto issued their own along with organizing tonight’s “Rally and Ride for Eglinton” which almost 100 people attended.
Back in 2012 when the late Rob Ford was Mayor, Toronto approved a 77-kilometre Bikeway Trails Implementation Plan. While the City of Toronto has since issued a Ten-Year Cycling Network Plan (2016) and a series of three-year plans, it’s worth revisiting which of the trails have been completed since then and which ones have not. Let’s dive in!
Two things that have made Torontonians furious at the Ford government lately are the constantly delayed Eglinton Crosstown LRT and their war on bikes through Bill 212. Both of these matters intersected yesterday when Toronto Today had reported the bike lanes proposed under eglintonTOday would be paused because of Bill 212. While the article was later corrected to state the City of Toronto’s commitment to do the installation after the LRT opens, the City of Toronto updated the eglintonTOday project website to say installation would not happen in 2025 when the road resurfacing work happens.
With Metrolinx refusing to provide an opening date for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT until three months from that time, the much-delayed transit line won’t be opening this year. The Finch West LRT celebrated a milestone recently with all stations and stops being completed, but also lacks an opening date and has even been subject to a recent lawsuit. But where do things stand with their respective bikeways? I did a couple of site checks this week after work to find out.
Regardless of whether we get around by walking, cycling, transit, or driving, we can all agree that nothing frustrates us more than delays getting things built. We are also aware that Toronto City Council can push to accelerate certain projects as they see fit. We saw that with the ActiveTO bike lane roll out during the pandemic and last month’s approval of a motion to accelerate construction of a stretch of the Gardiner Expressway, so it gets completed by 2026 instead of 2027. Let’s review four active transportation projects that have been subject to ridiculously long delays which are unacceptable given the record number of cyclist deaths this year.
The last time I visited Chesswood was back in September given the need to hold contractors such as Sanscon accountable with some of their projects being delivered considerably behind schedule. However, I was informed by city staff a few weeks back that more progress had been made. To get a sense of whether the November 2023 contract deadline would be met, I followed up yesterday’s site check on Finch with another one on Chesswood this afternoon after work.
Since the initial post on contractor accountability was put up, some more developments from Sanscon have come up which warrant a follow up. Another cycling related project they were awarded a contract for was on Chesswood Drive, while updates were issued for the College Street Upgrades and KQQR intersection. I did a site check on Chesswood on Tuesday and will discuss those findings.
All of us feel inconvenienced by construction regardless of how we get around; especially when projects keep getting delayed as what happened with the Eglinton Crosstown LRT. Per Luis Ledesma from the Cycling in Toronto Facebook group, Sanscon Construction was responsible for having several projects delivered behind schedule such as the College Street Upgrades and the King-Queen-Queensway-Roncesvalles (KQQR) Intersection. Another of their projects – Military Trail Road Reconstruction – was discussed at last week’s Infrastructure & Environment Committee (IEC) meeting. I will review these Sanscon projects and stress the need to hold contractors accountable when delivering projects that support climate action such as public transit and cycling.
On October 13, 2021, the City of Toronto released a construction update for the Bloor Street West bridge rehabilitation claiming the completion date has been delayed from December 2021 to June 2022. This delay effectively means the Bloor bike lane gap which currently exists there between Symington and Dundas will have been left unfilled for two years since the rest of the Bloor bike lane extension was installed from Shaw to Runnymede.
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| Bloor at Symington looking west towards the bike lane gap |
It is time to call out Councillors Gord Perks and Ana Bailao – as well as Mayor John Tory – for the City’s poor handling of this critical gap in Toronto’s bikeway network. A tragedy back in August which saw 18-year-old Miguel Joshua Escanan prompted Toronto City Council to approve a motion to expedite work on a complete street on Avenue Road, as well as examine cyclist safety in construction zones. We cannot wait for another cyclist to get killed by that area to force action in this case or other safety hazards across the city.
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| This ridiculously short addition to the Bloor bike lane east of Dundas spotted in June is not enough |
Please see below an e-mail I sent, though I encourage you to come up with your own submissions.
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| 2018 Bells on Danforth |
