Fixing the College and Dundas Intersection

On November 26, 2019, Councillor Ana Bailao’s office and City of Toronto staff hosted a public meeting to show local residents plans for improving the safety of the College and Dundas intersection for people who walk or bike. About 20 to 30 people attended what I would call a very engaging discussion with no shortage of ideas brought up. This development is important for my Parkdale neighbourhood, given many people living there use Lansdowne Avenue and Dundas Street West to get to the West Toronto Railpath which is an uncomfortable experience.

Checking Out Scarlett and Six Points

The Etobicoke York district has two main cycling projects for 2019; those being the protected bike lanes on Scarlett Road and the Six Points intersection in Etobicoke Centre. Scarlett was part of an action plan proposed by the Ward 11 Pedestrian Safety and Cycling Community (now Ward 5 York South Weston), while Six Points – where Bloor, Dundas, and Kipling meet – is attracting higher density development. I biked by these two areas on Sunday to understand the importance of these two projects.

Scarlett cycle tracks at the Humber River Trail

Biking Barrie to Orillia

Since moving to the Greater Toronto Area in 2008, the only GO train line that was easily accessible outside of rush hour was the Lakeshore line from Oshawa to Aldershot (just outside of Hamilton). However, GO Transit has expanded service on its Barrie, Kitchener, and Stouffville lines in recent years as part of their Regional Express Rail program. This includes year round weekend service to Barrie in December 2016 and to Niagara Falls since August 2019. Having gotten curious to check out the Oro Medonte Rail Trail, Helen and I brought our bikes on the GO train to Barrie last weekend to try it out.

Barrie's old Allandale train station

Tearing Down the Democratic Process

Over the past twenty years, Dave Meslin has become one of Toronto’s leading city builders. You may recognize some of his projects such as Spacing, Dandyhorse, Cycle Toronto, RaBIT, Downtown De-Fence Project, and the Toronto Public Space Committee. His new book – Teardown – draws from those experiences and those from other political roles to help educate people on the obstacles of our political system and how to overcome them.

The Value of Tactical Urbanism

For those who aren’t already aware, the term “tactical urbanism” refers to the use of temporary, low cost materials to help improve public spaces and neighbourhoods. The practice has been around for a long time, but this term has been popularized over the past few years including by Mikael Colville-Andersen during his TV series “The Life Sized City”. Last weekend, 8 80 Cities and Better Block took this concept to a whole new level by building a pop up complete street on Danforth Avenue known as 8 80 Streets Danforth; a first of its kind for Canada.

Observations Along the Humber

With the desire to escape the noise from the Caribbean Carnival on Saturday afternoon, I decided to bike the Humber River Trail all the way to Steeles and make some observations. A ride I used to do a few times before. This ride marked the first time I saw a deer while biking in Toronto, which happened south of Islington and Finch. A reminder of how cycling can lead to the most pleasant of surprises.

One Year Later – Where Are We On Protected Intersections?

Last year saw two cyclists killed in places where bike lanes intersected; those being Douglas Crosbie at Dundas and Jones in May and Dalia Chako at Bloor and St. George in June. Those fatalities helped spark new demands for Dutch style protected intersections from road safety advocates and the Toronto Star, while City Council approved ten “complete intersection” pilots. What happened on this file since then?

Cycle Toronto's protected intersection demo at Open Streets TO