# Greening Jarvis Street



## macintosh doctor (Mar 23, 2009)

so they past the bike path down / up Jarvis.. once again.. I think David Miller has no clue how to or what to do , manage the city of Toronto....

His quote "...it is about moving people.." some one please explain how reducing the amount of lanes for cars and adding them to bikes moves people?

last I checked one person per bike - 4 per car? 

Also he said he wants to Green up Jarvis - by adding wider sidewalks, bike paths, trees... Good luck with that - maybe you will make the hookers, pimps and drug dealers feel better but sitting in traffic, will not help you - by planting trees...with all the extra smog because of the traffic he will cause ( removing lanes ) it better be some fast growing smog cleaning trees.

all he is doing is cutting Toronto in half - north and south. Spadina is impossible to use, University ave is okay - but all those lights.

lastly, i know he is American.. but does he always have to say "like in some American cities" does he not know we Canadians not necessarily strive to be American?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I suppose his attitude to greening the city is to make sure that automobiles find the roads so wretched that commerce slows to a standstill. Well done, Mayor Plastic Bags!


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## macintosh doctor (Mar 23, 2009)

Macfury said:


> I suppose his attitude to greening the city is to make sure that automobiles find the roads so wretched that commerce slows to a standstill. Well done, Mayor Plastic Bags!


oh that is so funny... to bad he ripped the bad, that is 5 cents wasted...


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## hhk (May 31, 2006)

macintosh doctor said:


> so they past the bike path down / up Jarvis.. once again.. I think David Miller has no clue how to or what to do , manage the city of Toronto....
> 
> His quote "...it is about moving people.." some one please explain how reducing the amount of lanes for cars and adding them to bikes moves people?
> 
> ...


When is the last time you saw a car with 4 people in it? We could stand at Jarvis and Carlton for an hour and not see a single one. Almost every car will have a single driver. Talk about a massive waste.

There is an urban planning theory that you can build wider and better roads but you will never reduce congestion. That is because if traffic is appreciably lighter, it will encourage more people to jump in their cars until you reach the point of congestion where people have a negative incentive to drive.

I, for one, would like to see bumper to bumper, nasty, maddening traffic jams all day in the downtown core. I'll be the one grinning broadly as I pass you on my bike.

BTW, there are no more hookers on Jarvis and the drug dealers are further east along Queen St.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

macintosh doctor said:


> oh that is so funny... to bad he ripped the bad, that is 5 cents wasted...


He needed the hole so he could access some oxygen to waste.

Removing lanes from Jarvis should make congestion on Young a contender for the Guiness Book, though I think Mayor Miller and his Council have already pegged the "dumbest possible government" - which is quite an achievement considering that Hamilton City Council has long given them a run for the money...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

hhk said:


> There is an urban planning theory that you can build wider and better roads but you will never reduce congestion. That is because if traffic is appreciably lighter, it will encourage more people to jump in their cars until you reach the point of congestion where people have a negative incentive to drive.


This is because driving passenger vehicles is the single-most efficient and preferred method of travel.


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

EvanPitts said:


> He needed the hole so he could access some oxygen to waste.
> 
> Removing lanes from Jarvis should make congestion on Young a contender for the Guiness Book, though I think Mayor Miller and his Council have already pegged the "dumbest possible government" - which is quite an achievement considering that Hamilton City Council has long given them a run for the money...


WOW!!!! for once we agree.

I stopped caring about Toronto even tough I do live here, when I get a chance to move out of this dump and buy a house in a town that actually cares about what there citizens think then I will be happy.

Laterz


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## hhk (May 31, 2006)

Macfury said:


> This is because driving passenger vehicles is the single-most efficient and preferred method of travel.


If you mean most convenient and *time* efficient then I would argue that it depends on where you are going and where you are coming from. If I'm going to Markham and Mississauga, my car is the best way. If I'm coming downtown, I can bike or take transit and end up at my destination much faster than by car. I'm talking door-to-door.


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## hhk (May 31, 2006)

EvanPitts said:


> He needed the hole so he could access some oxygen to waste.
> 
> Removing lanes from Jarvis should make congestion on Young a contender for the Guiness Book, though I think Mayor Miller and his Council have already pegged the "dumbest possible government" - which is quite an achievement considering that Hamilton City Council has long given them a run for the money...


Only tourists drive along Yonge St. And traffic on it is not that bad because you can't turn right or left from Front St. to College. The cross streets south of Dundas are the worst, namely Adelaide and King, and having bike lanes and restricted traffic on Jarvis might actually help since there will be less traffic flowing onto those streets.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Based on this thread, drivers throughout the GTA are predicting the sky will fall. Everything hinges on Jarvis staying just the way it is - mess with that and the hounds of hell will descend on the city and unleash a bloody reign of terror.

Car people will have to get used to sharing the roads with more bike people. The trouble lies with lousy drivers and lousy cyclists - and the general presence of urgency (as well as general lack of courtesy) on downtown COTU roads.


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## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

hhk said:


> I, for one, would like to see bumper to bumper, nasty, maddening traffic jams all day in the downtown core. I'll be the one grinning broadly as I pass you on my bike.


And I will be giving you the finger, since as much as I'd like to do without a car, it's a big pain to transport 300 sq ft of ceramic tile on a bike. I live at Jarvis & Front, and Jarvis/Mount Pleasant is a street I use very frequently to get to the buildings and to my boyfriend's place. There really isn't a more convenient way.... next best option is to shoot up Sherbourne and cut through Rosedale to get to Mount Pleasant, but Sherbourne becomes extremely congested near Bloor.

I have no issue with creating bike lanes--in fact, I think it would be great for bikes to have their own separate lanes so I don't have to worry about them as much--but I'm not sure what removing much-needed car lanes to do it solves.


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## hhk (May 31, 2006)

Sonal said:


> And I will be giving you the finger, since as much as I'd like to do without a car, it's a big pain to transport 300 sq ft of ceramic tile on a bike. I live at Jarvis & Front, and Jarvis/Mount Pleasant is a street I use very frequently to get to the buildings and to my boyfriend's place. There really isn't a more convenient way.... next best option is to shoot up Sherbourne and cut through Rosedale to get to Mount Pleasant, but Sherbourne becomes extremely congested near Bloor.
> 
> I have no issue with creating bike lanes--in fact, I think it would be great for bikes to have their own separate lanes so I don't have to worry about them as much--but I'm not sure what removing much-needed car lanes to do it solves.


Like I don't get that every day. 

I hear the "free flow of traffic is vital to commerce" argument all the time. I say nuts to that. Somehow business gets done in Tokyo, Seoul and New York City.


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## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

hhk said:


> Like I don't get that every day.
> 
> I hear the "free flow of traffic is vital to commerce" argument all the time. I say nuts to that. Somehow business gets done in Tokyo, Seoul and New York City.


I'm not talking about commerce in general... I'm talking about how I run my business. It involves a lot of running around, and frequently purchasing and delivering heavy or awkward items in quantities small enough that delivery is infeasible. A bike does not cut it. 

Listen, I think bikes are great. I think more people should walk or ride bikes. Most of my non-business transportation needs (groceries, errands, socializing, etc) are covered by walking and occasionally taking the subway. If I could operate my business without a car, I would do it happily. I can't. (And I've crunched the numbers on using Autoshare or Zipcars and it doesn't work out.)

Therefore I don't take all the kindly to people wishing to make my working life more difficult so that they can be smug about it.


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

hhk said:


> Like I don't get that every day.
> 
> I hear the "free flow of traffic is vital to commerce" argument all the time. I say nuts to that. Somehow business gets done in Tokyo, Seoul and New York City.


Only one problem Tokyo, Seoul, New York City have public transit that actually functions.

Laterz


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## hhk (May 31, 2006)

*Induced traffic*

Regarding the urban planning theory, a little Googling tells me it's called "induced traffic". A good explanation here:

http://www.vtpi.org/gentraf.pdf



> Traffic engineers often compare traffic to a fluid, assuming that a certain volume must
> flow through the road system. But urban traffic may be more comparable to a gas that
> expands to fill available space (Jacobsen, 1997). Road improvements that reduce travel
> costs attract trips from other routes, times and modes, and encourage longer and more
> ...


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Howdy, Sonal. It's one thing to advocate the creation of dedicated bike lanes when you're city planning and building entirely new neighbourhoods. It's quite another to say "sure, let's have dedicated bike lanes" but also protesting "don't take away any car lanes." How do you do that in an old neighbourhood that's got residential and commercial property adjoining the street?

There's no easy solution. But cyclists and drivers are clearly going to have to get used to dealing with today's road conditions. That means, among other things, trying harder to play nice with one another. Cyclists certainly aren't going to bow down to the car.

Not that it isn't already messy and full of potential for chaos. I was on my way home from work tonight and I was going along an underused industrial road. Ahead of me were a couple who each rode an electric scooter. They were riding in parallel, taking up the whole lane, going about 20 K under the limit and clearly were just learning how to ride. They were so wobbly and uncertain of their movements it was a bit disconcerting to detect what they were going to do next. Finally they saw me behind them and pulled over. I don't even think you need a license to ride an e-bike, correct? Yikes.

All these different methods of getting about... all on the same road network. A bit hairy but what can you do. Compared to other parts of the world I imagine our problems are rather tame.

I keep thinking a lot of problems would go away if people simply gave themselves more time in their trip planning and remembered to treat others on the road as they themselves would like to be treated.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Max said:


> Based on this thread, drivers throughout the GTA are predicting the sky will fall. Everything hinges on Jarvis staying just the way it is - mess with that and the hounds of hell will descend on the city and unleash a bloody reign of terror.
> 
> Car people will have to get used to sharing the roads with more bike people. The trouble lies with lousy drivers and lousy cyclists - and the general presence of urgency (as well as general lack of courtesy) on downtown COTU roads.



Well it kind'a does "hinge on everything". Don't forget his worship's plan on tearing down the rest of the Gardiner at...whatelse...Jarvis. The Jarvis/Mt Pleasant corridor is the only viable option for large commercial vehicles getting uptown.

Bikes are fine if you only have to commute a few km and you don't have passengers/kids, are a contractor with a van full of tools and material, or a service guy, or a delivery truck, or the 85 yr old couple going to the doctors. I'd like to see *hhk* peddling his a$$ up Jarvis at 85...somehow I don't think he"ll be laughing to hard.

This kind of nonsense costs commerce money which will be translated into your costs in the price of goods and services. That's one reason Tokyo and New York are two of the most expensive cities in the world. Who do you think pays all the bridge tolls the delivery trucks pay to get to the island of Manhattan? Eventually it's the consumers residing there. His Worship David Miller is creating an island...good luck to you all.

I'm with K_OS, I sold my home in Toronto and I'm just waiting it out in Mississauga until I too can find a little town to settle in and raise the mighty finger to Miller and his circus of a council.


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## hhk (May 31, 2006)

I *choose* to live in Toronto and I *choose* to pay the high cost of living. If I grow unhappy, I guess I will move to Mississauga.

And I very much plan to be riding my bike when I'm 85.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

I have no love for Mississauga, but it's better with Hazel for now than paying Miller his due. I wish you all the best in your bike riding.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Hey, Kps... your wording was very funny there. Sounds like 'sauga is serving as some kind of suburban purgatory until you've reached the promised land. Well, good luck to you, sir! I escaped Mississauga's bland clutches when I was 18 and swore I'd never return. Every time I go back there my decision is reaffirmed ten times over. Yet my Mississauga relatives look at me as if I'm the one on drugs for living where I do. Different strokes, I guess.

As to whether or not Toronto will become as hideously expensive as those other cities you mention - well, as the Good Doctor would say, "we shall see."

Anyway, I'll be interested in learning where you eventually parachute down to. I'll be sure to take notes.


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## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

Max, I agree with you... it's a difficult situation to try and retrofit bike lanes into the city. Newer parts of the city typically have a median between the road and the side walk that could (theoretically) be used, but streets tend to be wider, and there are fewer cyclists anyway. It's tricky in the downtown core. 

Interesting take on the issue.
San Francisco Ponders: Could Bike Lanes Cause Pollution? - WSJ.com


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Max, since both me and the Mrs work in Mississauga, it made sense after selling the house in TO...and yes it it purgatory...the quintessential warehouse for suburbanites and commuters. LOL.

We still need to work even if we go further out, but going further out limits the prospects.

We should hook up, but your PMs are off and your .Mac is history. I still have your cell tho.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Max said:


> I keep thinking a lot of problems would go away if people simply gave themselves more time in their trip planning and remembered to treat others on the road as they themselves would like to be treated.


Bingo. Courtesy first. Always check mirrors for cyclists, leave room for them along the side, don't open doors like a maniac and watch carefully while making right turns to make sure I'm not cutting someone off. 

I have nothing against bike lanes, but choking off a major motor vehicle artery to accommodate them is poor planning.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

kps said:


> Max, since both me and the Mrs work in Mississauga, it made sense after selling the house in TO...and yes it it purgatory...the quintessential warehouse for suburbanites and commuters. LOL.
> 
> We still need to work even if we go further out, but going further out limits the prospects.
> 
> We should hook up, but your PMs are off and your .Mac is history. I still have your cell tho.


Kps: will turn those PMs back on... a beer would indeed be nice. One day! I'm back at work and therefore have no life... but there is a hiatus coming up in the next couple of weeks. We can figure something out.

Yeah, anyway - makes sense if you and your sweetie are working there. I live where I live because of proximity to film & television work... so we're even that way. Even if I liked Mississauga, Pickering or Newmarket I wouldn't live in any of those places... the daily commute would grind me to a fine paste and I well know it. I didn't go the east end for work reasons, it was a romantic liaison that took me there and it was only years later that I realized I was in a good part of town for what I had ended up doing. Now, my commute is fifteen minutes, maybe twenty on a bad day, each way... I am very fortunate.

I hear you on the problem of settling somewhere outside of the yawning maw of the COTU... one is still obliged to work, even if one is comfortably nestled in some hamlet somewheres... and so the question inevitably pops up, time and time again: what would be the new gig? These and related questions are something we talk about a great deal over here, under this roof of ours.

Back to Jarvis.... I lived on that once-great avenue, for three years in the early 80s. I remember landlords who would take firehoses to the hookers on hot summer nights, in a vain effort to drive them further down the street. That and University Avenue were once very like Park Avenue... broad, grand, full of ceremony and civic pride. There are still some lovely instances of period architecture lining the road. I hope the cyclists and drivers will be able to take all that in for years to come. Toronto has a nasty, utterly annoying habit of tearing down its own storied past in a relentless effort to become something it is not.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Macfury said:


> I have nothing against bike lanes, but choking off a major motor vehicle artery to accommodate them is poor planning.


I don't disagree. However, I think such developments are inevitable. What roads we do have will need to be shared by ever greater numbers of cyclists, scooter, e-bike and motorcycle riders... and drivers, natch. We will likely see more such announcements, not less. Brace yourselves, O citizens of the COTU!

However, an even more horrendous example of poor planning is failing to keep growing the public transit system. No wonder drivers are furious for having to share the roads with all these dubious fellow travelers. The alternatives are so grim they keep doing what they do, gritting their teeth all the more as they commit themselves to each soul-sucking, teeth-rattling trip.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Max: I don't blame you for not wanting to commute, even though I drive 400-500 km in a 8hr period at work, adding a long commute on top of that would grind me into a fine slurry as well. I witness many driver's frustration each and every day...and sometimes I'm the source of those frustrations as I shift my load through the 10 gears of my tranny, but I'm no longer sympathetic. 

I still think they should have left Jarvis alone, but... whatever. I'll stay in Hazeldom for now and find Shangri-La later.

I'll get in touch and we can compare calendars...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Max said:


> However, an even more horrendous example of poor planning is failing to keep growing the public transit system. No wonder drivers are furious for having to share the roads with all these dubious fellow travelers. The alternatives are so grim they keep doing what they do, gritting their teeth all the more as they commit themselves to each soul-sucking, teeth-rattling trip.


Max, the whole so-called planning of the city is a colossal joke. The city is actively attempting to increase the population of Toronto and supports a plan of urban intensification to make all of our problems worse--a Ponzi scheme designed to raise barely enough tax revenue is behind it. These problems exist precisely because of the population patterns the city is encouraging.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

I dunno, MF - I don't think it's as clear-cut as what you posit - that inept city government alone is responsible for horrendous growing pains. I consider it more of a chicken or egg question myself - the city planners know a boatload more people are coming to Toronto over the next 30 years, _whether it's planned for or not_ - they're just trying to figure out how best to accommodate it. Then there's an extra layer of madness provided by pols who mediate between city planner's desires and what the public eventually gets. Political egos - and the desire to be re-elected by one's constituents - entails a fierce, terribly resonant interference field which can thwart the noblest and most sensible of goals.

Too, intensification means more of everything - more people, more traffic, more amenities and services - and yeah, more bikes, cars, scooters, ebikes, motorcycles, bladers, boarders, trucks, trams and busses. With dedicated lanes for certain of these methods of transport and sheer chaos reserved for the others.

Expect more controversies like the one erupting over Jarvis. The city we knew is not the city it will become. The only real questions remaining to discuss will be whether you stay or go. I think there's a Clash song about it.

Kps:tell Hazel I say hi... what an amazing gal. I was there when the great Mississauga evacuation occurred. Mind-boggling to think she was the mayor even then. We'll talk about beers later, dewd.


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## hhk (May 31, 2006)

Max said:


> Hey, Kps... your wording was very funny there. Sounds like 'sauga is serving as some kind of suburban purgatory until you've reached the promised land. Well, good luck to you, sir! I escaped Mississauga's bland clutches when I was 18 and swore I'd never return. Every time I go back there my decision is reaffirmed ten times over. Yet my Mississauga relatives look at me as if I'm the one on drugs for living where I do. Different strokes, I guess.
> 
> As to whether or not Toronto will become as hideously expensive as those other cities you mention - well, as the Good Doctor would say, "we shall see."
> 
> Anyway, I'll be interested in learning where you eventually parachute down to. I'll be sure to take notes.


I lived in Mississauga for a year of high school and in the summers during university. During the summers, I had a job downtown and it took me 45 minutes by bus to get to Islington station. Every boring, sweltering, stinking bus ride, I swore I would never live in the 'burbs by choice.

I remember in my downtown job listening to this one guy who commuted in from a small farm in Durham region. He would arrive, all red-faced and fuming and spend the first 20 minutes of each day bitching about the commute. I asked him why he lives so far away and he answered "for the peace and quiet". Imagine how many years he took off his life with the stress of commuting from his peaceful farm.

Even Hazel, in some of her frank interviews, regrets the way Mississauga has grown. She laments the brutal transit system and wishes she had planned the downtown core to be in Port Credit where there is natural density and a street scape.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Most of the people I work with who have younger families live at the edges of the COTU because, of course, that buys, among other things, more space for their growing families. Yet the amount of time mommy or daddy spends on the commute ensures that they have less time than ever to spend with their kids. Talk about your classic modern dilemma.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Max said:


> I dunno, MF - I don't think it's as clear-cut as what you posit - that inept city government alone is responsible for horrendous growing pains. I consider it more of a chicken or egg question myself - the city planners know a boatload more people are coming to Toronto over the next 30 years, _whether it's planned for or not_ - they're just trying to figure out how best to accommodate it.


Check their official documents. We might agree that the city will (or won't) become larger, based on the whims of Canadians, but we do know that the city government _wants_ Toronto to grow into some urban-intensified futuropolis (with parks and bike paths, of course) in large part because tax revenue will help prop up the budget they have already spent. Growth itself is the mantra, because they won't control spending. Akin to the philosophy that says Canada's population growth needs to accelerate to accommodate pension pay-outs already promised.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Offical documents? Pshaw. As for the whims of Canucks, they largely don't factor into it; most of the coming hordes will be immigrant families from elsewhere 'round the world. many of them will have family already in Canada, many more will have friends who came to Canada before them, attained their citizenship and told their friends to come along.

I hear you on the desperate plea for tax revenue angle, of course. I just don't see it as being anywhere near as large a factor as you do. 

Fact is, cities that work are indeed expensive. They afford their citizens a large and valuable concentration of amenities, opportunities, medical facilities, cultural ambience galore, and all sorts of other goodies. You can move to the sticks and enjoy a great life there, although it's best to be mindful of access to medical. If you're young and healthy, who cares? But if you're middle-aged and starting to sense your own mortality, perhaps your outlook is different and so by extension your priorities might be as well. If you're retired perhaps the city is no more than a cesspool you've managed to escape from; certainly many Canadians have taken that route, opting for calmer zones and - provided they've been smart with their pennies - gentler climates.

The thing about cities is that they're always in evolution. Some may argue that this particular one is fast spinning down the toilet. On particular days I will grimly agree. On the good days I am tempted to lay my pessimism aside and opt to think well of those who will come after me and whose energy will be useful to Toronto in the years to come. 

Same applies to Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, etc.

MF, a smart fellow like you will see your way through the coming trials and tribulations, I am sure.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

Macfury said:


> I suppose his attitude to greening the city is to make sure that automobiles find the roads so wretched that commerce slows to a standstill. Well done, Mayor Plastic Bags!


Most studies confirm that bicycle commuters are better for store front business than cars. 

-they are easier to park
-more traffic per square unit of area
-easier to get out of
-closer to store fronts and more aware of surroundings
-bicycle commuters tend to be those in higher income brackets
-bicycle commuters save the average $10,000/ year for owning a car


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Macfury said:


> I have nothing against bike lanes, but choking off a major motor vehicle artery to accommodate them is poor planning.


Poor planning is jamming 20,000 jobs per acre in places that are far distant from where pople can actually live - choking off the streets is just an unintended consequence of decades of stupidity...


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

I expect people will start to grasp the importance of living in close proximity to where one works. Living great distances from where one earns a paycheque used to work, even quite well, in the days before gridlock, high energy prices and a steep economic slowdown.

If you both live and work in Mississauga, for example, you're on the right track.

Meaning people will be forced to live more within their means. That means changing up one's typical consumption profile. Less reliance on credit, less individual and household debt. On the downside, smaller residential footprints, more crowded conditions, more sharing of facilities. Real estate being expensive in jobs-rich areas, people will have to pony up if they want to curtail brutal commute times and the kinds of road rage they tend to engender.

If however you love to drive the highways and byways of our fair land and can withstand the hordes of disgruntled drivers around you, more power to you. And no question - some people, claustrophobic and agoraphobic types in particular, will not like this coming wave of densification. They are going to have to find employment opportunities and lifestyle philosophies tailored more to small-town Canada. It's a challenge but it's hardly impossible.

The Toronto band Metric has this great song about the strange futility of our times - the lyrics go:

_buy this car to drive to work
drive to work to pay for this car_


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Adrian. said:


> Most studies confirm that bicycle commuters are better for store front business than cars.
> 
> -they are easier to park
> -more traffic per square unit of area
> ...


Of course, this completely ignores the fact that there are many companies that just do not allow bicycles, and that quite often, having a car is a requirement of getting the job in the first place. Even with companies that do allow bicycles, they generally have no place to put the bicycles, and leaving them out on the street is just fodder for those that steal bicycles.

Having bicycle lanes is a sop - we need real and meaningful reforms, like more telecommuting, smarter staggered shifts, and decentralizing businesses, or at least offering them major tax breaks if they locate in places where people can easily live and walk to work. We have a lot of towns and cities in this country that have become depopulated, with downtown areas that are decayed and ridden with crack houses, and this is the time that we could do the things needed to prevent the Detroitification of our cities.

People talk the green talk - but the only real green lifestyle is one where everything is nearby, where towns are surrounded by farms and wilderness, rather than giant cities crammed to the max and surrounded by endless sixteen lane wide highways...


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## hhk (May 31, 2006)

Adrian. said:


> Most studies confirm that bicycle commuters are better for store front business than cars.
> 
> -they are easier to park
> -more traffic per square unit of area
> ...


That's a good point. When I ride my bike from work to home, I almost always stop somewhere to pick up a few groceries. When I drive, I just want to get the hell home.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Re: bike theft - it's no big deal for many medium-sized and larger businesses to create a secure, walk-in, on-premises bike storage area for their employees who commute via bike to work. It's hardly rocket science. Bicycles take up very little space relative to cars and providing an on-site place to safely store them amounts to good green PR for the company itself.

When I'm driving I try and do what MF has listed - be mindful of cyclists, especially for the fact that they might be in my blind spot - and try my best to share the road with them and extend them good will. Sometimes it's an uneasy truce we share but I remind myself that at least they're not fouling the air like I am.

On a tangent here but I couldn't resist - I'm driving a new Camry hybrid, a work vehicle assigned to me on the 4th of this month with a full tank; I've driven to and from work five days a week since then and have made several work-related trips from the east-end GTA to the west, along with a handful of short errand trips deeper into Scarborough. After all this time, I still have a third of that original fill-up left. Incredible.


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## hhk (May 31, 2006)

EvanPitts said:


> Of course, this completely ignores the fact that there are many companies that just do not allow bicycles, and that quite often, having a car is a requirement of getting the job in the first place. Even with companies that do allow bicycles, they generally have no place to put the bicycles, and leaving them out on the street is just fodder for those that steal bicycles.
> 
> Having bicycle lanes is a sop - we need real and meaningful reforms, like more telecommuting, smarter staggered shifts, and decentralizing businesses, or at least offering them major tax breaks if they locate in places where people can easily live and walk to work. We have a lot of towns and cities in this country that have become depopulated, with downtown areas that are decayed and ridden with crack houses, and this is the time that we could do the things needed to prevent the Detroitification of our cities.
> 
> People talk the green talk - but the only real green lifestyle is one where everything is nearby, where towns are surrounded by farms and wilderness, rather than giant cities crammed to the max and surrounded by endless sixteen lane wide highways...


I don't really get your logic EP. You're saying there are a lot of cities with rotten downtown cores and somehow the solution is decentralization? Detroit is an excellent example of a city that rotted out because of decentralization. The extensive freeway system encouraged businesses to locate in places like Southfield and Auburn Hills and encouraged the workers to live anywhere but downtown.

You ought to read Jane Jacob's book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities". In it, she talks about Greenwich Village as an example of a vibrant urban community. And yes, people are crammed in there to the max and for the most part, love it. 

The endless sixteen lane highways don't exist for the people living in the downtown core. They exist for the people living in suburbia.

As for your "nowhere to park a bike" argument, you want to tell me how many downtown businesses offer parking for a car?


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## hhk (May 31, 2006)

If any cyclists want to get a taste for dedicated bike lanes, take advantage of the uncompleted streetcar track on St. Clair W. Start at Caledonia and jump on the concrete streetcar right of way. It doesn't last long and you have to dodge construction equipment but it's a little slice of bike heaven.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Max said:


> Re: bike theft - it's no big deal for many medium-sized and larger businesses to create a secure, walk-in, on-premises bike storage area for their employees who commute via bike to work. It's hardly rocket science. Bicycles take up very little space relative to cars and providing an on-site place to safely store them amounts to good green PR for the company itself.


Perhaps it isn't a big deal, and bikes don't take up much space - but many companies prohibit them anyways. The last place I worked at that allowed bicycles was almost twenty years ago - and that place also put all efforts into discouraging cars by putting the parking lot a mile away and charging a heap of money to park. They even had a proper locker room with a shower, so that people could get cleaned up after a grueling commute in.

But since then, pretty much every place I worked at simply just did not allow bicycles, and most jobs required each worker to drive in individually, and not allowing car pooling (or at least frowning down at it in a big way). One place I worked for even had a clause in the employment contract that stated that the employee would be willing to accept a transfer to another location, so long as it was located within a 100km radius, and I got burned by that when they pulled the clause on me and transfered me from Hamilton out to Woodstock. The last place I worked at disallowed bicycles to be "stored on the premises" though car pooling was allowed on Tuesdays and Fridays.

It would be better if businesses modernized their ways of doing things, but with management becoming even more stupid by the moment, I doubt that will ever come around. Many companies are locating in places where you can't even really ride a bike to, like out on the highway in industrial parks, so policy or not, cars are the only option.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Hhk: I had heard about plans for a bike path to be put in along an obsolete rail corridor in the city's west end... the one that crosses Wallace Avenue in the Dupont & Lansdowne area. Nearly 30 years ago now, I was on a CN signals gang that did work on that track bed when that line was still very much active. It's a fantastic idea in that it provides cyclists a fast, dedicated method of crossing huge swathes of the city without having to deal with oft-nasty vehicular traffic. For whatever reason, nothing's happened yet.

In Nepean, on the outskirts of Ottawa, there's a similar abandoned rail line that was transformed some years ago. It's a brilliant idea and it's relatively inexpensive to implement.


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## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

What do people who cycle to work do in winter, for example? I live in Calgary and am not ashamed to admit I drive an SUV containing just myself everyday to work. I have found this to be a necessity with our hills and 7 months of winter (and our city council's refusal to clear resi streets). I had to sell my civic as I found myself too often getting stuck on the tiniest of hills. I live in the burbs, work in the burbs on the other side of the city. I would not be able to work without a car.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

EvanPitts said:


> It would be better if businesses modernized their ways of doing things, but with management becoming even more stupid by the moment, I doubt that will ever come around. Many companies are locating in places where you can't even really ride a bike to, like out on the highway in industrial parks, so policy or not, cars are the only option.


Can't say as I agree with your dim view of management in general.

As for industrial parks and the alleged innate hostility to bikes, I just don't buy it. Back in the late 70s one of my kid brothers used to cycle along the service road that runs parallel to the QE, from Mississauga to Oakville, where he worked at a trucking company, loading and unloading freight. He didn't have any problems getting to and from work. I've lived near a few industrial parks in my suburban days and none of them were a problem to get to on a bike. Nor do I think it an intractable problem to safely store employee's bikes... maybe at an especially small, cash-flow challenged business, sure - but everything else? Come, now.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

chasMac said:


> What do people who cycle to work do in winter, for example? I live in Calgary and am not ashamed to admit I drive an SUV containing just myself everyday to work. I have found this to be a necessity with our hills and 7 months of winter (and our city council's refusal to clear resi streets). I had to sell my civic as I found myself too often getting stuck on the tiniest of hills. I live in the burbs, work in the burbs on the other side of the city. I would not be able to work without a car.


ChasMac: in my town, none but the hardiest (foolhardiest?) will cycle in the dead of a Toronto winter, but that still means you see them more often than you'd think - it's a large city, after all, and there are quite a number of hardcore riders who don't let typical winter conditions get them down. The majority find other means of getting around until the weather turns fairer. Usually that means public transit.


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## hhk (May 31, 2006)

EP, who prohibits bicycles? Name a company. In Toronto. I've lived and worked in TO since 1984 and I've never heard of a company with any kind of anti-bike policy. 

Max, I would love to see that track used for a bike trail. I'm always looking for a decent east-west mid town route. Bloor St. is about the best there is but there are a ton of lights and you run the risk of earning a door prize on every ride.

For the first time, the City cleared the Martin Goodman Trail all winter. It was heaven. Clean, clear asphalt in the middle of all that snow and no rollerbladers, Sunday strollers or kids with training wheels. You wouldn't want to ride in the dead of winter but I think it's manageable in every month but January and February.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

*Help, they're alive!*



Max said:


> The Toronto band Metric has this great song about the strange futility of our times - the lyrics go:
> 
> _buy this car to drive to work
> drive to work to pay for this car_


Metric is a fine group, but their grasp on economics is tenuous at best. Driving where employment calls earns me many times the cost of purchasing and operating a vehicle. It's a very satisfactory ratio in fact.



> As for the whims of Canucks, they largely don't factor into it; most of the coming hordes will be immigrant families from elsewhere 'round the world. many of them will have family already in Canada,


Except immigrant families are now bypassing Toronto for greener pastures. Instead of viewing the easing of population as a positive factor, the city is worrying about how they can encourage more of them to settle here. There's no cogent thinking here. They bemoan the population increase as the driving force behind the need for public transportation, then get upset when people refuse to move here.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

hhk said:


> For the first time, the City cleared the Martin Goodman Trail all winter. It was heaven. Clean, clear asphalt in the middle of all that snow and no rollerbladers, Sunday strollers or kids with training wheels. You wouldn't want to ride in the dead of winter but I think it's manageable in every month but January and February.


The Martin Goodman trail is easily my favourite trail. I used to take it every morning to work in the west end when I worked as a painter on a movie in the late 90s. A very nice trail with lots of windy curves, particularly down between Cherry Beach and the Hearn Plant. The stretch along Queens Quay was a bit of a drag, however... but then you'd get your path back once you got closer to Bathurst.

Be nice if the COTU got more serious about dedicated bike paths. The greater Ottawa area is far better provisioned that way. The NCC's doing, mostly.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Macfury said:


> Metric is a fine group, but their grasp on economics is tenuous at best. Driving where employment calls earns me many times the cost of purchasing and operating a vehicle. It's a very satisfactory ratio in fact.


I'm sure it is. Too bad you don't grasp the beautiful symmetry of that line. Here's a clue: it's not about Metric doing Economics 101.



> ... immigrant families are now bypassing Toronto for greener pastures. Instead of viewing the easing of population as a positive factor, the city is worrying about how they can encourage more of them to settle here. There's no cogent thinking here. They bemoan the population increase as the driving force behind the need for public transportation, then get upset when people refuse to move here.


Well, sure. The city government is acting screwy; what else is new? No argument from me there. But perhaps the COTU's fall is real and permanent. Southern Ontario in general doesn't look as healthy as it used to... maybe the Golden Triangle is still ticking along, I dunno. Lots of money and opportunities there - and decent-sized communities, too. Thing is, once enough people get wind of things, paradise has a habit of turning sour.... more people come and ruin everything.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Max said:


> I'm sure it is. Too bad you don't grasp the beautiful symmetry of that line. Here's a clue: it's not about Metric doing Economics 101.


Who would you rather be...the Beatles or the Rolling Stones?


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## M. Warren (Jan 4, 2002)

hhk said:


> Only tourists drive along Yonge St. And traffic on it is not that bad because you can't turn right or left from Front St. to College. The cross streets south of Dundas are the worst, namely Adelaide and King, and having bike lanes and restricted traffic on Jarvis might actually help since there will be less traffic flowing onto those streets.


I commute from Richmond Hill to various parts of downtown 3-4 times a week (rarely during the morning rush...although that just reminded me I have to tomorrow), and I have to say that Yonge is my preferred route. It is generally not the fastest, but its quite steady going south of the 401. Can't say the same for the DVP or Dufferin/Allen.

And there are plenty of places you can make right and left turns south of College, just not at the main intersections. 

But I'm all for the Jarvis lane reductions. As much as I drive, I know that its unsustainable (and when my lease is up in a few months I'm not planning on getting another vehicle). I know not of any statistics, but I can't imagine that many of the residents in that area are automobile owners, so the needs of the immediate community should trump those of who live north of it. And this will only be made more apparent as new condo developments in the area are completed.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Macfury said:


> Who would you rather be...the Beatles or the Rolling Stones?


Devo.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Max said:


> Devo.


You are not man...


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Max said:


> Can't say as I agree with your dim view of management in general.


It comes from years of dealing with inept and lame managers, only the smallest percentage is worth the oxygen they use. But to talk about dysfunctional management would require many, many threads. In my experience, most managers opposed biking in, just like most opposed car pooling. I have only ever worked at two places where biking in was encouraged, and only one that had an official policy of preference for bicycles as well as providing places to store them.

Perhaps things are different in Toronto, but in Hamilton, you will find very few companies that will allow bicycles on their property, will not allow you to bring bicycles into the building, or to chain it to a post. Many places will simply not hire a person that doesn't have a late model car, since public transit is not an option to many of the industrial parks around here.



> Nor do I think it an intractable problem to safely store employee's bikes... maybe at an especially small, cash-flow challenged business, sure - but everything else? Come, now.


I don't think it matters what size the company is. Outside of the university, and one place I worked at twenty years ago, bicycles have been strongly discouraged, like when Proctor & Gamble were in town, or in the case of Empire/Sobeys and Loblaws - entirely prohibited by company rules and policy.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

EP: I don't think citing examples of corporate hostility to bicycles from 20 years ago is very useful in this context. Let's try and stick to the present.

Regarding your management comments, I was only half-joking. You paint a picture of management practices so criminally barbaric and densely calcified, it reminds me of Piranesi's work. I generally read your comments with a grain of salt, knowing how you do like to embellish somewhat. I do believe you personally have endured the results of some bad management decisions, however.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

hhk said:


> EP, who prohibits bicycles? Name a company. In Toronto. I've lived and worked in TO since 1984 and I've never heard of a company with any kind of anti-bike policy.


Bicycles were prohibited when I worked for Empire/Sobeys and Loblaws. When they were running, Stelco and Proctor & Gamble would not allow bicycles to be stored on the property, any bikes chained to a post or fence would be removed. The last place I worked at did not allow bikes, and did not allow carpooling except on Tuesdays and Fridays. Years ago I worked at McCulloch (before they went to China), and they likewise did not allow commuting other than by car, nor could one get there other than by car. Many places are along the highway, and bicycles are prohibited on the 400 series, and unlike in Peel and Halton, we do not have any service roads.

The university has a big policy that is pro-bike, and has long been that way. The college, on the other hand, doesn't prohibit bikes, but does not provide storage areas, and since it is three kilometers away from the nearest bus stop, a car is a necessity.

Other places include the company my girlfriend works for, where there is a city bylaw prohibiting bicycles being locked up on the street, but then, she can not drive their either because all of the parking is 1 hour maximum.

But these things could be fixed, with the appropriate legislation or adjustments to current laws. More of the point I am making is that, if people really did start to take bicycles to work in say, downtown Toronto, in big numbers, bicycle lanes are the least of the problems, and really, most businesses would soon clamp down, not wanting to provide places to store bikes. It could be a real problem if a hundred thousand bikes show up every day at Bay and Richmond because there is no place to put them. 

So I think the problem is less of riding bicycles, because our climate wouldn't support it anyways; and not even of infrastructure - but of businesses that insist on cramming themselves onto postage stamped sized lots at the hub of a conurbation, rather than spreading out to places where people could easily live within walking distance of work, or by curbing commuting by having more opportunities for employees to work at home offices and telecommuting.

I think people will adjust to a narrower Jarvis Street, just like they adjusted in Hamilton when they chopped a lane off the McKittrick Bridge - people will leave home a bit later so they can pile into a traffic jam and get stressed, and create wads of pollution, and be late for work; then they will all rush out of work, crash into each other in a giant traffic jam, get stressed and create wads of pollution - so the ten people that bicycle get an entire lane to themselves.

We can't fix stupidity by simply having a bicycle lane...


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Max said:


> EP: I don't think citing examples of corporate hostility to bicycles from 20 years ago is very useful in this context. Let's try and stick to the present.


Actually, the places that support bicycles were from 20 years ago, while corporate hostility is from a more recent vintage. If you want to speak of the present, then the situation is even more grave, since more and more people have to commute longer distances to work because of a number of contrivances, like the city choosing to zone all industries outside of the city, of giving huge tax breaks to those companies that let their buildings molder, and of keeping investors by buying existing industrial land because of the onerous weight of any possible toxins that would have to be cleaned up at the new owners expense.

Outside of those places that prohibit bicycles, there comes the very real fact that most places are simply too far away these days. The nearest industrial park is a half hour drive away, so more like an hour and a half each way by bike. Most jobs are no longer even in the county, and commuting is more like an hour to an hour and a half by car. There are people that drive from St. Catharines to Oshawa for work, and though it is an exceptional circumstance, most of my friends that live here work in places like Georgetown, Brampton, Vaughan, Woodbridge, etc... Bikes simply can not "fix" the problem, because the problem is becoming increasingly difficult to overcome.



> Regarding your management comments, I was only half-joking. You paint a picture of management practices so criminally barbaric and densely calcified, it reminds me of... I do believe you personally have endured the results of some bad management decisions, however.


Many places would not find humour in Dilbert. I have seen management that strived to accomplish massive feats of malfeasance that they ended up fragging themselves, and many places have simply folded up shop in a pool of bankruptcy. Some places are rather massive, so even though they haven't collapsed, they continue to suffer from the various syndromes that were there years ago.

And I can't even say it was just the places I happened to work for. The exact same problems have seen to the collapse of giant corporations like GM. Do not think this was the start, AC/Delco was an obscenely profitable division for years, which was mismanaged under the Delphi moniker so badly that it collapsed.

We have the same syndromes of bad management in the administration of our public offices. They offer solutions, like a bike lane here and there, but they can't get a handle, nay, they can't even conceive that the problem is utterly basic - that people are simply forced to live far too far away from work, and thus, are entirely dependent on cars. Now there is some call for public transportation, but until they get on with some real public transit, like GO Train service into Hamilton (and not the cheesy three or four a day, but regular, dependable service) - the 403/QEW will remain a solid mass of polluting vehicles.

It's the same when corporates prefer to built their empires on Young Street - rather than being flexible and using technology to allow for telecommuting. Telecommuting tosses out most of these problems because no physical commuting is needed. It is all about benefits, but the powers that be will never understand it because empowering workers to do their work at home undermines the whole need for layers of mismanagement.

Not that factory workers can work at home - but at least a good chunk of office workers could be taken off the roads, and factory shifts can be staggered to prevent "rush hour".


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## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

EvanPitts said:


> But these things could be fixed, with the appropriate legislation or adjustments to current laws. More of the point I am making is that, if people really did start to take bicycles to work in say, downtown Toronto, in big numbers, bicycle lanes are the least of the problems, and really, most businesses would soon clamp down, not wanting to provide places to store bikes. It could be a real problem if a hundred thousand bikes show up every day at Bay and Richmond because there is no place to put them.


San Francisco deals with it by creating bicycle parking garages (some of which may have been car parking) and by having special cars on commuter trains that allow bikes so that you can pretty much bike to work from most places in the Bay Area. But then, SF has a good transit system. 

Most people working at Bay & Richmond take transit into work--parking is expensive and hard to come by, but the subway and the GO station are both in walking distance, and when you are actually on the subway line the TTC is actually convenient. So I'm not sure that things would shift to a hundred thousand bikes... there aren't a hundred thousand people who drive daily into that corner of the downtown core that could otherwise bike in instead of walking or taking transit.

I mean, if you live where I live, you would just walk. If you live up at the condo ghetto near Yonge & Sheppard, you could subway in. If you are way out in the 'burbs you can take the GO Train. If you live around where Max does... then I would think biking becomes a more attractive option because it's a bit on the far side to walk (though it's still doable) and streetcars kind of suck.... but I can't see a hundred thousand bikers suddenly arising from that.

Just like having no where to park, you figure out another option... if you have no where to leave the bike, you figure out another option.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Bike theft is certainly a huge problem, though - hence the need for companies to step up and offer safe places for employees to park their wheels. I have a fairly old bike that you'd think no one would want, but bikes of all sorts get burned every day by folks who then sell them to chop shoppers. There have been times I have ruled out going somewhere by bike because I don't want to leave it for a long time out in the open downtown, no matter how many locks I've wrapped around the sucker to dissuade thieves... my bike has sentimental value as it's something I inherited when my older brother passed away prematurely a decade ago. I intend to ride the thing until it, or I, won't go anymore.

I used to bike all over the place, and bike to and from work, up until a little over a decade ago. Nowadays I find the prospect far more daunting than I used to - it's a real adrenalin rush, that much is certain. I've been doored and I've also had some spills, like most every cyclist - alas, these bones have lost some of their spring and I am less inclined to take risks while sharing the road with motorized vehicles that could flatten me in a heartbeat.


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## hhk (May 31, 2006)

EvanPitts said:


> We have the same syndromes of bad management in the administration of our public offices. They offer solutions, like a bike lane here and there, but they can't get a handle, nay, they can't even conceive that the problem is utterly basic - that people are simply forced to live far too far away from work, and thus, are entirely dependent on cars. Now there is some call for public transportation, but until they get on with some real public transit, like GO Train service into Hamilton (and not the cheesy three or four a day, but regular, dependable service) - the 403/QEW will remain a solid mass of polluting vehicles.


Basic you say? So how exactly shall we solve this problem? Subsidized housing? Maybe a socialist collective where we are assigned housing? People live in the suburbs by choice. Nobody forces them to live there. For the price of a 3000 sq. ft. home in Oakville, they can buy a tidy little home in High Park. But they choose to buy the home in the burbs. I don't fault them for it. It's their choice.

And again, I challenge you to name me one company, today, that prohibits the riding of bicycles to work. In Toronto. Because we are talking about 2009 in Toronto.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Personally, I think we've reached a decent equilibrium with most people who are committed to transit choosing it and most of those committed to private transportation choosing that--with some mixing here and there. The biggest commuting problems occur with people who choose to live in one place and work in another as hhk points out. So what? It's their choice tomake a long commute. Also, people are more likely to gripe about commutes now than they did years ago--I think it's all working pretty well.


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## hhk (May 31, 2006)

Macfury said:


> Personally, I think we've reached a decent equilibrium with most people who are committed to transit choosing it and most of those committed to private transportation choosing that--with some mixing here and there. The biggest commuting problems occur with people who choose to live in one place and work in another as hhk points out. So what? It's their choice tomake a long commute. Also, people are more likely to gripe about commutes now than they did years ago--I think it's all working pretty well.


And the issue at hand - the Jarvis St. bike lane has nothing to do with commuting. In fact, biking really isn't a solution to commuting since no one is going to bike in from Oakville. We are simply talking about inner city mobility. The people driving in from Guelph, Pickering and Vaughn do not get to vote on this one.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

hhk said:


> And the issue at hand - the Jarvis St. bike lane has nothing to do with commuting. In fact, biking really isn't a solution to commuting since no one is going to bike in from Oakville. We are simply talking about inner city mobility. The people driving in from Guelph, Pickering and Vaughn do not get to vote on this one.


Even within the city, traffic moves at a reasonable speed considering the number of drivers who choose to use city roads. Dedicated bike lanes on Jarvis will severely restrict existing traffic and move far fewer people than ever before. Choking automobile and bus traffic to serve bicycles is not a solution to moving more people from Point A to Point B. We need to enforce existing traffic laws for bikes and cars to co-exist. If you want to incorporate bike lanes into new road construction I'm all for it, but simply replacing car lanes is a poor premise.


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## hhk (May 31, 2006)

Macfury said:


> Even within the city, traffic moves at a reasonable speed considering the number of drivers who choose to use city roads. Dedicated bike lanes on Jarvis will severely restrict existing traffic and move far fewer people than ever before. Choking automobile and bus traffic to serve bicycles is not a solution to moving more people from Point A to Point B. We need to enforce existing traffic laws for bikes and cars to co-exist. If you want to incorporate bike lanes into new road construction I'm all for it, but simply replacing car lanes is a poor premise.


You and I will disagree on the Jarvis bike lane but we both agree that the bigger solution is enforcement and education that will help bikes get along with cars. I think the larger issue is education. Similar to the way drunk driving was only frowned upon and wasn't considered criminal until the PR campaigns of the 80s. I'd like to see some money spent on education of motorists and cyclists so that we can respect each other more.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

hhk said:


> Basic you say? So how exactly shall we solve this problem? Subsidized housing? Maybe a socialist collective where we are assigned housing? People live in the suburbs by choice. Nobody forces them to live there. For the price of a 3000 sq. ft. home in Oakville, they can buy a tidy little home in High Park. But they choose to buy the home in the burbs. I don't fault them for it. It's their choice.


It's easy, we simply stop issuing building permits in overbuilt areas; coupled with the removal of the liabilities of building on "brownfield" sites (because the polluters should be punished, not new tenants that are not polluting.) We have to start regenerating downtown areas, something that can easily be done if we stop allowing businesses to locate in overbuilt areas. There is no reason why business all needs to be conducted at Young and Bloor, with electronic communication, business can pretty much go down anywhere in the province.

We have a situation where downtown Toronto is jam packed; while downtowns in places like Hamilton are crumbling away (even worse in Brantford, which is deserted). This is a very real situation, where 50,000 people from Hamilton are forced to commute to Toronto or Mississauga, not because of fabulous, high paying jobs - but because all of the jobs are there, and nothing is here. This trend was made worse by the liabilities placed upon potential business - that it is far more costly to locate on existing industrial land in Hamilton because of the costs of remediating the land, than it is to plunk a business park on greenbelt land in Brampton.

As for costs, housing in Toronto is legendary in being expensive, and for the price of a Toronto slum, one can buy a pretty decent house here. The only reason for that is the laws of supply and demand - supply is low and demand is huge in Toronto. This forces people to locate in the suburbs. And I am not talking about living in Mimico - people commute to their jobs in Toronto from places like Barrie, Belleville, Kitchener, even Woodstock and Brantford and beyond. Most people that live in Hamilton do not even have the option of working in Hamilton, and the highways tell the tale, of traffic jams that stretch from Toronto, down the QEW as far as half way out to Brantford at times.

Socialised housing is not a solution, it only would promulgate the very problem, in that it would allow even more business to pack itself into the smallest area possible. The real solution is to decentralize, to make those changes that would encourage business to locate near where people actually live. The only way of addressing the myriad of problems is to decentralize, because we need to curb our consumption of energy, we need to spew out less pollution, we need to live sustainable lifestyles... We also have a problem with a society that is packing on the pounds. This isn't caused by "laziness", it's caused by having the bulk of the population being forced to commute great distances to and from work, and not only distance, but the time consumed. Decentralizing entirely solves these problems, workplaces are once again connected to the areas that people live, we reduce commuting and hence, pollution and energy waste.

Adding a bike lane on Jarvis - a tiny drop in the bucket because it solves nothing.



> And again, I challenge you to name me one company, today, that prohibits the riding of bicycles to work. In Toronto. Because we are talking about 2009 in Toronto.


Empire / Sobeys and Loblaws, as I previously have pointed out - both are in Toronto, both prohibit bicycles, both continue with their retrograde policies in the year 2009.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

There are also reasons for which I, as a driver, welcome bike lanes in the city core. Separating bike traffic from automotive traffic strikes me as sensible. How many times in downtown core driving do we as motorists find ourselves squeezing over into the left to get past a cyclist? With dedicated bike lanes that problem largely goes away... except,of course, when one cyclist is being overtaken by another. Nonetheless, I prefer the presence of bike lanes to having to creep over into the left lane (whether one a two or four-lane roadway). Too often such maneuvers can get a tad uncomfortable.

After all, on a road like Jarvis, cyclists will be on it whether motorists like it or not. And they're going to be riding in increasing numbers. Again, as we all seem to agree, it comes down to getting along with one another and refraining from getting too territorial.

I also question the contention that vehicular traffic moves more people quicker through the downtown core - not when most cars have a single occupant they don't. How many times have you seen a cyclist blow past a line of cars mired in gridlock?

Better still, as I mentioned yesterday, would be entirely separate biking thoroughfares, such as one sees in certain cities which have converted obsolete rail corridors. That would help cyclists arrive alive. But still we are going to have plenty of instances in which all these folks will be forced to share the road.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Max said:


> How many times in downtown core driving do we as motorists find ourselves squeezing over into the left to get past a cyclist?


Rarely. I've been almost entirely happy co-existing with bicyclists. The only problem I have with some of them is when they mount and dismount to become pedestrians and vehicles in short order. I never know whether they're obeying the WALK signal or the traffic light.



Max said:


> I also question the contention that vehicular traffic moves more people quicker through the downtown core - not when most cars have a single occupant they don't. How many times have you seen a cyclist blow past a line of cars mired in gridlock?


Certainly far more often if they cut a lane off Jarvis. But in terms of sheer numbers, I think even slow vehicular traffic wins.



Max said:


> Better still, as I mentioned yesterday, would be entirely separate biking thoroughfares, such as one sees in certain cities which have converted obsolete rail corridors. That would help cyclists arrive alive.


I'd support that.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Guess we travel different streets in the central COTU then, MF. I find myself granting latitude to cyclists all the time, just to get by. Both in the east and west end.

Slow vehicular traffic wins... maybe. Sluggo, stop and crawl traffic doesn't. Bikes win there.

Dedicated thoroughfares on rail corridors is a great idea... until you run out of corridors. Seems there's a certain tension even there, since some want underused rail corridors to be repurposed for new light rail systems.

Even if the bikes get rail corridors, they only traverse so much of the city - then they're back on the street, mixing it up with the cars. Not all drivers are as open to sharing the road with cyclists as you, unfortunately.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Max said:


> Not all drivers are as open to sharing the road with cyclists as you, unfortunately.


I'm a prince.


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## MacAndy (May 17, 2004)

Amazing to see the broad range of voices on this, but not surprising, because there are so many people using Toronto streets in so many different fashions. I'm a driver simply because transit from the east end of Toronto to the CNE area is well over 1 hour and I just cannot work that into my schedule and my family's schedules. If the TTC were ever to open a rapid transit express from the core to, say Victoria Park/Warden, and cut the ride to 30-40 mins, I'd be on it within a flash. But as I driver I respect those who do use their bike as their chosen mode of transportation [excepting those who flaunt the law with their crazy riding habits]. Share the road and we can all get along.

My initial reaction to this was a bit apprehension because while I do like to see the city act in a responsible manner [don't shove the Mayor Miller politics in my face, thanks, it's more than just him alone], I use Jarvis often because Yonge and Church aren't options for their own reasons and I'm usually going Front St. to Bloor only and need to do so quickly. But when I saw the diagram which still allows for two lanes north and south, I was less worried. The left turns at Shuter and Gerrard may have to go but other than that it's not the end of the world.

But what needs to happen here is more than just bike lanes, because this is going to impact the businesses that rely on people who need to hop in for things, and a bike lane on either side is going to remove this. So the city also needs to look at side-street parking and improve that immensely. There are more than a few of the cross streets that have truly stupid lane markings and poor parking placement, Gerrard is one of them last I checked [it's been a while]. There is no reason parking cannot go up to within 10m of a corner. In most cases it's been removed completely in favour of a middle left-turn lane on some of these cross-streets. Those can go, the cross-streets don't see anywhere near the volume that Jarvis does.

What Toronto really needs to do... I'm not sure if this has been mentioned at all, anywhere... so maybe you heard it here first...

...Toronto needs to ban all parking and stopping of any vehicles on all surface transit routes - 7am to 7pm - all days.

There, I said it. Check back in another few years when this is the new way for the city, I want my full credit. ;-)

But, I am also a realist... and the only way this can be accomplished without killing the city at the same time, is to accommodate off-street parking in a more responsible manner. By that I mean... if you remove all parking from a major route, you have to permit the equivalent parking on side streets to allow for customers to get to the stores on those routes.

One of my main routes to and from work is Kingston Road in the east end. On a good day it's under a 10-minute ride from Warden to Queen St. But once cars are parked and a few streetcars thrown in, it can take twice that time, even on a Sunday.

May not be a popular suggestion for all, but think of the incredible change this would have to our transit. I bet a 30-40 minute streetcar ride would drop to under 30 minutes easily. A 25% reduction in time spent travelling would be a major boost for transit.

Would like to know what others think of banning parking on all surface transit routes from 7am-7pm.

Talk amongst yourselves...


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

Here is a really good documentary on the American infrastructure crisis. It is extremely interesting and relevant to this discussion:

Road to the Future ~ Video: Full Documentary | Blueprint America


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

MacAndy said:


> Would like to know what others think of banning parking on all surface transit routes from 7am-7pm.
> 
> Talk amongst yourselves...


I don't see this working out too well, myself... lots of folks in the centre core, myself included, rely on street parking. No parking pad here, nor a driveway, much less a garage. And since my line of work involves some wacky hours and unpredictable stretches of downtime, parking spots that are reserved for local home-owners are indeed prized. Taking such valuable real estate away from homeowners strikes me as controversial - at least as much so as those who object to the greening of Jarvis for the sake of keeping a good north/south route for intrepid commuters! LOL. Rampant NIMBYism rears its head once again.

But would it help traffic flow? Absolutely. I have no idea, however, folks who live along those transit routes would do with their wheels, should parking spots in front of their own homes suddenly and brutally disappear.

But I know what you mean about Kingston Rd. Tends to choke up on a regular basis, doesn't it! A useful diagonal route through Scarborough, linking up the north-east end to downtown, but hellishly packed far too often. I'm sure it used to be a much more peaceful affair, some decades back. Now it's crazy, whether it's on a regular work day or a summer Sunday evening, when weekend cottagers are returning from Ompah and Westport and other places out yonder.


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## MacAndy (May 17, 2004)

Howdy... I do think the removal of parking on transit routes 7am-7pm will become reality for the major routes in Toronto within about 10 years. It is vital for mass transit to work efficiently and right now it is suffering from the same congestion issues along with all other vehicles. Removing the parking [not the use of vehicles in the downtown core] is a forward-thinking idea whose time has come.

Granted, there are stretches of certain major transit routes on which residents do have a stake in on street parking. But I did also state that the removal of on-street parking from transit routes has to be done with these people, and stores, in mind. Another touchy subject is also the delivery of goods to these stores. We have shopping 24/7 and on Sundays now, why can't deliveries be made after 7pm also? Just throwing it out there...

Now if only they would build a raised highway from Coxwell across the top of the Woodbine beaches extending out to as far east as the link up with the Kingston Road at the foot of Warden on the bluffs...

ok, that last part was a joke ;-)


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

You can joke, but that was sort of the plan, years ago... way I heard it, the Gardiner Stump, now gone, was originally intended to be the first leg of a 400 series highway to cut up through Scarborough and link up with the 401. Never happened. Now the stump's done, too.

But speaking of elevated roadways... was listening to the CBC on the drive up to work this morning and they were talking about solutions for urban cycling. They cited elevated bike lanes being a success in, Copenhagen, I think it was. Interesting time we live in.

I think you're right that, in time, we will see more right of way granted to big people movers and less emphasis on the personal four-wheel motorized vehicle as we know it. I'm talking major urban centres, mind you - not the 'burbs or anywhere else. Only in places where sheer density dictates that chaos be held reasonably at bay.

Phase in new rules slowly enough and people learn to make do.


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

MacAndy said:


> Would like to know what others think of banning parking on all surface transit routes from 7am-7pm.
> 
> Talk amongst yourselves...


a great idea if you want to drive small businesses out of Toronto, my brother's business relies allot on foot traffic but he has allot of customers that drive to him and need a place to park, what are these customers suppose to do park on a side street? in the beginning they might be ok with it but what about in the winter when they have to slosh trough a foot of snow? I don't think so he will either close his business or move to better pastures.

Laterz


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## Mississauga (Oct 27, 2001)

The city of Toronto has barely enough commuter bicyclists to support a dedicated bicycle path through High Park! To "squeeze" auto traffic on a busy downtown street is absurd. Is Toronto the new Amsterdam? I think not! It only wishes...

The road rage which continually grows between drivers and cyclists has to stop before ANY further action on behalf of cyclists is taken. Until such time as mutual respect is garnered between these two "sparring" groups, cyclists might as well wear vests with targets upon them. Ready... Aim...


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

^^^ That reminds me...





+
YouTube Video









ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.






These Disney writers "got in" back in 1950, still pretty much the same today. Some things just never change and never will change.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

'lo, Alec, long time no see!

I think there's a lot more so-called "commuter" cyclists in the downtown than you might credit. Certainly there are a lot more per capita than out in Mississauga. My view is more along the lines of "build it and they will come,' meaning lots of would-be cyclists are unnerved at the prospect of sharing road with aggressive drivers and would be delighted to have some measure of space alloted them. For the same reason that Jarvis is a great north-south street for motorists, cyclists themselves would be happy to see that historic street open itself up more to bike transport.

Come the winter, some bike lanes can be repurposed to motor vehicle traffic. Flexibility needs to be paramount in the design of this stuff.

Though there are some dedicated bike paths in the GTA, they tend to meander a fair bit around pre-existing obstacles. Cyclists would benefit from some better planning as the city waterfront changes up with the times. More linking of of various, disparate bikeways would be welcome, too.

Like I've said, neither drivers nor cyclists are going to go away any time soon. Best that everyone try harder to get along. The fact that cyclists are tragically killed and maimed each year from accidents with motor vehicles seems hardly to have killed the idea of the bicycle as a viable commuter vehicle - at least in ground-zero COTU - the suburbs and edge cities are going to be a great deal more hostile to sharing the road for some time yet.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Max said:


> The fact that cyclists are tragically killed and maimed each year from accidents with motor vehicles seems hardly to have killed the idea of the bicycle as a viable commuter vehicle - at least in ground-zero COTU - the suburbs and edge cities are going to be a great deal more hostile to sharing the road for some time yet.


A bike once scratched my car.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Stop the presses.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Max said:


> Stop the presses.


Press conference at 6:00. No food, refreshments, or media gift bags offered.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Coming from you - I should be surprised?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I don't want to prejudice the coverage.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Max said:


> Come the winter, some bike lanes can be repurposed to motor vehicle traffic. Flexibility needs to be paramount in the design of this stuff.


In the winter the bike lanes will be covered with mounds of plowed snow and considering the city no longer has money to remove snow...they'll remain unusable till the spring melt.

The city is spending way too much time and money on a seasonal endeavor which is used my a small minority of "motorists". I called them motorists, because they share the road with vehicular traffic and must follow the rules of the road. Hardly any of them do, which creates and can lead to seriously dangerous road-rage...and even sidewalk-rage. LOL


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Macfury said:


> I don't want to prejudice the coverage.


Oh, of course you don't.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

kps said:


> The city is spending way too much time and money on a seasonal endeavor which is used my a small minority of "motorists". I called them motorists, because they share the road with vehicular traffic and must follow the rules of the road. Hardly any of them do, which creates and can lead to seriously dangerous road-rage...and even sidewalk-rage. LOL


Who knows how much snow will get.... as for a small minority, again, I'll have to disagree. Make it safer for the cyclists to share the road with motorized vehicles and more of them will show up on our roads.

However, no argument whatsoever about how bad some cyclists are. We could devote a few hundred million words about bad drivers and cyclists alike in this jungle of ours. Far as I'm concerned, cyclists who demand respect have to earn it with respect for the law and stop being reckless hotdogs. Of course, it's not as if there isn't terrible drivers out there setting examples for them.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

I work downtown, and 7 out of 18 people in my department ride bicycles, another 6 take the TTC and 5 drive. 

I ride my bike quite regularly to work and lock it up in the bike parking in the underground at my office. At about 8-8:30 AM I see quite a few bikers. At least a few hundred on my pass to work. 

KPS, I think what you are saying has some traction concerning road rage and dangerous situations. That I feel, has kept many people in their cars and not on bikes. Creating these bike plans attempts to rectify this problem, to get more people on bikes.


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

Max said:


> However, no argument whatsoever about how bad some cyclists are. We could devote a few hundred million words about bad drivers and cyclists alike in this jungle of ours. Far as I'm concerned, cyclists who demand respect have to earn it with respect for the law and stop being reckless hotdogs. Of course, it's not as if there isn't terrible drivers out there setting examples for them.


Max you hit the nail on the head.

I do see allot of bad riding from cyclists but I do see allot of bad drivers out and I expect the same level of respect for the laws of the road from both groups, stop signs mean stop, I almost hit several cyclists a week because they don't stop for stop signs last week it was close as one almost ended up on my hood, although during the same week I also almost hit several cars that didn't stop for stops signs either so motorists aren't obeying the law either.

Laterz


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Yeah, I'm sure we've all seen cyclists for whom the law apparently doesn't apply. Kind of funny to get all uppity about cyclist's rights when so many cyclists seem to have a remarkably difficult time colouring in the lines.

But let's not talk about cars and how many you see in a row going left on a red... everyone's in a hurry these days.

[pulls out chewed-up pipe, adjusts fat old butt in rocking chair]


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

Are there a lot of cyclists in Toronto to justify this with no alternate parallel streets to green?

In Vancouver, we have the Off-Broadway Bike Route which is one block off Broadway. It's a quiet street with priority given to cyclists meaning they absolutely do not have to stop unless crossing major roads, and Broadway still has its 6 lanes which the more experienced cyclists may use anyway (though as I said, Off Broadway ends up being the faster route to take). We have a lot more similar bike routes that are midway and parallel to all major roads. Sticking cyclists on an already busy arterial through an urban area with no space to widen is bad. Find some good quiet streets and optimize them for cyclists, they will come.


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## ssk (Oct 24, 2007)

dona83 said:


> Are there a lot of cyclists in Toronto to justify this with no alternate parallel streets to green?


I don't understand why this is being pitted as a cyclists vs. motorists argument. The bike lane was not the main or initial intention of this plan. The main intent was to make the stretch more urban for the benefit of the people living there.

Jarvis was an artery with very few destinations on it. Due to the recent phenomenon of people moving back to city centres, a lot of nice places are going up on Jarvis and an urban-renewal is taking place. This means that there are people living there now, and like most people everywhere, these people care about their surroundings. So, now we have people that care about this stretch and they feel that it would be better if the middle alternating lane was removed and replaced with more city-friendly features. The bike-people also got on board. This was mainly done to improve the surroundings of the people living there. The bike-lanes are simply a bonus (they're considered automatically whenever road upgrades are done).


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## ssk (Oct 24, 2007)

K_OS said:


> a great idea if you want to drive small businesses out of Toronto, my brother's business relies allot on foot traffic but he has allot of customers that drive to him and need a place to park, what are these customers suppose to do park on a side street? in the beginning they might be ok with it but what about in the winter when they have to slosh trough a foot of snow? I don't think so he will either close his business or move to better pastures.
> 
> Laterz


That is a good point. In addition to that, street parking makes the street more vibrant because it creates a buffer between pedestrians and fast-moving car traffic.


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## hhk (May 31, 2006)

Mississauga said:


> The city of Toronto has barely enough commuter bicyclists to support a dedicated bicycle path through High Park! To "squeeze" auto traffic on a busy downtown street is absurd. Is Toronto the new Amsterdam? I think not! It only wishes...


I think you are wrong about that. I bike to work along Bloor St. and it is packed with bike commuters during the morning rush hour. Same with the Martin Goodman Trail. Besides, it's a chicken and egg thing. If there were better bike routes, there'd be more bike commuters.


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## vicente (Nov 15, 2008)

Being a cyclist, I appreciate bike lanes and the city definitely has enough cyclists to make bike lanes worthwhile.

However I'm worried about the trend toward reducing lanes on North-South streets. First Spadina Ave. was reduced in order to put in the streetcar right-of-way. Then St. George St. was reduced to make it easier to cross U of T. Now they want to reduce Jarvis St., making the only fast way to go N-S in the city core be University Ave. Though I suppose the DVP works too but south of Bloor there are limited exits.


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## macintosh doctor (Mar 23, 2009)

vicente said:


> Being a cyclist, I appreciate bike lanes and the city definitely has enough cyclists to make bike lanes worthwhile.
> 
> However I'm worried about the trend toward reducing lanes on North-South streets. First Spadina Ave. was reduced in order to put in the streetcar right-of-way. Then St. George St. was reduced to make it easier to cross U of T. Now they want to reduce Jarvis St., making the only fast way to go N-S in the city core be University Ave. Though I suppose the DVP works too but south of Bloor there are limited exits.


your right... with all the one ways and no left turns, no right on red... Toronto is going to be more smoggier than LA soon not to mention - add 40 mins more to your travel time.

oh ya - now the lunatic wants to knock down more of the Gardiner express way..
:-( just unbelievable - how does he think any traffic will flow? then the commute times will go from 1.2 hours to 2.2 hours no questions asked.

DVP is not an answer to anything.. it is really to connect to the 401, also it is to far east for quick access.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

The thing about the Gardiner that few people seem to realize is what a gigantic sucking wound it is. It eats money day and night. Being elevated and therefore more exposed to winter's cruel blasts than a ground route, is forever in need of ridiculous amounts of cashola just to keep it from falling down onto Lakeshore. City crews can barely keep up with the salt corrosion as it is and this route is locked in an endless cycle of patch + pave. Perhaps it ought to have been buried way back in the day, although tunnels can have problems of their own. In any case, here it is, demanding to be fed lest it finally collapse.

To my way of thinking, it is lunacy to keep the propping the thing up. Too many tax dollars are being shoveled into that hole in the sky.

As for the DVP allegedly not being an answer to anything (?) - yeah, that's must be why it's one of the most heavily used roadways in North America. Perhaps you're simply asking the wrong question.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Boston's Big Dig was aso a financial disaster. Perhaps it might be better to settle the Gardiner down to earth wherever feasible--maybe a little tunneling here and there.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

My thoughts exactly. Forget throwing it underground entirely - a fiscal disaster in the waiting, what with all the cost overruns we all know would pile up. It should have been done in the very beginning if it was going to be done at all.

Be nice to have a stretch of it underground so as to open up access to the lake once more. Damn shame we got cut off from the lake in the first place. That ugly curtain of grey concrete and anonymous glass that we call Harbourfront only served to solidify the alienation. But I digress.

Keeping the Gardiner up indefinitely? Ixnay, ta very much. Too much of a drain on already precious city funds.


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

vicente said:


> Being a cyclist, I appreciate bike lanes and the city definitely has enough cyclists to make bike lanes worthwhile.


You might appreciate the lanes but there was a group of about 15 cyclists going westbound on Eglinton W just passed Scarlett Rd that didn't care about the queue of cars that was lining up behind them to pass them, last year the city spent allot of money building a paved cycling trail just south of Eglinton and now it goes unused.

Laterz


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

dona83 said:


> Are there a lot of cyclists in Toronto to justify this with no alternate parallel streets to green?
> 
> In Vancouver, we have the Off-Broadway Bike Route which is one block off Broadway. It's a quiet street with priority given to cyclists meaning they absolutely do not have to stop unless crossing major roads, and Broadway still has its 6 lanes which the more experienced cyclists may use anyway (though as I said, Off Broadway ends up being the faster route to take). We have a lot more similar bike routes that are midway and parallel to all major roads. Sticking cyclists on an already busy arterial through an urban area with no space to widen is bad. Find some good quiet streets and optimize them for cyclists, they will come.


It's been a long time since I've cycled in Toronto, so I can't remember what the non-arterial road bike routes system consisted of. But Greater Vancouver has taken the right approach in my opinion. They have created a huge network of "bicycle routes" that cover virtually every area of the cities, with more to come.

These routes travel close to the major arterial roads and and are repurposed side streets. Barriers are put along the routes to discourage motor vehicles wanting to use the routes to travel on, but allow local access for those who live or work on those streets. Where the routes cross major arterials, there are special bike signals mounted on posts facing into the road that are the same as pedestrian controlled walk signals.

Cyclists using these routes can avoid a lot of interaction with cars and trucks and feel much safer than cycling along the major arterials. During the height of the cycling season these routes are loaded with bikes. It's funny seeing a car that might happen to be on the route caught in the middle of all the bike traffic and being the one who is now the minority road user.

The Greater Vancouver cities are still adding to the cycling infrastructure and it's paying off. This month the Central Valley Greenway is set to open. It's a combination of bike routes, bike and pedestrian paths and park paths that goes from downtown all the way out to Coquitlam and New Westminster. My brother has been travelling part of that route to commute to work on a bike for several years and as sections of it get done his commute gets easier, safer and more pleasant.










I think bike paths on major roads are not the answer, they offer a false sense of security to the cyclist, since a car can easily cross a painted line on the road.

I also think that many cyclists out there don't do the cycling community any favours with their behaviour. I've often found myself giving the proper right of way at a four way stop to a car, when one of my "fellow" cyclist blasts right through the intersection. I would support licenses and insurance requirements for cyclists.


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> I also think that many cyclists out there don't do the cycling community any favours with their behaviour. I've often found myself giving the proper right of way at a four way stop to a car, when one of my "fellow" cyclist blasts right through the intersection. I would support licenses and insurance requirements for cyclists.


I'm glad somebody mentioned it as I would also support such an idea in my province.

Laterz


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

^^^
Licensing won't help - automobile drivers are licensed and the roads are quite dangerous, especially when one gets near a Hortons drive-thru in the morning...


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