There’s been some controversy within some circles and troglodytes about putting bike lanes on our arterials, often the direct routes in our core. But direct routes, and in a good linked network (not a patchwork), are the clear way to provide real civic respect for cyclists, as we don’t need to be shunted up, then down, though yes, the side roads are often a nicer trip for some of us, some times.
Of all the direct, E/W, main roads, Bloor St. is the best for bikes in the core, and we’ve found that old 1992 study from Marshall Macklin Monaghan that did back us up, complete with Dan Egan’s name on the front cover, (though Dan’s at the mercy of the Council TOroglodyte majority – presuming that most of our Councillors tend to be drivers, though some of the suburban Councillors e.g. Glenn de Baeremaeker are the best cyclists on Council.)
Bloor St. also has the benefit of having the subway, and increasingly in this mayoral campaign, and the larger Class C EA study, we must think of how bike lanes can help our subway. The simple way is that if we had safer biking, and in a direct route along high travel demand (the subway), many people would likely forsake the subway for their bike, especially in the older urban core where the TTC is less of a deal.
And because of the subway, Bloor is the most equitable place for a bike lane, as merchants have a potentially greater number of patrons somewhat near them, and there’s a pattern of providing a lot of car parking atop the subway construction too.
Our Bike Plan is behind, and in Arrears. So we don’t need Plan A as much as Plan B, for Bloor. Plan Bloor is pretty obviously a good idea from this two-decades-old mapping of cyclist origins and destinations, and this mapping also supports some of the north-south routes too, like University Ave. bike lanes, also atop a subway.
Why do we not have any core part of Bloor with new bike lanes now? more than four years after first okaying a study of Bloor from High Park to Sherbourne?