Have your say: physically separated bike lanes in Toronto

Copenhagen - Bogotá - Montreal

In the May issue of Cyclometer - the City of Toronto's newsletter about cycling - there is a call out for help on designing physically separated bike lanes in Toronto.  With the successful launch of BIXI bikes in Toronto and the recent publicity about a downtown network of separate lanes, it seems that the City is seriously considering creating some decent biking infrastructure. The call out reads as follows:

Share Your Cycle Track Design Insights
The City of Toronto is starting to consider options for physically separated bike lanes (Also known as "Cycle Tracks") in the downtown area.

You can help inform our research by contributing to the SteetsWiki Cycle Tracks web pages. You'll need to create a wikispaces account and join "SteetsWiki", which is usually approved within an hour or two, and then you can start to edit web pages. With your help we can find all the potential solutions for designing ideal Cycle Tracks.

This may be a great opportunity to ensure that the designers and planners at City hall have all the information they need to do a good job. So.... have your say!

Think Bike Workshop

Earlier this evening I had the opportunity to attend the Think Bike Workshop at El Mocambo.  The City of Toronto and the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands played host to Dutch bicycle planners yesterday and today.

Yesterday and earlier today these Dutch bicycle planners worked closely with city planners and community cyclists to tackle two main projects.  The Blue team (blue being the official corporate colour of Toronto) was tasked with developing a cycling network in the downtown core.  The Orange team (orange apparently is the colour of the Netherlands) took on the project of redesigning the Sherbourne street corridor.  To find out more about this you can visit the Think Bike page on the City of Toronto website.

The purpose of this event was to showcase the results of these two workshop projects.  Representatives from each team took the stage to report back their conclusions, designs, observations, and recommendations.  Before the official speaking began, audience members had an opportunity to view the workshop results which were tapped up on the walls.  These included pictures of proposed changes; charts and bullet lists of strengths, potential problems, strategies, etc.

Each group went up in turn and, for the most part, we were given presentations by the Dutch bicycle planners.  The blue team envisioned a downtown bike network that filled in the present gaps in bike lanes, created several north-south and east-west cycling corridors, and, best of all, displayed four different ways to re-imagine/create complete streets in Toronto.  Most of these involved some set up of separated bike lanes, green space, sidewalks, and car lanes/car parking.  In particular, the planners spoke of the need to create "safe cycle routes" which would be these types of separated bike lanes.  These lanes are particularly important for getting new cyclists on the road who may otherwise feel unsafe riding in current conditions.

Welcome desk

The blue team completely redesigned Sherbourne street with separated and painted bike lanes, bike boxes at each intersection, accommodations for pedestrians getting on and off busses, etc.  It was an excellent attempt at providing a detailed plan for a complete street design.

Questions from the audience touched on the issues of giving cyclists a unique legal status (i.e. different from both pedestrians and cars), cycling in Toronto's winter climate, politicians in the upcoming municipal elections who may bring with them strong political vision for cycling in Toronto, etc.

Stage before start of presentations.

The evening and workshop was a success in terms of taking in the expertise and recommendations of the Dutch bike planners.  They made many great points for us to incorporate in our next bike plan including: integrating transportation planning with city planning, re-conceiving of possible street designs, connecting up public transportation with cycling, marketing cycling to the public, integrating cycling education into primary schools, etc.

At the end of the evening, one of two hosts, who is the head of cycling infrastructure (or something like that) at City Hall put it well: it's not for a lack of ideas, the question is one of money and political will.

(Sorry for the lack of photographs; I'm still getting used to whole reporting/blogging thing.)

Cycle Toronto Summer Road Trip: Chicago and New York City!

At the end of June I went on two trips with my partner: first, to Chicago, where we saw a great Phish show, stayed with an old friend, and ate at the delicious Frontera Grill; then, to Brooklyn, where we baked in the heat, wandered the city, had some succulent pork, and had a generally fantastic time with some good friends.  On both trips I did a little "field research" and observed the cycling culture and infrastructure.  Below are some photos I took.

Chicago

On our way up to the L I saw this nifty bike parking area. Two levels, a great way to connect cycling and public transit.  The (out of focus) picture below is the same parking area from another view.

Unfortunately, that's all I have for Chicago.

New York City

These seemed to be pretty standard bike lanes in NYC: painted white lines separating them from car traffic and green paint to indicate it as a bike lane. Definitely nice to see the green paint, much like Copenhagen's distinctive blue paint.

One morning we decided to walk across the Brooklyn bridge into Manhattan. On the way up to the bridge we found this pathway with separated space for pedestrians and cyclists.

Here is another example of the green painted bike lanes, but this one has a much larger buffer painted between the bike lane and car lane.  The major design flaw, as you can see, is that it doesn't do much to prevent cars from driving across the buffer and even into the lane itself.

This road forks into two directions and you can see the green lane on the left and a sharrow marking on the right to direct where cyclists should ride.  Unfortunately, the bike lane has been placed between the parked cars and the rest of traffic.

Finally! Here is a picture of a separated and dedicated bike lane.  It is totally removed and protected from the rest of the street. Perhaps it's not the most attractive separated lane I've seen, but it gets the job done.

This picture shows how road designers have placed the separated bike lane and cars making a left hand turn. Presumably cyclists have the right of way on a green light.

In this photo you can see not only the physically separated bike lane, but also the bike specific traffic light.  I'm a big fan of bike specific traffic lights where there are bike lanes like these because it helps cars and pedestrians realize that cyclists are on the road and have particular right of way rules.

A beautiful photo taken by my partner from the roof top of our hosts' apartment in Brooklyn.

Round Up

That's it for Cycle Toronto's summer road trip.  It's always interesting to see how other cities are accommodating cyclists and improving their cycling infrastructure.  Toronto was close to getting a New York style separated bike lane on University Avenue this summer, but we all know how that ended.  If you're going be taking any road trips of your own, snap some photos of cycling and cycling infrastructure and send them in so that I can post them on the blog.

News Flash: Toronto to get Dedicated Bike Lanes!

What a great surprise when I went to check the daily news and saw this headline: Dedicated bike lanes coming to downtown this summer.

According to the Toronto Star news update, the City will be embarking upon a pilot project this summer to put dedicated - i.e. physically separated - bike lanes in on University Avenue running from Richmond to Wellesley. According to the article:

Cyclists would ride in the lane adjacent to the centre median under a pilot project that would begin in July and end in September.

This is good news for me in particular because I'll be working at University and Queen and will definitely be using this new lane. Hopefully this project will be a success and spur on the movement toward better and safer cycling infrastructure in Toronto. Hopefully, as well, motorists find that they too enjoy not having to wrestle with cyclists for space on the road.

For a nice mock up photo of the changes to University Avenue under this pilot project, take a look at the post on I Bike T.O.

Roads should be used for the movement of people not cars

I love this picture! It so clearly illustrates how a road can be used most efficiently to move people when the concern is moving people rather than cars. This brings me to the issue of this post, namely: What is the purpose of a road? And, how does the design of our roads shape its use? Further down in this post I'll ask the question of whether or not Toronto, in particular, is living up to its stated policy about the use of roads.

Bike lanes or On-Street Parking?

I posted before on the issue of on-street parking and a study that was conducted by the Clean Air Partnership and the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation. The study, called Bike Lanes, On-Street Parking and Business: A Study of Bloor Street in Toronto's Annex Neighbourhood, was released in February 2009 and looked at the issue of "competing priorities for space" on the road. It was a great study because the results helped debunk the myth that business owners necessarily object to removing on-street parking for alternate use by either bike lanes or widened sidewalks. Even more, the study showed that a majority of business owners actually think better infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians would improve their business! This is an on-going issue for city planners, engineers, and local business owners (not to mention motorists, cyclists and pedestrians) and so I thought it worthwhile to take a look this issue a little closer.

First, the dichotomy between bike lanes and on-street parking is often a false one. We don't always have to choose between either one or the other. Where space between buildings permits, we can design our streets to accommodate both on-street parking and physically separated bike lanes by simply reversing the on-street parking and the bike lane as in the illustrations below.

(credit: streetfilms.org)

(from Copenhagen)

Currently, Bloor street in the Annex neighbourhood is a four lane car road with the two curb side lanes providing on-street parking. It might be possible to design the street with both a physically separated bike lane between the sidewalk and parked cars, but there doesn't seem to be enough room for both in this case. Below is a picture from the Bloor/Annex study:


So, the issue becomes whether it makes more sense to put in a bike lane (although the City of Toronto is still struggling with the idea of physically separated lanes) or keep the on-street parking. Let's take a look at some of the key findings of the Bloor/Annex study:

• Only 10% of patrons drive to the Bloor Annex neighbourhood;
• Even during peak periods no more than about 80% of paid parking spaces are paid for;
• Patrons arriving by foot and bicycle visit the most often and spend the most money per month;
• There are more merchants who believe that a bike lane or widened sidewalk would increase business than merchants who think those changes would reduce business;
• Patrons would prefer a bike lane to widened sidewalks at a ratio of almost four to one; and
• The reduction in on-street parking supply from a bike lane or widened sidewalk could be accommodated in the area's off-street municipal parking lots.
  

One of the main conclusions of this study, informing some of the main recommendations, is that relocating car parking to off-street locations would not negatively impact the commercial activity of the area (and that inviting more cyclists and pedestrians would actually positively impact business). Take a look at the full report to read about the methodology, findings, and recommendations.

Just released in March 2010 was a second, similar report called Bike Lanes, On-Street Parking and Business: Year 2 Report: A Study of Bloor Street in Toronto's Bloor West Village. Not surprisingly (to me at least) this report echoed the findings of the previous one. This report surveyed 96 merchants and 510 visitors to the Bloor West Village and found that:

• 4 out of 5 people surveyed do not usually drive to the area;
• Merchants overestimated the percentage of people who drive to Bloor West Village and yet more than half of merchants surveyed believed that reducing on-street parking by 50% and adding a bike lane or widening sidewalks would either increase or have no impact on their daily number of customers;
• People who arrive by transit, foot, and bicycle visit more often and report spending more money than those who drive;
  
• People who preferred to see street use reallocated for widened sidewalks or a bike lane were significantly more likely to spend more than $100 per month than those who preferred no change;
• The majority of people surveyed (58%) preferred to see street use reallocated for widened sidewalks or a bike lane, even if on-street parking were reduced by 50%.
  

View the full report.

Convinced?

Given the results of these studies, it might be time to start rethinking how we use our available road space. It is also time that we (those who make the decisions) stop relying on false arguments about cyclists and pedestrians being bad for business.

As I'll get to in future posts, the purpose of roads is to move vehicles and people, not to park cars. And although the car might be the choice of transportation for many people it turns out that far more people can be moved by designing streets to accommodate pedestrians, cyclists, and public transportation.

For some reporting and commentary on these two studies check out the following:

"Study finds that removing parking to install bike lanes or widen sidewalk would benefit business on Bloor" (Spacing.ca)

"Strong support to replace Bloor Street parking with bike lanes" (Rabble.ca)

"Bikes on blur: Recent study clears it all up: cyclists and pedestrians are good for business" (NOW Magazine)

In Style, Safety and Dignity

I just finished watching another great presentation, this time by Jan Gehl himself. Entitled People Cities = Sustainable Cities, Sustainable Cities = People Cities, Gehl's presentation was part of a public lecture series called International Dialogues: Architecture and Climate Change, which is put on in part by the Royal Institute of British Architects.

This presentation draws a connection between livable cities and sustainable cities, and argues that good urban planning and design can achieve the goals of a lively, attractive, safe, sustainable, and healthy city. Gehl takes the audience through infrastructure planning and design elements that encourage and invite pedestrians and cyclists and addresses the many benefits that this brings for cities and people.

The presentation is in four parts of roughly 15 minutes each. Many other excellent RIBA programs in this series can be found on gleeds.tv.

Without further ado... Part I

In the interest of saving my limited upload allotment, the other three parts can be found linked below.

Part II

Part III

Part IV

College Street Cycling Survey

The Toronto Cycling Committee put out a call today for participants in their upcoming College Street Cycling Survey. The City of Toronto is working with the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation (TCAT) and the Clean Air Partnership (CAP) to conduct this survey.

The purpose is to "evaluate cycling conditions on College Street before and after the installation of a new bicycle pavement marking application".

I'm not really sure what this "pavement marking application" is, but if it provides a safer bike lane on College Street then it's a welcome change. Last summer I would commute each day along College Street and although there is a painted line bike lane, with all of the traffic and cars and trucks, and the bike lane ending abruptly at certain spots, it was not the most enjoyable or safe experience.

Participants will be asked to complete an online survey about their experiences cycling on College Street between Lansdowne Avenue and Manning Avenue, during either morning or afternoon rush hour, Monday to Friday. The applicable dates are April 19 - May 3 and June 14 - June 18. Participants must be 18 years or older. Below is a map of the area.

If you want to sign up, send an email to bikeplan[at]toronto.ca with "College Street Survey" in the subject line and the following information: your name, preferred email address for correspondence, and what section of College Street you cycle on. For more information, click here.

The Toronto Cycling Committee is a branch of Transportation Services and is the Committee at City Hall responsible for advising City Council and various departments, etc. on the "design, development and delivery of bicycle policies, programs and facilities to promote and enhance cycling within the City of Toronto".

To get monthly information about the Cycling Committee you can sign up for their newsletter called Cyclometer, which is how I found out about this survey.

The City has worked with the TCAC and CAP before to produce reports on such things as bike lanes, on-street parking, and the effects on business in the Bloor/Annex neighbourhood. You can download a copy of this report here, and I'll be posting on some of those issues in further entries.

Creating Culture and Inviting the Use of Public Space

A few days ago I watched a video of an excellent presentation given by Kristian S. Villadsen from Gehl Architects called Designing Streets as Public Spaces in Northern Climate Cities. The presentation was part of a conference held at McGill University and put on by the Montréal Urban Ecology Centre.

Gehl Architects is an urban planning and design consultancy firm located in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was founded by Jan Gehl who wrote the classic Life Between Buildings, and whose work has inspired and influenced the redevelopment of Copenhagen towards a more pedestrian and cycling friendly city.

The video I found originally posted on copenhagenize.com, which I have come to learn is a term coined by Jan to describe the Copenhagenization of other cities.

What I found most interesting and inspiring about this presentation is the idea that a thriving pedestrian and cycling culture can be created by good urban design. While we might think that cities like Copenhagen have always been the cycling wonders that they are today, this video shows how it was a conscious effort to reclaim the streets and public spaces from cars and redesign them to promote their use by people. What this all means for Toronto is that a great cycling infrastructure is possible.

The video is about an hour long and well worth the watch.

Enjoy!