Daniel4

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/woodbine-avenue-bike-lanes-1.4790328

Yes, there's your usual skeptics about the data questioning the worse of the traffic is slower by just over 2 minutes.

But there's one notable quote that means bike lanes are doing their job.

"The traffic's really slow up and down Woodbine. So if you're coming from the water, it can almost quadruple the time to get up to say the Danforth," she said. "It makes me want to ride my bike more, and not drive during busy times."

asmac

I drive there and I bike there. This is a badly conceived and badly executed bit of infrastructure. And not very well used either. Almost as if it's designed to annoy the greatest number of people.
Anyhow, it's a local issue probably not of much interest to the rest of the world.

mcours2006

This part makes me chuckle:

Some residents skeptical of numbers

Some local residents, however, said the numbers don't add up because they believe bike traffic on the lanes seems light.

"I don't know which Woodbine [they're] on because like I live here and days go by when I don't see any [cyclists] and some days I'll see two. I've never seen anything that remotely would look like 220," Roberta Campbell said.

Unless Ms Campbell is sitting on the side of the road counting cyclists for 12 hours straight how is she to know?

Also ridiculous to get the reaction of one or two people to the issue. What's the point? Yes, there are differing opinions on this issue, as there are on all issues, but unless some kind of poll is taken these quips are completely useless.

I've never used the Woodbine bike lanes, but I think they are a good idea, even if it is somewhat ill-conceived. Having more bike lanes in the city is a good thing, and if enough is installed it becomes the new norm, and that's good for all cyclists.

Daniel4

Not sure how you would improve it if you consider it to be badly conceived and executed.

The bike lanes takes away a car lane, of course. Where else can you install a bike lane, on the side walk? I had also driven there many times and there's only one intersection I see as congested but I don't see it as much different from before the bike lanes were installed. The other congested intersection is full of pedestrians- nothing to do with bikes.

If you haven't already noticed, in that part of the city (East York) there aren't a lot of major streets that run all the way down to the water uninterrupted. The next would be Coxwell. And west of that those streets are cut up. From North York, there is no direct park trail route that takes you into Greek Town. In the winter, I prefer to stay on the park trails and make my way to the protected Woodbine bike lanes instead of riding down Don Mills Road and Overlea. And no, the bike lanes are not full of snow and slush.

When considering infrastructure changes, I would expect my city professionals to study best practices from around the world as well as failures to avoid. So I would also expect local Toronto news to be available as examples of what works or doesn't as well. Who really needs to re-invent the wheel so many times?

Daniel4

I've ridden there many times. You ride over those rubber tubular traffic counters. And no, I didn't ride around in circles all day driving up the count as Georgio Mammoliti would suggest.

There was a city-wide poll conducted.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2018/08/09/drivers-show-dramatic-support-for-separated-bike-lanes.html

"A July EKOS poll surveying 801 city residents tells the story." The sampling was not the 2000 as in other polls but 80% were in favour of protected bike lanes. Not sure how many were polled from the Woodbine area.

mcours2006

Precisely the point. Majority of people are in favour of bike lanes, but reading the article in OP you'd think that it was more or less evenly split. Yeah, not specific to the Woodbine lanes, but my point is still valid.

mcours2006

Mammoliti is some piece of work Every time I see him speaking on TV I want to give him a good smack on the back of the head.

Daniel4

Now that Doug Ford, former city councillor, is the Premier, I'm bracing myself for whenever he implements bicycle licencing. I won't be surprised if he uses his Provincial authority to cancel all of Toronto's pilot projects related to Vision Zero.

But don't openly tell anyone. Your neck of the woods (and mine too) have alot of Doug Ford supporters. And blabbing thos out will give him ideas.

rgconner

Registration is the first step to confiscation!

Oh... sorry, wrong forums...

Daniel4

That's OK. I was treading on thin ice too.