Bike Lanes and the City

As the provincial government is gearing up for an an early election (probably), they have been pushing more issues that serve to drive wedges between voters. Where messaging was once strong on issues everyone can agree with (housing, public transit) it has shifted toward themes considered more populist over the last month (highways, rebates, and bike lanes). The smart people making policy know by this point that adding traffic lanes does not help congestion, and giving everyone $200 does not ease their (government or personal) financial stress, but those same smart people know it does differentiate them from their political opponents, and the gamble that is popular is a calculated one. They likely didn't NEED to bring bike lanes into the conversation, but now they are and the City needs to react.

I am a near full-time cyclist. I drive for large grocery and Costco runs, but if I am getting to softball, baseball, work, midwife appointments, dinners, anything...I am biking. It is easily the fastest way to get around the city. Like many new cyclists before me, I was enticed into cycling with the introduction of the Adelaide cycle-track moving me from my place on Sudbury Street, almost to the doors of my office at City Hall. On a bike with no brakes and a skinny painted lane, I finally felt safe enough to use my own two legs to get me to work. But this isn't an article about the merits of bike lanes. They work. The older, bigger, and safer the network, the more they work. Many people smarter than me can show you why with fancy charts and numbers. You know: facts and data.

The fact they work does not provide political service. People tend to only know and believe what they can see and experience. They have a really difficult time remembering if things were always this way, and will point to any change to explain something negative occurring based on their perception. In a world where instant gratification and convenience is more prevalent than ever before in our history, people want things to be better, now. The province moving to attack cycling infrastructure at a time when congestion is difficult everywhere in Toronto (and has been for a long, long time) is seizing upon these frustrations by targeting a popular scapegoat: bikes riding in lanes for cars.

The City's response to the announcement from the Premier and his Transportation Minister has been tempered. Perhaps first out of disbelief the province would get so micro-manage-y about local transportation issues, and then believing (like I did) that this was a talking point serving their war-on-the-car rhetoric which Rob Ford utilized to remove the Jarvis bike lanes. However, and probably based on the popularity of the statements, the Premier become more specific about which lanes he would remove, and suddenly the ability to shrug off Doug-being-Doug became a real-time problem. Nevermind that the proposed bill does not actually levy authority for the province to order lanes removed; bills can be amended and it seems like a certainty this will happen.

What can the City do? I was speaking with a friend from Tory's office who said that they recalled when not being strong and outright fighting with the Premier was a sign of weakness, and being a patsy to the province's interests. I said, sure, but: that was just a political tactic to put pressure on that office to do something and it's not as if that worked; that they did not have the New Deal in place protecting a mutual interest in working together; and that this was not the downfall of Tory's political fortunes anyway. So what the Mayor says aloud is not going to be as important as the concrete actions to counter the moves by the province.

Based on my reading, the bill proposed by the province is too narrow to be effective in practice. It spends a considerable amount of time being clear this is about 'bicycle lanes' impacting the flow of traffic, or reducing the number of lanes for vehicle traffic. Putting aside that a bicycle is a vehicle in definition in the Highway Traffic Act, the intention is clear: do not replace traditional car-width lanes for traditional bicycle-width lanes. It does not say you are not permitted to narrow the roadway for other uses. One can look at the transformation of Queens Quay to see how the public realm, sidewalk, transit, and road infrastructure was integrated to permit a widened Martin Goodman Trail and better walking experience. The pedestrian, cycling and recreational activity in this space has never been so busy. What if we applied this same approach across Bloor, University and Yonge? This would be a bold step, but one that will have a lasting and legacy impact on the City of Toronto's streetscape.

When I was asked to predict some of Mayor Chow's priorities, one thing I identified was creating permanent cycling infrastructure because I have been around City Hall long enough to know the ease of scraping paint off the road. While College, Bloor and most recently University have seen more permanent installations take place, I feel that the roll out of cycling infrastructure has been focused on expansion. More time and resources needs to be dedicated to building out a permanent network in the core (even Richmond and Adelaide are still filled with removable curbs).

Taking a lesson from the bike lane's cousin, the BikeShare program has been successful because it knew how to build out its network only once they have critical mass in a specific area. If their coverage was spindly, the program would fail. If Toronto is forced to refocus its efforts on building complete streets, and investing in substantial overhauls to the cycling infrastructure the province does not want to rip out, this will finally start to make a dent in the City's commitment (if they still are committed?) to Vision Zero which has frequently been criticized because they City has wanted to do everything but the physical changes to spaces needed to achieve safety on our roads. Once the improvements are realized, Councillors will clamour for this type of investment in their communities (like they have with BikeShare).

This Mayor and the City should seize on the opportunity being provided to them by the province and begin to redesign our major streets to prioritize traffic flow, safety, and the pedestrian experience. Not doing so is to accept defeat and allow the province to walk over you again. Fight back, but in ways that are meaningful, not with words but with concrete actions to accomplish the goals of a bike lane network.