Dead Cyclists Always At Fault, Says Councillor Rob Ford

Andrew – I doubt there is a single cyclist on this forum who would disagree with the idea of taking secondary streets over busy streets *when decent alternatives are available*. But the fact of the matter is, in many cases decent alternatives are *not* available. At best, many residential streets are slow due to traffic calming efforts (alternating direction one-way streets, stop signs at each corner). Those scofflaw cyclists many complain about? The ones going the wrong way on the one way streets? They’re likely doing so for just the reason you point out – they feel uncomfortable on the direct alternative. And it gets worse the further from downtown you go. Try finding a secondary route to cross the 401. I’ll save you the trip to google maps: One’s on the Humber trail at the far west end of the city, the other’s at the far *east* end near the DVP. My commute, from Dufferin and College to Dufferin and Steeles would be 16.5 km by Dufferin Street if it weren’t a death trap because of its lack of a bike lane. The best alternative I could come up with (which still requires that I ride on St. Clair, Finch, and Dufferin north of Finch for a bit) is over 25 km. This is far from practical and clearly illustrates the fallacy that is the idea of a bike network constructed purely of secondary routes. It’s as much a fallacy as the idea of a “war on the car” in the same year that less than 1km of bike lanes was installed.

This isn’t to say there are *no* secondary roads that work. Duplex is a nice alternative to Yonge, Feywood/Wilmington is a great alternative to the Allen Expressway, and I’m sure there are many others. But the idea that bike lanes should never be on arterial roads is severely flawed. In most cases, bike lanes aren’t even *necessary* on the secondary roads except, perhaps, if the city were to add a significant number of contra-flow lanes downtown