Dave Meslin discussing Sharrows
I wasn’t able to make it to the Bikeway Network Public Consultation Event to discuss downtown bike infrastructure for 2010… but thankfully great people like Chris Tindal, James Schwartz and Dave Meslin are there.
One very cool thing coming out of it that’s been rumoured for a while is that segregated bikelanes are planned for University Ave (via @jamesschwartz)
You can follow people tweeting the event (like Chris Tindal, who took the above photo, by following the hashtag #BikeTO.
UPDATE:
Yvonne Bambrick of the Bike Union snapped a couple pics of the crowd with her cellphone:
Why So Serious? 
Crowd at the Bikeway Network Public Consultation Event
If you were able to make it, let us know what you thought about it in the comments below.
About Joe T.
Good wrap-up of the evening posted by Val Dodge on Torontist:
http://torontoist.com/2010/02/downtown_bike_plans_for_2010_revealed.php
National Post keeps the “war” metaphor alive in this article about proposed separated bike lanes along University Avenue:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/toronto/story.html?id=2515752
Quoting Dan Egan:
“If you know University, there’s a lot of taxi activity, and it’s a pretty challenging environment to make a bicycle lane work. So if we can do something like the New York style that allows those things to keep happening, I think we’ll have a better chance of making it work for cyclists and getting community and political support for it.”
This is something that irks me either about Toronto’s attitude, or at least the way our media presents ideas. Every idea must be positioned as copying an idea elsewhere. Why not invent a Toronto-style bikelane? One that works on narrow roads with streetcar tracks. Sure, I don’t have an idea for one, but there must be some talented city planners who could tackle this.
The media needs to start presenting bikelanes as *helping* drivers (ie. new seperated bikelanes on University keep cyclists in their own lane, and out of your cars way!) instead of hindering them.
More people on bikes = less in cars = less congestion. Easy-peasy.
Started a new forum topic about the planned separated bikelanes for University Ave in the “Bikelanes and Infrastructure” group:
http://bikingtoronto.com/groups/bikelanes/forum/topic/university-avenue-separated-bikelanes/