Bike Lanes on Bloor Being Assessed – Adam Vaughn comment from Spacing.ca
”Hamish remains concerned about a bike lane along Bloor in my ward.I remain hopeful that the study underway will show us how to do it. The Clean Air Partnership played a key role showing the community and the local BIA the benefits. As a result the Bloor Visioning study is silent on the topic, but at council we asked for staff to come forward with proposals. The Clean Air Partnership also inspired our office to work with residents to start the ward twenty cycling group (contact Dale Duncan in my office for details).
Creating beautiful, safe and vibrant streets for all the users of public space is the goal. We are not there yet but if we can build trust and use our imaginations to solve the physical limitations, a Bloor that is as easy to roll a wheel chair down as it is to ride a bike on is a possibility. Hopefully we can do better than choosing can of white paint or the status quo.
Bloor, between Bathurst and Walmer is at it’s narrowest in my ward, but a recent traffic study showed that we may be able to lose a lane of traffic and accommodate bikes, people and cars without starting a war!. While we wait for the Bloor study the W20 cycling committee is hard at work improving Harbord Street (Bike Boxes, and a strategy for a continuos path between Spadina and Bathurst), my office is also designing and working with local residents for a contra flow lane system for north-south travel on Brunswick to link the College, Harbord and (future) Bloor bike lanes.
In the south we have proposed a segregated set of lanes for Simcoe and as part of the traffic study for the Entertainment District we are also looking at extending the Simcoe lanes north from the lake to Queen. Designs for the Portland Bridge will include ramps for bikes and hopefully Portland and Dan Leckie Way will provide additional north-south access through the raillands from the centre of the city (Queen St) to the lake.
Watch for n on street Green P parking space on Spadina this year to be taken away from car use and turned into permanent multiple bike post parking space too,
Once again contact Dale in my office to find out more and thanks to the Clean Air Partnership for all the great research,
av”
Comment by Adam Vaughan
March 17, 2010 @ 10:38 pm
Here’s the article this comment came from: http://spacing.ca/wire/2010/03/17/bike-lanes-would-help-bloor-west-village-businesses/