Michelle St. Amour of the DIY shop BikeSauce has published some photos of the bikelane improvements being striped on the Bloor Viaduct I mentioned yesterday – including wider lanes, a small “buffer” between bikes and cars, and sharrows marked where bikes need to cross car traffic exiting from Bloor onto the Don Valley Parkway:
Thanks for the great photos Michelle!
The Bloor Viaduct bikelanes are essential pieces of cycling infrastructure for residents of East York, the Danforth, Riverdale, Leslieville, the Beaches, etc… but they have some problems including being too narrow in spots as well as having a dangerous traffic crossing when approaching Broadview and Danforth from the west. Safety concerns have been noted in the past by the Ward Advocacy Group Ward29Bikes.
The City looked at these safety concerns and decided to address some of them… stating that we’d see some changes by July 2010… but the changes have already begun:
[photo via TakeTheTooker, via Tom Flaherty]
It looks like the new bikelane may not only be a little wider (which would be extremely useful during rush-hour as there are many cyclists using the lanes… and a little more width will make passing safer) but have a small striped “buffer zone” between car traffic and bike traffic.
April 15, 2010
Neighbourhoods: Danforth Village
While Scott Torrance got the ball rolling on the impending safety audit, others have also recently turned an eye to the troubled intersection at Broadview and Danforth Avenues.
The week of March 29, Toronto Police Service’s 54 Division conducted a bike safety campaign aimed at cracking down on both unsafe motorists and cyclists in the area.
“The results were 417 provincial offence tickets issued to cyclists. A lot of them were riding their bicycles across a pedestrian crossover, (some had) no bell or horn, and there were some traffic light violations, such as running into an intersection against a red,” said Sergeant Jack West, who led the campaign. “We charged one motorist with opening a door into oncoming traffic. A cyclist had to come to a screeching halt in order to avoid contact,” he said.
This past Saturday, DECA Bikes (from the Danforth East Community Association) had their first Tune-Up Workshop in the Danforth Mennonite Church just east of Woodbine and Danforth.
I was able to pop on by late in the day to say hi and I’m glad to report they had a ton of people show up over the 5 hours, and they have another Tune-Up Workshop planned for early May (if I’m remembering correctly). I’ll make sure to let you know when they schedule another workshop.
I took a few photos on Saturday to share with you:
Danforth Mennonite Church - a nice little church from back when the Danforth was more residential
Directions to the Workshop
The Workshop Space
Teaching Tune-Ups
Talking Tires
If you’re interested in learning more about DECA Bikes, you can check out the DECA Bikes Group here on BikingToronto, or contact Jamie Thiers
at 416-587-7204 after 3 pm or email jamiethiers@gmail.com
