City
Take the Tooker Brings Awareness to Pre-election Cycling Issues
About two dozen Take the Tooker cycling activists showed up at the northeast corner of Yonge and Bloor from 3 to 5 p.m. today to remind voters to choose candidates that advocate for bicycle rights, namely, a bike lane stretching from Kipling to Kennedy along Bloor Street.
Co-organizer Lana Choi hopes that with David Miller's and cycling committee chair Adam Giambrone's re-elections, the city will finally get into gear with continuing the Bike Plan and not be complacent.
Some fierce words from a guy who showed up (not affiliated with the group) and security guards from the nearby RBC building about where they can set up the demo -- About 20 ft. away from the building means it's public space, apparently -- but otherwise, a friendly meetup complete with dinging bells, colourful horns and, of course, stacks of bikes.
What's cool is that when even a temporary chalk-drawn bike lane is installed along a stretch of Bloor, motorists seemed to drive within the lines and cyclists had their own path. Maybe we can chalk it up in the meantime while waiting for a more permanent solution. Pray it don't rain.
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The chalking idea, btw, =awesomez
The issue with drivers turning right in front of you is actually one of the police not enforcing the illegal right turn change that the car makes.
You will notice (except at the places where the bike lanes end before the intersection, which is unsafe i.e. Spadina and College) that the bike lane will have a dotted line on the left hand side as you approach an intersection. This is because the bike lane is actually a lane and a car has to merge into it before turning right.
Unfortunately they don't even educate motorists about this as far as I know, nor do the police enforce the law in the situation.
So to make a long story short, on top of having bike lanes put in, we also need education and enforcement to make cycling safer. There is lots of unspent money in the bike budget ($1 million this year, enough to paint 40km of bike lanes), so the city just needs to get off its ass and do something.