City
Battle over Jarvis bike lanes continues to wage on
The City of Toronto is ticking to its guns on plans to remove the Jarvis Bike lanes. Despite receiving a well-publicized legal opinion from the Toronto Cyclists Union that suggests an Environmental Assessment is required to eliminate cycling infrastructure on the street, the Sun reports today that Transportation Services has come to the conclusion that no new study is required.
"After careful consideration and assessment, in short, and respectfully, we are unable to agree with the conclusions in your letter," wrote Transportation Services acting general manager Andrew Koropeski in a letter to the union. So the big question becomes whether or not the Bike Union will take the matter to Minister of the Environment, a course of action it previously indicated it would pursue if the City rejected its request.
Is this the end of the line for bike lanes on Jarvis? It's possible — but I sure wouldn't bet on supporters of the lanes just packing it in on account of this news.
Photo by Martin Reis in the blogTO Flickr pool
Discussion
43 Comments
Sort By Oldest First / Newest First
Subscribe
Why does it HAVE to be Jarvis?
Let's share the roads.
Four lanes works. Leave it alone.
Why aren't 4 lanes of traffic on Jarvis enough? Do we really need more?
Cause it looks like the current configuration allows everyone to share the roads. Not just drivers.
I just find the discussion polarizing for little reason. I understand the need for vehicles and trucks to get in and out of the city in good time. They will pollute less and if you have them using a major artery, it would make it safer on other roads.
My sense, and its just my personal feeling, is that this is all about egos and making a point (for both drivers and bikers and politicians) more than doing what is the best for the majority of road users on TO.
The only way forward is to have a comprehensive bike network, assess ALL options, and if Jarvis proven to be required in that process, then it should be used. But failing a big picture plan, these types of discussions that involve just a small piece of the big picture, are a waste of time.
So if the City is really as cash-strapped as some would have us believe, why would we waste money taking out bike lanes that aren't causing a problem? Doesn't sound very respectful of our tax dollars to me.
Now it's a big "bikes vs. cars" debate, and the original plan of city building is lost because of Ford's rhetoric. This is why we can't have nice things.
Local residents, students, and workers had a crappy, noisy, dangerous street. A street that wasn't "normal" by any standard.
That was the whole point of the Jarvis Revitalization project - to make the road a street again.
I honestly don't care if the bike lanes are removed. Spend the millions to move the curb lines in and widen the sidewalks.
Any complaints about "oh, it's so much slower than it was before" ignore that the GTA is growing every year, and there's no space for more cars. Of course driving is getting slower every year!
Sure. I live on Jarvis. It's my street and I cycle on it every day. If you can't share, take another route.
Bikes lanes should exist on every street that has space to accomodate them. They keep bikes out of cars' way, and cars out of bikes' way. That's good for everybody, and that's why a lot of car drivers support bike lanes. It's strage to think there are motorists out there who'd rather go back to sharing their lanes with cyclists on Jarvis. I'm a driver and I hate sharing lanes with cyclists. Bike lanes are awesome.
Also, your question begs a similar question: If there are car drivers who hate the bike lanes, why can't they just drive one block west or east? It'll save the city a lot of expenditure on bike lane removal ($272,000 to be precise). Isn't saving money what we elected Rob Ford to do?
Ron
If you don't understand that modern, successful cities in 2012 build bike lanes, complete streets, improved site furnishings, slow zones etc. in lieu of dedicating every goddamned inch of ROW to auto-exclusive asphalt, then you are an Epsilon-minus sub-moron who needs to travel more. Your thoughts are literally out of date, useless, and harmful to society. Perish them. Got it?
the expectation if you read this stuff is that the city to actually supposed to build a bike lane or two downtown, not take the out.
If all the angry people from the burbs don't want us to have a downtown relief subway line... maybe they'll be happier if we resurrect the Bay + Church streetcars to bring the Yonge subway ridership down to something less dangerous + awful.
I don't get it, won't this make traffic on Jarvis slower? Instead of being separated from the cars the bikers will be in the car lanes, and cars will either have to slow down and go behind them until the bike or car turns, or they will have to slow down and pass them. Either way it will slow down the right lanes in both directions. I barely drive at all, but passing a bike makes me super nervous and I wish we had bike lanes on all the roads so I wouldn't have to worry about it.
Spending thousands of dollars to make traffic slower and the street less safe just seems ridiculous. Where were council's brains when they approved this?
I didn't think this was good placement in the first place - I'd rather see improved infrastructure on Sherbourne in the form of a full repave and fully separated bike lanes - benefitting both drivers and cyclists.
IMHO, the only way to bridge this divide is to go back to our roots - roads were built by the insistence of bicycles and everybody benefitted. Adding a bike lane on some of the most dangerous pavement in the city only irritates both and puts us at odds with each other.
For all who oppose the Javis lane in favour of Sherbourne, remember that cyclists have non-Sherbourne destinations too. Certainly Sherbourne is a convenient way to get to the lake shore, as well as connect up into Rosedale, and further north, but no one is going to detour out of their way just to use it. We need a local network of bike lanes, not just separated bike highways.
In terms of ride-ability, Jarvis is far superior due to better road surface, less gradient, safer neighbourhood, and the trees that provide shade in hot weather.
B) The numbers I quoted were from a study about whether the lanes should be removed that COUNCIL commissioned. I am not pulling numbers out of thin air. And please be respectful, we're all human beings here. Just because I hold a different view does not make me delusional.
C) Whether it was "forced" on us by Miller or not, the fact remains that they are there now. Why spend over 200K to remove something that cost so much less to put in? That's gravy if ever I saw it.
D) I would much rather drive Jarvis with bike lanes to decrease the risk of a cyclist getting hit and possibly killed. At least if cyclists have a lane, the risk goes way down. Saving lives here Tom. Or if you're not concerned with injuries and deaths, you'll be saving yourself a lawsuit.
As one of the commentators mentioned earlier - quite rightly - just because there is no bike lane doesn't mean cyclists won't use Jarvis anyway; except that now it will be that much more dangerous. Jarvis is 4 lanes and can accommodate the bike lane. Sherbourne is not as wide which means this will be a more dangerous ride, plus the intersection at Bloor is a nightmare to cross.
As someone mentioned above the whole point of the Jarvis renewal (including the bike lanes) was to make the street better for the local community, not people using it as a thoroughfare. I imagine slowing down the traffic to make it safer for pedestrians and bikers was what they had in mind. You can't force people who actually live there to change their street for you just because you don't want to spend an extra 5 or whatever minutes driving through their neighbourhood.
How many deaths are acceptable? What amount of deaths require a bike lane?
And why would you rather drive sharing your lanes with bikes, than have the bikes out of your way in their own lane?
We really have to accept that driving downtown is slow and we should instead focus on improving the quality of life of those who live there. Residents walk and cycle in the area all day long, while commuters use the street for two to four hours of the day. With all of the traffic lights on Jarvis, the speed is slow anyway. Adding one lane of traffic will not reduce the amount of idling traffic either. The commuters still have to go south of Queen Street where it is four lanes anyway and you'd have to tear down all the buildings to make it five lanes.
Guess What.... in three different places there were cars pulled over into the bike lane and parked with there flashers on......I thought that is what a separated Bike lane was designed to stop.
I do not ride a bike , but I have lived on Jarvis St. for over 15 years. One thing I have noticed since the bike lanes have been installed is a dramatic reduction in car accidents on Jarvis St.