Richmond and Adelaide bike lane pilot gets green light

Toronto cyclists are due to get separated lanes on Richmond and Adelaide streets this summer as part of a pilot project approved yesterday by the city's Public Works and Infrastructure Committee. In addition to lanes on the east-west streets, there will be bike lanes added to Simcoe between Front and Queen and on Peter from King to Queen.

The Richmond lane will be located on the north side of the street for westbound bicycles between York and Bathurst. On Adelaide, the lane will be on the south side for cyclists heading east between Bathurst and Simcoe.

The lanes will be separated from traffic by a painted buffer and "flexi-posts," like the ones recently added to Wellesley between Yonge and Parliament, and will require the removal of one lane of traffic on each street. The number of parking and loading spaces on Richmond and Adelaide will remain relatively unchanged, the city says.

The bike lanes will remain in place until at least 2015 and could become permanent when the final environmental assessment is presented to city council.

The committee also asked city staff to investigate extending the lanes beyond Parliament in order to make connections with existing routes on Dundas and Eastern.

The total cost of the pilot project is $390,000.

Are you pleased to see the city adding new bike lanes?

Chris Bateman is a staff writer at blogTO. Follow him on Twitter at @chrisbateman.

Image:
Danielle Scott/blogTO Flickr pool, City of Toronto.