Bike lane battle looming in Toronto? | CTV News Toronto at Noon for Oct. 17, 2024

[@paulw245]

A bike lane on Parkside is a dumb idea. It is only 2 blocks to the bike lanes on Roncesvalles or you can always ride through high park. I ride a bike and would never venture onto a street that unsafe. In addition I agree there should be no parking on Parkside to improve traffic flow.

[@eknoorsinghM]

As someone who lives in that neighborhood, this is the dumbest idea i have heard from the city, if they wanna put the bike lane, then place it where the old lady was saying

[@stojo33]

2 deaths on a road in a decade and they are trying to change shit up? What a pretentious group of people. Changing the lifes of hundreds of thousands of people for two deaths?

[@JamieMcLachlin]

Soo how many people have to die for it to be worth building…5? 10? 100? At least those two didn’t die in vain so you could save like 1 min in traffic

[@stojo33]

​@@JamieMcLachlin Definitely more than 2 in 10 fckn years. How many cars pass that stretch of road daily? 21000. Thats 8 million vehicles in a decade plus pedestrians...changing the lifes of those people for 2 deaths? Accidenta happen, and they will still happen if they close it down to 1 lane only. I bet you there would be a few deaths in a decade on that road id they made it a bike only road too...

[@AuralioCabal]

Next project of Mayor Chow: make bike lanes in the DonValley Pkwy,and the full GTA 401 & 427 and QEW Hiways.😂

[@greg_g7148]

@@AuralioCabal 400 Hwy Series are provincially run, not municipal

[@logicalpolice]

Maybe the Province should focus on reducing traffic by bringing the TTC up from the 1980s to the present day. It's crappy compared to most of the modern world. Give folks a reason not to drive and you will solve congestion.

[@Huldru]

Along the GO lines as well. I hate having to drive from Guelph to Toronto when I could be taking a train. Unfortunately it's taking decades to bring all day service outside of the GTA.

[@swayzecrazy420]

If you look at ParkSide Drive exactly where high park is there’s an empty sidewalk that nobody uses. It’s not even paved. It’s dirt and rocks, so instead of taking traffic lanes away. why don’t you just pave the dirt side walk that’s next to High Park and make that a bike lane? I don’t even work for the city and I’m smarter than them

[@Junknown764]

Let's make the couple hundred bikers that will use that stretch 8 months of the year happy but piss off the thousands that drive on it regularly.

[@mikechadid2568]

It’s actually a couple thousand and about 11 months. And you would rather more people drive than bike? That feels counter productive. Let’s make toronto more loveable and liveable instead of sending people out to the suburbs

[@GallifreyanGunner]

Whether you love bike lanes or hate them, it should concern everyone that the Premier is overriding the duly elected local governments.

[@SKF108]

It’s messing up the economy for the whole province. Congestion is killing productivity.

[@greg_g7148]

@@SKF108 the province should focus on clearing congestion off the 400 Hwy series first then, before getting involved with bike lanes in places outside of the GTA gridlock

[@GallifreyanGunner]

@SKF108 I'm willing to bet I do more driving in Toronto than you do (it's my job), and it's not bike lanes that are the problem. It's the traffic signals. They seem specifically designed to make sure vehicles can't move. ESPECIALLY the walk signals that prevent more than one car from making a turn per cycle. Bike lanes keep bikes out of my way. I don't spend 10 minutes trying to get around a bike only to have it catch up and pass me at the next light and have to get around it again. We need "smart signals" and no left turns downtown unless there is a dedicated turn lane.

[@lawrencedostert1716]

no more bike lanes till bicycle riders can obey the rule of the road like stopping at red lights and stop signs. have bells. and stop putting red lights on the front of ur bicycles

[@logicalpolice]

car drivers should learn to obey the rules also. Maybe start with signalling, coming to complete stop, not honking your horn because another driver is obeying traffic laws.

[@danlee8090]

Cyclists are notorious for disregarding traffic rules when it suits them. They seem to switch between behaving like a car and a bicycle whenever it's convenient. For example, they'll ride on the road alongside vehicles but often ignore stop signs, zooming right through them. Another frustrating behavior is when cyclists squeeze along the edge of the road to pass cars stopped at a light, only for those cars to have to awkwardly overtake the cyclist again once traffic starts moving. Inconsistent and often reckless, cyclists are some of the worst offenders when it comes to road safety.

[@RL1able]

the worst is when they ride on the sidewalk when the bike lane is literally inches away. like why did we spend all those tax dollars and take a lane away from auto traffic for you just to ride illegally on the sidewalk anyway? i see it all the time.

[@danlee8090]

@@RL1able again.. rules don’t apply to them

[@JamesDoylesGarage]

This is so stupid! THE BIKE LANES ARE PRACTICALLY EMPTY !!!! Meanwhile working people have to get to places and don't ride bikes. Thank you Doug Ford!

[@joemadden4160]

My favorite are the lumps on Sundays that ride 4 abreast on major roads.

[@Huldru]

That's a complex thing though. Riders do that for additional safety and visibility. Drivers are incredibly impatient and unsafe around cycles. As someone on both side of the argument, I blame the poor traffic management that we all have to deal with. I can't blame drivers for being upset when they lose yet more space on the road to cyclists moving slowly while fighting through traffic to get anywhere. But studies also show that cyclists riding 2-4 abreast suffer fewer incidents.

[@jumbome7420]

@@Huldrulol none of that is true

[@greg_g7148]

@@jumbome7420 it is actually

[@DougWedel-wj2jl]

A lot of streets can’t be widened to allow bike lanes so car lanes don’t need to be removed. And often it’s removing a car parking lane, not a travel lane. What brought this on was the Bloor bike lane extension in the Kingsway area, Jane to Islington. It’s in Christine Hogarth’s riding and close to Doug Ford’s home. They heard literally thousands of complaints from people who are their neighbours and voters. So this looks like something that will make them popular with these people. The problem is the congestion, not the bike lanes. The street can be redesigned so a lot of it has a 2+1 configuration. From Royal York, make 2 eastbound car lanes to Jane and 2 westbound lanes from Royal York to Islington. This will allow local residents get to work on time so they won’t be late, the most painful part of congestion. Doug Ford also named the bike lanes on University Avenue for his list of badly placed bike lanes. Both the bike lanes on Bloor and the ones on University Avenue are streets they see from their cars on their personal commute to work. They never rode this route by bike or ebike. They don’t know the traffic crash statistics, how many died or had serious injuries annually. And they have no interest let alone a plan to make our streets safe. I’M NOT SAYING THIS TO MAKE DOUG FORD LOOK BAD. I’m saying this to point out how important it is for them to be brought into the conversation, so they get informed about street safety and things like efficiency and so their concerns will be listened to by advocates. It’s only natural that they kick up a fuss when the streets don’t work well with new changes. But we need to use this as a way to say, now that I have your attention, this is what we had in mind, what do you think? If residents are too upset, they think bike lanes =. congestion, which isn’t really true, that traffic comes to a halt when we make streets safe enough to reach zero traffic fatalities, that city staff is forcing people out of cars and on to bikes. When I see how little the city communicates with disgruntled residents, I can understand why.

[@gary094]

remove those bike lanes on Yonge.

[@maddoxmagennis1520]

Yonge street is the most ideal spot for bike lanes. Local trips can easily be taken on a bike or walking while long distance trips can be easily made via the subway which is faster than driving anyway. People don’t need cars to get around on Yonge or bloor even

[@TylerHill2]

Removing alternatives to driving will add more cars to the road, somehow this will fix congestion? On Bloor and Danforth vehicles just will end up parking in the space the bike lane uses, so it will still just be one through lane each way. No bikes lanes on 401 or DVP and hows congestion working out there? Very few bike lanes in Scarborough, 6 lane roads everywhere and traffic still backs up.

[@adam.vision]

Why don’t we have a vote on bike lanes ?

[@R.-et5fn]

What a ridiculous idea. The traffic on this street is already crawling as is now and ever since the city put in extra traffic lights on random small intersections on parkside, it’s gotten worse. Also, there is a bike path in the park that takes you from Bloor all the way to Lakeshore, so this proposition is beyond idiotic.

[@DougWedel-wj2jl]

Parkside Drive can have bike lanes without removing a car lane. Just remove a bit of space from the park. But this does not make this street safer.

[@g.c.3339]

If we keep altering the City's road design, it will make matters even worse. Parkside Drive is defined as a Major Arterial Road, with a minimum of 4 lanes of traffic, and a speed limit of 50 to 60 Kmph, according to Toronto's own City Street Classification records on which the design of roads and traffic movement has been designed in Toronto. Major Arterial roads are second only to Expressways, and are to have a typical spacing between traffic control devices of 1/3 of a Km.

[@southwestsearch]

I have a problem with bike lanes in Vancouver. I'm trying to make a right hand turn and bikers zip by me preventing me from making the right hand turn. Not only that, they cross the intersection against the red light. Apparently, road rules don't apply to them.

[@hanshoff2369]

The Bloor east bike lane is a joke, traffic backed up from queens park to sherbourne! and nobody in the bike lane!

[@GlendonMellow]

Take away the parking lane. Done.

[@Boognish_Bless]

SO they cant just take out some of the trees and trim down the park and make a Bike lane through there? 1st world problems, omg

[@geelangfordo3272]

From congestion to housing to healthcare they all have the same root cause. Justin Trudeau tripled the population growth rate quietly without ever mentioning it during his electoral campaigns and then just left it to the provinces to deal with the consequences. We bring in 3x the average our per nations do and nobody says a word because either it goes against their sociol agenda (Chow) or their big business buddies love the army of low wage workers (Ford Trudeau ect.)

[@IqraAli-f8l]

Thank you to the provincial govt for intervening. This is ridiculous. The city can't be taking away all roads for bike lanes.

[@Iamspecialk]

Another stupid idea from the city. This road is a major artery to the Lakeshore and Gardiner, adding a bike lane will just add to further congestion. Wake up Toronto.

[@GreenWays2000]

Push bikes into residential roads where there are less cars. Why put bikes on busy roads, creating traffic and potentially road rage. City planners are just too woke to think logically. Bikes going on roads should have a license and police needs to enforce bikers breaking traffic laws.

[@cailouar3457e3]

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[@greg_g7148]

Doug Ford had a 50% attendance rate when he was a City of Toronto councillor, but now he thinks he knows what's best for all municipalities in Ontario. You can't make this stuff up

[@margaretkalaj3372]

Of course he knows business owners and constituents from multiple ridings have been consistently complaining to him about the implementation of bike lanes. The city isn't listening to the majority of people and businesses who are against them on the contrary they keep moving forward with implementing more bike lanes! Thankfully Ford is actually listening to what the majority wants!

[@greg_g7148]

@@margaretkalaj3372 You think the province should interfere or maybe take over municipal jurisdictions based on that? Complaints? Interesting take.

[@Fuzzy-_-Logic]

Yeah, Ford should have put up bacon burger stands in the first place. Suck on burgers and car fumes. Ahhhh

[@greysea1614]

Bike lanes on Parkside drive will further ensure that cars spend a long, long time idling on lakeshore blvd going nowhere. It seems the war on the car is entering a new phase. Push all the traffic on to lakeshore and keep it there. Out of sight out of mind. But if you live Downtown you are essentially trapped in your neighborhood.

[@cailouar3457e3]

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[@Iamspecialk]

Get rid of the stupid bike lanes on Bloor as well. Absolute nightmare trying to get from Keele to Royal York by car. The city needs to wake up.

[@bobuxman69]

cry harder lazy boomer

[@mikechadid2568]

Why would you drive from keele to royal york? People need to get places buddy! You’re the traffic

[@Iamspecialk]

@mikechadid2568 I'm not only going to those locations. I'm just pointing out traffic is at a standstill because of the stupid bike lanes in that area.

[@joshSmacknMouths]

Bike Lanes Are a Liability To Everyone.

[@smokey2783]

Instead of adding more bike lanes, I would like to see a mandatory general knowledge of road laws for cyclists, lights and bells or horns. As it is they ride wherever they want and feel they have that right.

[@mikechadid2568]

But children, old people and non-confident people also want to drive. I think if anything car drivers should learn how to ride with cyclists

[@jiggy518]

that Pierre Poulievre was so arrogant. he's the "trump" of canada🤧😀