Raise the Hammer

The Queensdale bike lane goes from nowhere to nowhere. It has zero protection. It is situated in the door zone of parked cars so that the most dangerous place on the entire road to ride a bike is in the bike lane.

My crystal ball is telling me that not too many people are going to use this bike lane. Would you send your 8-year-old child to school in this lane? I sure would not. My 75-year-old mother's opinion about this sort of crappy sub-standard infrastructure with zero protection from car drivers is "At my age, I am not going to play tag with two-tonne lethal weapons."

To me, this look like an attempt by cycle-haters to set up a pilot project to fail.

I've seen cyclists riding on the road on Queensdale after installation of the bike lanes and I've seen cars driving in the parking lane, and driving over the bike lane, seemingly oblivious to it.

I was a big supporter of the bike lane before it was implemented, but now that I see it in practice, it does not seem to be working for anyone - cyclists, motorists, or pedestrians. I hope it's just "teething pains" and that people will get the message.

It occurs to me that in addition to writing about what is very, very wrong about the Queensdale bike lane, I should also provide an alternative of what it could be.

Here is a video of a bike path in a similar suburban environment. It goes by shops, a school and lots of suburban housing.

Unlike the Queensdale bike lane, this is a success, with more traffic being carried on bicycles than in cars.

See:

http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2012/10/consistent-convenient-high-quality.html

fantastic video and so much of what is wrong here is highlighted in that clip.

Speed limit of 30k on ALL residential streets. Here, city hall fought the north end plan for 30k and then called it a 'pilot project' (not sure what we're piloting as the last city in the country to use 30k limits) just so they could avoid doing this in other neighbourhoods for 5 years. I love the city of Hamilton signs leading to the north end now - a safe family, child friendly neighbourhood. They forgot the rest of the sign that says "and we'll fight like heck to make sure it's the only one".

protected lanes - again, we drop the ball continually - new lanes into Westdale are lousy, Queensdale is lousy etc.... City Hall has been trying to sound good lately, but I always watch for real work on the ground and the day to day operations. From this view, nothing has changed. I was just in TO and they are ripping up Queens Quay and when it's all rebuilt they will only leave HALF of the roadway for cars. 3 total lanes. The rest will be streetcars, protected cycle track and huge pedestrian promenade. And that's a major thoroughfare right off the Gardiner.

Heck, Port Dover has a protected bike lane. I've been on vacation this week and every GTA city/suburb and Southern Ontario small town and farming community has zebra crossings at intersections. And we're celebrating like it's opening day of an LRT system because our city is finally (begrudgingly) painting some.

Small towns and big cities are revitalizing old neighbourhoods and downtowns by calming traffic, adding parking, trees, bike lanes, wider sidewalks, and we still have King, Cannon and Main roaring by like 1950's freeways.
Even Toronto is improving streets that were already a zillion times better than all of ours - Roncesvalles etc.... - to make them EVEN better!

I've been digging around online and I can't find a city anywhere that is still clinging to 5-lane, one way freeways like grim death. If society ever returns to car-centred, dead-retail zones, boarded up storefronts and dangerous places to raise kids and live generally, we'll be the cats meow.....

As a cyclist, I'm glad I don't live in bicycle unfriendly councillor ward 6. I live in Ward 3. My councillor hasn't vetoed bike lanes but as far as I can tell he doesn't support them either. A shame because there are a lot of cyclists in this ward.

When was the last time a single Councillor got to veto a major car transportation route?

I don't remember any of them saying "Part of the Red Hill Expressway goes through my ward so you can have six lanes of car-only expressway before and after my ward, but not through it."

I wish they put bike lanes onto governors road instead of the oversized medians. I've personally witnessed two cyclist almost knocked off there bikes and have personally been brushed by a SCHOOL BUS of all things, passing me at the median. Not to mention the road condition is one of the worst I've ridden on. Big fail to whomever came up with the planning of that stretch of road. Still haven't seen one person cross at one of those medians either and I'm up and down that road ten times a day at least.

it's the typical smokescreen of "we're doing this for pedestrian safety" without actually fixing any of the problems that make that street horrible for pedestrians.

We need a critical mass of bicyclists to slow traffic down until things change, preferably doing this on major streets (King, Main, Cannon, any other major one-ways). Yes, impractical, unrealistic, and utterly self-defeating and polarizing, but what a way to get that blood a-thumpin'!

And, oh yes, Ward 7's my ward. The councillor was happy to relay that Queensdale Avenue was being amended for bicycle lanes. Fennell Avenue could use them, next.

I'm up for a peaceful bike ride down the middle of main or king or........ Anyone else??

While I think it is an interesting idea, if you do a "critical mass" ride down king or main, have everyone occupy the left or right-most lane. That way we are simulating the actual goal - removal of one lane of traffic for a protected bike lane. It will demonstrate that a very large number of bikes can ride in a standard lane width, leave buses and cars unimpeded thus demonstrating that a road diet won't really hurt Main Street, and generally show more of a spirit of cooperation and demonstration of a request (sort of like the guerrilla bump-outs), without being douchy/dangerous/illegal. However, a large number of riders taking to the streets - that is what we need!!

fantastic idea! I'm in. And for what it's worth, I'd suggest the left lanes. Right lanes can be for transit, middle for cars and left for bikes (eventually protected by parking).

Agreed. I see no benefit to anyone when cyclists try to clog an entire road. There is enough space for all of us on Main. It would be cool to do a regular critical mass style loop - maybe main/victoria/cannon/queen - all overbuilt one-ways. Just take one full lane to demonstrate we can afford wider sidewalks and bike lanes. It would be amazing if we could create a single file bike snake long enough to eat its own tail!

I'm in.

Me too. How about Critical Mass on the last Friday of each month. Which would be this coming Friday.

I like it. I'm out of town this weekend, but generally that works. Simple ideas like this can sometimes be what it takes to show the risk-averse folks at city hall that it's really a no-brainer to do this. Main Street was down to 3 lanes at city hall today and was still flying. We should leave Main with 3 live lanes, have 24-7 parking on the north side, and a 2-way bike path between the parking and sidewalk. Even then traffic will still be fine, but the street suddenly becomes much more usable for other people.

I'm out of town as well. A few weeks notice would be better for a larger gathering I think.