Raise the Hammer

Let's observe that car speeds on Lower City's Cannon street hasn't slowed down despite surrendering one lane to bikes. Even if tumbleweeds sometimes roll down the bike lane soemtimes before (albiet not as much now, with more bikes).

With the SoBi surprise success, the Cannon bike lanes definitely look more busy this year than last, with both SoBi and non-SoBi bikes. Not as busy as a Toronto bike lane, and may have been installed somewhat half-heartedly, but suffice to say -- the Cannon bike has proven itself and is now here to stay.

Now if we can inch a little more progress, we might even -- heaven forbid -- put bike lanes on Main/King within our lifetimes. Maybe. Maybe not. Perish the thought.

Car owner in me: Blasphemy! Ridiculolus thought! I love the sync'd green lights!!

People-friendly street in me: Go for it! Protected bike lanes on Main/King by 2035 on one side, bumpout parking on the other side, complete with lovely brick-patterned sidewalks!

Okay, I stop dreaming. Let's revisit this when we begin installing LRT lanes and we're dong Main/King detours (e.g. temporary 2-way Main experiment during LRT construction).

For now, small realistic steps -- let's extend Cannon bike lanes contiguously to Gage Park, and put bike lane stripes on Delaware/Stinson (there's some already, but let's extend full bike lane protection from Downtown GO all the way to Sherman, connecting to SHerman bike lanes that connects to Cannon. And extend Cannon bike lane to Gage. And put bike lanes on Gage going southwards from Cannon to Gage Park. Finally we'd have a safe protected commute from Gage Park to Downtown GO. We're already 80% of the way there with Cannon/Stinson/Hunter, we need to fill the gaps, with Sherman/Gage/Delaware. Just look at the SoBi heat map, Delaware is well used by SoBi bikes according to GPS records.

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2015-07-27 15:28:29