Councillors met at City Hall this morning to discuss Mayor Rob Ford’s proposed expansion of Toronto public bicycle paths.
The plan, headed by chair of the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee (PWIC), Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, was met with strong opposition from many cyclists, mainly directed at the lack of a coherent strategy that allows for a connected bike path across city streets.
Ford’s plan includes bike lanes separated by bollards on the Bloor Street Viaduct, as well as on Sherbourne and Wellesley, where cyclists share a two-way lane on one side of the street. However, it omits the separated lanes that were proposed for Harbord/Hoskin and St. George/Beverley, and includes no proposal for a bike path along Bloor/Danforth.
Andrea Garcia, Director of Advocacy and Operations for the Toronto Cyclists Union, said that the Mayor’s bike plan fails to provide the connected paths the union was hoping for.
“What we really wanted to see was two [bike paths that go] east to west and north to south, on whatever streets that might be… The proposal doesn’t proceed with any network to fulfill the north/south and east/west [network].”
Garcia also said that the plan’s recommended removal of existing bike lanes on Pharmacy Avenue and Birchmount Road amounts to a waste of money. “It is very counter to what the Ford administration is trying to accomplish at City Hall, which is essentially respecting the taxpayer. The streets [outlined for bike-path removal] are functioning just fine… So it doesn’t pay any sense to spend over $200,000 on removing brand new infrastructure… It’s the classic textbook definition of wasteful spending at City Hall.”
Cyclists presenting deputations echoed Garcia’s sentiments, stating that the plan should include Bloor/Danforth bike path; activist Hamish Wilson pointed out that Bloor Street is ideal for bike lanes, since it is long, flat and without streetcar tracks.
Wilson further asserted that there should be a reduction in the amount of money supporting the Ford bike plan to create a Bloor/Danforth bikeway.
While the deputations are set to continue well into the afternoon, it has become clear that cyclists are unhappy with the Ford bike plan, and are calling for further input from the cyclist community before the plan’s adoption.
