Rating the mayors on making Toronto’s streets safe for bikes
September 15, 2019, Toronto Star
When Rob Ford drove to the Toronto mayor’s chair in 2010 with his War on the Car meme (and Don Cherry, at Ford’s inauguration, derided the mayor’s opponents as bicycle riding “pinkos”), there was good reason for cyclists to be depressed.
It got worse when Ford removed the Jarvis St. bike lane.
By the time Ford left office four years later, however, he had installed, or advanced to council for approval, most of a popular downtown circuit of protected bike lanes, including Richmond-Adelaide and Sherbourne Sts.
In stark contrast, when John Tory first became mayor cyclists had good cause for optimism — especially after Tory launched an ambitious new bike plan in June 2016.
Tory’s plan envisioned 34 km of new bicycle lanes (and sidewalk-level paths) in each year of the plan’s ten-year term. Two corridor studies for cycling routes on key arterial roads were also planned.
This summer’s update of the bike plan tells us how Tory is doing.
In each of the plan’s first three years, the city installed a paltry 8 km of new bike lanes, many of which are undermined by the absence of connections along dangerous arterial roads where cyclists need them most. Ironically, the plan’s slogan is, Connect, Grow and Renew. Tory’s plan is barely on pace to match the failed 2001-2011 bike plan.
Indeed, only one corridor study, namely for Yonge St., was completed — only to have Tory oppose the bike lane recommended by city staff.
Overall, Tory does come out ahead of Ford on kilometres of installed lanes, although Ford set the bar low — actually flirting with the ignominy of shrinking Toronto’s bike lane count. (Ford’s downtown circuit focused on upgrading existing bike lanes with only a few new lanes.)
Ford, however, did well on quality, especially in eliminating longstanding gaps and ensuring connections between bicycle routes.
Interestingly, University of Toronto researcher Shoshanna Saxe told the Star last week that Toronto’s safe cycling routes are “isolated and disconnected islands.”
Tory’s own list of noteworthy cycling installations is brief, including lanes along Woodbine Ave., short stretches of Bloor St. and Lakeshore Blvd. W., and minor additions to Ford’s circuit.
It’s true that the King streetcar priority also improved cycling conditions.
But Tory can’t pretend to be balancing the competing interests of road users when decades of manic road-building for motorists has left every other road user in the dust, if not the ditch. In fact, there were five cyclist fatalities last year.
Fortunately, Tory has the advantage of strong support for bike lanes from across the city and lots of spending money for cycling, including $20 million in federal cash. Tory (emulating Ford) could begin by articulating a distinct plan — such as bike lanes on the forever-studied spine routes of Bloor, Danforth, and Yonge — then putting his shoulder to the job until it’s done.
