Doug Ford triumphant - the bike lanes are dug up!!!
- Thread starter mandrill
- Start date
No one expects removing bike lanes to help them with congestion on the Gardiner or 401. Don't be silly.
I just drove on Bloor from Islington to Royal York
protesters are gone and so are bikers
didn't even see on person on a bike
those bike lanes were not needed in this area at all
nobody rides bikes here
protesters are gone and so are bikers
didn't even see on person on a bike
those bike lanes were not needed in this area at all
nobody rides bikes here
There is no bike lane on Bathurst downtown.Bathurst, I'm starting to get tingly just mentioning the street!!!!
Where are you, Markham?
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Bloor Street was never 2 lanes all the way downtown, every couple of blocks there is parking or left hand turns or something that turns it back into one lane. The only difference is it gives assholes who love to speed a chance to zip out from the right hand lane. Taking out the bike lane will not make it faster downtown.
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I would 100% take the subway along Bloor, this is true.
The issue is presenting the removal of municipal infrastructure as a solution to traffic by the province.
It’s (expensive) political theatre that does not solve the problem.
It’s the solution that works for NYC and London. I don’t think it’ll ever happen here, so other ways to solve traffic need to be found. Getting rid of other options hurts car traffic.yes so only the rich can drive
no my friend
instaling bike lanes on major thoroughfares
"is (expensive) political theatre that does not solve the problem"
but it creates a big traffic problem
we need less people or better road system
synchronized traffic lights is one of the easiest ways to address this issue
but nobody talks about it at all
no parking on major roads could be another step to ease the traffic
you need roads to move the traffic as efficiently as possible
connecting Waze and AI to control traffic lights might be a solution too
building better transit system is another step
installing bike lanes on major roads is not a solution
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Montreal has done it. Toronto hasn't.
By Justin LingStaff Columnist
Justin Ling is a staff columnist for the Star and an investigative journalist based in Montreal. Reach him by email: jling@thestar.ca
In Montreal this past weekend, two city councillors launched a new website: avant-apres.ca. That’s “before-after” to us anglophones.
It shows a map of the city, with pins scattered throughout the hip Plateau-Mont Royal neighbourhood. Click a pin, and it’ll pull up two photos: one from several years ago, and another from this year. You can slide the images back and forth to see what’s changed.
Each diptych tells the same story — of a city that has become more pleasant, more green, more fun and more safe. A street next to a school went from two traffic lanes to pedestrian-only; it’s now lined with planters and park benches. A four-lane stroad outside a metro station was narrowed into a one-lane, one-way street lined on either side with bike lanes wider sidewalks. A parking lot next to an arena was turned into a playground.
Building a website like this for Toronto would be depressing. Look back at a Bloor Street crammed with traffic years ago, then slide over to today and see the province ripping up bike lanes, reverting to bumper-to-bumper gridlock and parked cars. Nearly a decade after King Street became (mostly) reserved for streetcars downtown, it remains congested with cars and backed-up TTC vehicles.
I know the “smug Montrealer shows up to tell you how to do things” routine is tiresome. But my adopted city has managed a pretty serious glow-up in the past 10 years. It wasn’t straightforward, and plenty of problems persist, but Montreal has secured a spot in North America’s urbanist hall of fame. And it feels like things are getting better.
The opposite is true of Toronto.
Montreal’s with Valérie Plante as mayor has over her two terms, built North America’s most impressive cycling network, and became a nicer place to live. (Plante’s Projet Montréal party lost power last year, but the new administration has kept most of her priorities going.)
Toronto takes in nearly double the annual revenue Montreal does yet seems to be doing far less with it.
There are some structural barriers. One that looms large is Ontario’s bumbling premier, Doug Ford, who insists on inflicting his incompetence on the city, ripping out bike lanes, banning speed cameras, slashing the size of council and so on.
Montreal is not perfect — come check out our potholes! — but it has benefitted enormously from smart policy choices.
Montreal has a willingness to rethink space for cars and give it back to the people. In Plante’s eight years as mayor, more streets were closed to cars; more lanes were given over to pedestrians, transit and cyclists; and more physical barriers were installed to slow down traffic. This has made drivers — particularly those who commute into the city — grumpy, but it has also made the city unquestionably better.
Toronto needs to take some inspiration from Montreal.
Just as pressing: Toronto needs to find a way to get people moving. Trying to cram more cars onto the road will not make that happen. The city cannot grow if cars are its main form of transportation: the math doesn’t math.
Newsflash: returning to the past isn't an option. Trying to placate voters who want to take Toronto back in time, back to when traffic congestion wasn’t so bad is doomed to failure.
Today, Toronto has about 250 kilometres of proper bike lanes total — and Ford is taking that number down. (Montreal, by contrast, has more than 1,000 kilometres.)
By Justin LingStaff Columnist
Justin Ling is a staff columnist for the Star and an investigative journalist based in Montreal. Reach him by email: jling@thestar.ca
In Montreal this past weekend, two city councillors launched a new website: avant-apres.ca. That’s “before-after” to us anglophones.
It shows a map of the city, with pins scattered throughout the hip Plateau-Mont Royal neighbourhood. Click a pin, and it’ll pull up two photos: one from several years ago, and another from this year. You can slide the images back and forth to see what’s changed.
Each diptych tells the same story — of a city that has become more pleasant, more green, more fun and more safe. A street next to a school went from two traffic lanes to pedestrian-only; it’s now lined with planters and park benches. A four-lane stroad outside a metro station was narrowed into a one-lane, one-way street lined on either side with bike lanes wider sidewalks. A parking lot next to an arena was turned into a playground.
Building a website like this for Toronto would be depressing. Look back at a Bloor Street crammed with traffic years ago, then slide over to today and see the province ripping up bike lanes, reverting to bumper-to-bumper gridlock and parked cars. Nearly a decade after King Street became (mostly) reserved for streetcars downtown, it remains congested with cars and backed-up TTC vehicles.
I know the “smug Montrealer shows up to tell you how to do things” routine is tiresome. But my adopted city has managed a pretty serious glow-up in the past 10 years. It wasn’t straightforward, and plenty of problems persist, but Montreal has secured a spot in North America’s urbanist hall of fame. And it feels like things are getting better.
The opposite is true of Toronto.
Montreal’s with Valérie Plante as mayor has over her two terms, built North America’s most impressive cycling network, and became a nicer place to live. (Plante’s Projet Montréal party lost power last year, but the new administration has kept most of her priorities going.)
Toronto takes in nearly double the annual revenue Montreal does yet seems to be doing far less with it.
There are some structural barriers. One that looms large is Ontario’s bumbling premier, Doug Ford, who insists on inflicting his incompetence on the city, ripping out bike lanes, banning speed cameras, slashing the size of council and so on.
Montreal is not perfect — come check out our potholes! — but it has benefitted enormously from smart policy choices.
Montreal has a willingness to rethink space for cars and give it back to the people. In Plante’s eight years as mayor, more streets were closed to cars; more lanes were given over to pedestrians, transit and cyclists; and more physical barriers were installed to slow down traffic. This has made drivers — particularly those who commute into the city — grumpy, but it has also made the city unquestionably better.
Toronto needs to take some inspiration from Montreal.
Just as pressing: Toronto needs to find a way to get people moving. Trying to cram more cars onto the road will not make that happen. The city cannot grow if cars are its main form of transportation: the math doesn’t math.
Newsflash: returning to the past isn't an option. Trying to placate voters who want to take Toronto back in time, back to when traffic congestion wasn’t so bad is doomed to failure.
Today, Toronto has about 250 kilometres of proper bike lanes total — and Ford is taking that number down. (Montreal, by contrast, has more than 1,000 kilometres.)
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Won't work in Toronto. Everybody with a car would move to the burbs. The downtown core would empty.
Unlike NYC or London, Toronto is not compact. Sure, if you want to go to U of T from Yonge and Eg or to Bay Street from Cabbagetown, you can walk or cycle or take transit.
Try cycling from Little Portugal to the Golden Mile. That's 3 hours. No one has that kind of time. Or to the Beaches from Little Italy. A couple of hours. Now try cycling from your condo on Spadina to Oshawa for a business meeting.
If Toronto was a nineteenth century city like Paris or London with a massive subway system, no one would need a car. But it's not. Toronto is 90% Los Angeles and 10% London. And it's transit system is a bullshit nothing compared to London's.
You can blame the assholes who staffed City Hall in the 60's for building the burbs as a massive auto-centric sprawl and not building 3 or 4 extra subway lines. But blaming doesn't solve problems.
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