Back in early March, the TakeTheTooker folks put down a portable bikelane on Bloor to showcase how great it would be to have an east-west bikelane running the entire length of Bloor and Danforth:
Local cycling activists created Toronto's latest and shortest bicycle lane in the heart of city today, but after a while they had to roll it up again. While curious pedestrians and a small group of cyclists watched, Take the Tooker members Angela Bischoff and Hamish Wilson unfurled the bike path along Bloor Street at Avenue Road. The path, a 144 ft. long piece of roofing felt, came complete with painted bike symbols and lane stripe. “Let's help the city to visualize how beautiful, easy and inexpensive it would be,” Ms. Bischoff said. “We're out here to donate this lane to the city.” After cyclists had done a few rides down the path, things got a bit bumpier when a strong wind blew the path into a heap. Showing that chunks of street ice can have a purpose, organizers quickly straightened out the path and the ride continued. Take the Tooker campaigns for a east-west bikeway through Toronto along Bloor Street. It is intended to be a legacy to bike and climate activist, Tooker Gomberg, who died four years ago today. “When we first started three years ago there wasn't really any hope,” Ms. Bischoff, Tooker's widow, said. “Now there's a lot of discussion about accommodating bikes with bike lanes along Bloor.” [National Post]
TaketheTooker isn’t the only group with an active interest in claiming part of Bloor for the bike. "We’re actively working with councillors along [the Bloor/Danforth] strip," says Fred Sztabinski of the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation, referring to his organization’s efforts at city hall to "solve all the little problems." Local businesses along Bloor are wary of giving up streetside parking, concerned that no cars mean no customers. "We’re looking for data that would show how a lot of customers along this stretch actually get there by transit, bike or foot," he says. "We know the majority of people here are not driving—it’d be great to have the numbers to show that."
After last week’s city budget, Monday’s demonstration also addresses the issue’s bottom line: its price tag. With auto-centric infrastructure like the Front Street Extension costing our cash-strapped city $170,000,000, the estimated $25,000-per-kilometer pricetag of a Bloor/Danforth bike lane is, according to TaketheTooker’s literature, "peanuts."
Another little problem is reducing the number of vehicle traffic lanes to accommodate cyclists. "The city can do studies to show you that removing parking lanes wouldn’t necessarily inhibit traffic flow," Sztabinski suggests, citing a precedent that made Dundas Street East more bike-friendly. "There used to be four lanes of traffic and they took out two. It hasn’t been a problem at all."
[Torontoist]
