It looks like construction is starting this summer on the $20-million "makeover" of Bloor Street between Avenue Road and Church Street, according to the Globe and Mail.
All on-street parking on Bloor is being taken out, surprisingly with the support of most merchants along the stretch.
Cycling advocates are concerned about there not being any bikelanes in the plans, even though City of Toronto Staff are looking at the possibility of Bloor-Danforth bikelanes running across the city.
Daniel Egan, the city's manager of cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, said the narrower road and lack of parked cars would make the new Bloor better for cyclists, although activists disputed this.
Mr. Egan said traffic volumes - 30,000 cars a day - meant that the new narrower Bloor still needed four lanes and could not accommodate full-size bike lanes. However, he said the street could be retrofitted with bike lanes later.
I'm more concerned with something I read a few months ago in a TCAT Newsletter - that there are NO plans to install ANY bikeracks in this plan.
Rich people bike too, you know.
Still... it is nice to see some space previously devoted to cars being given to pedestrians.
I've started a discussion thread for this in the BikingToronto Community.
[rendering above from Bloor-Yorkville.com]
Labels: infrastructure, news
Discuss this topic and a lot more on the BikingToronto Forum
