Reports of new bike lanes are starting to trickle in. Last week I saw that a short contra-flow bike lane had been completed on Logan Avenue. (See previous article). Yesterday I read Tino's post at iBikeTO.ca saying that work was underway on the bike lane on Christie. New Bike Lane on Christie in the works. These two projects add up to 1.4 km. This is still a decent bike ride away from the 27 km of bike lanes that were promised this year. While construction season may be extended with the warm weather this fall, time is running out to get these projects done in 2007. How is the City doing in getting the projects done in 2007? Can Toronto reach the goal set this year?

At the 2007 Toronto Cycling Consultation Session held on July 26, 2007 there was a display listing the cycling projects planned for 2007. This included bike lanes, off-street paths and streets with sharrows. I have pulled from that list the bike lane projects and listed them below along with the date they were approved. I got this information from scanning through the City Council Committee decision documents. (I am just focusing on the bike lanes in this post. The total distance for these bike lane projects is 38.7 km.) There is no one place to track this on the City web site so I hope I have them all. If you see an error or omission send me an e-mail. I have also indicated the installation date of the bike lane if it was completed. So far I have only heard of the two that I have mentioned. Again if you have heard of others pass it on and I can update the list.

In order to get the bike lane projects installed the projects first have to be approved by Council. So far this year 12 projects have been approved for a total distance of 13 km. Council still has to approve another 14 km to have 27 km ready to paint and they are running out of time.

Bike lanes have to be approved either by one of the Community Councils (Toronto East York, Etobicoke York, Scarborough or North York) or by the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee. The Community Councils met today, October 2, 2007, but none of them had bike lane reports on their agendas. There are only two more opportunities for bike lane proposals to go to these committees this year. The Community Councils will meet on Oct 30, 2007 and November 27, and the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee will meet on Oct 31 and November 28. Once those reports are approved at the Committee stage some may have to be approved at a subsequent Council meeting. It seems that there won't be enough time to get the 27 km on the ground before construction season ends, but it would be a symbolic milestone if the 27 km of bicycle lanes promised could be approved before the end of the year so installation of the new bike lanes could start in the spring as soon as the snow melts. Getting these out of the way would clear the agendas for the approvals of the 2008 bicycle lane projects which will have to total far more than 27 km if the Mayor's stated goal of completing the Bikeway Network by 2012 is to be achieved.

Again if you have any updates to add to the chart pass it on.

Martin Koob
info@biketoronto.ca