More motorcycle-friendly Toronto on way
Council looking over several measures to ease restrictions on bikes in Canada’s largest city
Toronto’s city council is looking over several measures that would make the provincial capital more friendly to motorcycle users, including legalizing “filtering,” the practice of riding motorcycles between stopped cars at an intersection.
Council recently requested the general manager of the city’s transportation services to review proposals to allow motorcycles to use reserved access lanes in the city’s downtown core and expand the number of motorcycle parking only zones, Canada MotoGuide quotes the Riders Training Institute as saying.
It also asked for a review of whether motorcycle filtering should be made legal. Apparently letting riders squeeze between cars to the front of the line while they’re stopped at an intersection may improve the flow of traffic and lower the risk of bikes getting into collisions.
Filtering differs from lane splitting, the practice of riding motorcycles between lanes of traffic while they’re in motion.
Both motorcycle filtering and lane splitting are widely legal around the world, except in Canada and most American states. (Lane splitting was made legal in California in 2016.)
While several states are feeling pressure to allow the practices, proposals for lane splitting or filtering have never got much traction in Canada.
The proposals in Toronto were put before city council in late June. The timeline for the review of the proposals was not clear.