City staff backs Bloor bike lanes
Report says pilot project increased cycling rates, minimized negative effects on other road users
City transportation staff are recommending that council make the pilot project of separated bike lanes on Bloor St. permanent, paving the way for what would be a huge victory for Toronto’s cycling advocates.
A highly anticipated report released Wednesday morning determined that the lanes have achieved the key objectives of improving safety on the corridor, dramatically increasing cycling rates, and minimizing negative effects on other road users.
At a press conference at city hall, local councillors Mike Layton and Joe Cressy said the report shows the pilot project has been a success, and should put to rest the debate over whether bike lanes can work on a busy downtown street.
“For too long, bike lanes in the city have been seen as a divisive issue. It’s been seen as a debate between bikes and cars. Not anymore,” said Cressy, who along with Layton has been a vocal proponent of the project.
Mayor John Tory, speaking at a SmartTrack event, said the study indicates the Bloor lanes have had an overall “positive impact,” and announced he would throw his support behind making them permanent.
“And, so, I will support the staff recommendation to keep the bike lanes, with continued improvements to be made to safety, street design and practical improvements for local businesses,” he said.
Council approved the bike lanes on a trial basis last May, following decades of advocacy from the city’s cycling community. They were installed along a 2.4-kilometre stretch of Bloor St. between Avenue Rd. and Shaw St. in August 2016, at a cost of $500,000.
To measure its progress, city staff launched what they described as the “most comprehensive performance evaluation undertaken for a cycling project in the city of Toronto,” and the resulting report contains a wealth of data.
It determined that within a year of being installed, the lanes were the second busiest cycling facility in the city. Cycling on Bloor increased by 49 per cent to an average of 4,925 riders per day, with roughly 25 per cent of the increased ridership representing new cyclists. The rest diverted from other routes. Preliminary road safety data suggested collision rates dropped, and conflicts between bikes and motorized vehicles decreased by 61 per cent.
Although the lanes initially caused significant delays for drivers, modifications transportation staff made to signal timing cut the increased travel times in half, the report found. Data collected in June showed during the afternoon rush hour, drivers faced delays of four minutes and 15 seconds, compared to the eight minutes and 30 seconds recorded shortly after the lanes were installed.
The bike lanes necessitated the removal of 136 on-street parking spots, which some local business complained hurt their sales. The report found no negative economic impacts, however.
In a survey, local merchants actually reported a growth in the number of customers. Payment activity collected from Moneris, a credit- and debit-card processing company, indicated total spending in the pilot area increased more than in the sur- rounding neighbourhood.
The lanes also did well in a poll which found 74 per cent of residents backed the project. Among respondents who drive and don’t cycle, 57 per cent opposed the lanes.
City staff concluded the “pilot project has demonstrated that a cycling facility can be successfully implemented on one of the busiest and most constrained sections of Bloor St.,” and council should consider extending them the length of the BloorDanforth corridor.
Jared Kolb, executive director of advocacy group Cycle Toronto, predicted the positive results on Bloor would make it easier to install bike lanes in other parts of the city.
“This really was a test case,” he said. “To see it working like this here, I think it helps to pave the way for an expansion of the cycling network on other streets.”
David Harrison, chair of the Annex Residents’ Association, called on the city to make the lanes permanent.
“The staff report shows the pilot bike lanes have decreased conflict between bike riders and motorists,” he said in a statement. With files from David Rider