It’s time bike lanes were put everywhere

Welcome to our fourth annual Bicycle Issue, in which we examine topics of interest to cyclists and motorists alike.

We share the road with each other and there has to be mutual respect and understanding in order for that to work. Too often, it doesn’t.

Near where I live, a man riding a bicycle was struck and killed by a truck last summer. The road where this happened is four lanes wide but it’s a narrow four lanes — not a lot of room for either the cyclist or the truck driver to manoeuvre.

It doesn’t matter, however, if the number is 1, 3 or 100; one death on a road involving a cyclist and a driver is one too many. It’s time that something was done about it.

Many municipalities, including the city of Toronto, are building marked bicycle lanes on some roadways. It’s a good start — but it’s not enough.

It’s time to stop the talking, the debating and the arguing and to do something daring. It’s time for every municipality in the GTA, within reason, to create bike lanes on every street and road. Why? Because never mind the deaths and injuries, it’s a war out there.

Our lead story today talks about the startling number of “doorings” that happen in Toronto every year. I witnessed a friend of mine cycling to work this past winter who was nearly hit by a taxicab whose driver pulled out in front of him without looking.

So as well as painting lines on the road, these bike lanes I’m talking about should be segregated, either by built-in pylons or a concrete curb like the lanes recently opened on Queens Quay in downtown Toronto.

Although anything that involves change is difficult in the beginning, repetition breeds success. Witness the never-ending traffic jams when the reconstruction of the Gardiner Expressway was taking place. Unbelievable in the beginning, drivers eventually learned how to cope. Same with the temporary HOV lanes imposed for the Pan Am Games: chaos the first couple of days and then acceptance and adaptation.

Which is the way it would be, I’m convinced, with all-out bike lanes. Yes, there are some roads where there shouldn’t be any — Lake Shore Blvd. in downtown Toronto is one, Jarvis St. is another — but other than those few exceptions (and there could be others), I know my fellow drivers would be accepting.

Maybe not in the beginning, but eventually.

Why? Because designated bike lanes work both ways. They would make things safer for motorists as well as cyclists. I say this as someone whose heart is in my throat every time I have to pass one. When there is a designated bike lane, I’m comfortable that they’ll be in it; if there’s no lane, I never know where they might be.

Designated bike lanes work both ways. They would make things safer for motorists and cyclists

Of course, with designated lanes everywhere, cyclists would have to obey the rules of the road and police would have to enforce them. But that’s a column for another time.

Some will argue there aren’t enough cyclists to go to the expense and the bother. I say if there are segregated bike lanes that make cycling safer, more people will cycle.

People point to Montreal as being a haven for cyclists. True, but much of what was done in that city recently was as the result of a coroner’s criticism following an inquest into the death of a rider who was crushed by a tractor-trailer. Do we have to wait for something like that to happen here before acting?

With a little bit of paint and concrete and a whole lot of imagination, Toronto and the other GTA municipalities could become world leaders in the almost-universal application of bike lanes. We like to tell everybody that we’re world-class around here. Let’s prove it.