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Cycling in Toronto, Summer 2011

July 22, 2011 / posted in Cycling / No Comments

As an avid cyclist in Toronto, I have to say that this has been one of the more difficult summers I can imagine in terms of getting around the city. Summer is the season for construction, that is never an issue, Torontonians have the old joke ‘Toronto has two seasons, winter and construction’ which is a total dad-joke but also completely true. I thought I’d map out the multiple complexities of getting from the Junction to my regular office areas, to show how cyclists who attempt to fo

Here is an example of my daily commute.

    Annette Bike Lane

I start by heading east on Annette St around High Park. It’s a nice little strip of bike lane that gets you safely across the dreaded corner of Dundas West and Annette that used to give me a heart attack, but I now navigate with ease. My major contention with this bike lane is that there are tons of churches ON Annette St that completely disregard the lane and park, PARK, all hours of the day, whenever. Ugh.

    West Toronto Rail Path

I join this delightful cruise down a tiny portion of the way just east of Dundas West and north of Dupont, it ends at Dundas West just west of Lansdowne and then I continue my journey. The railpath is the loveliest of the bike trails/multi-use walks throuh the city, it is rather short and hopefully recent go/cn development will continue that path down to King and Strachan, if I live here that long (or even LIVE that long!) So it’s a good ride, but doesn’t even get me to the downtown-west end.

From there I have two options, depending on the construction du jour. (This is like a Choose Your Own Adventure btw, but on bike.)

    Dundas West

The most straightforward of routes for me to take is just left off of the bike path for a straight zip across Dundas, but as most Torontonians know, this summer it’s been dug up since late spring from Bathurst to Lansdowne, construction also blocking off Ossington and other side streets making it a tiny sliver of traffic (sometimes not even two way) that is full of drivers who DESPITE THE MASSIVE WARNINGS, drive down it and ride the horn behind me as I sweat to keep my lane. I avoid this route at all costs.

    College St

This route has some difficulties. First and foremost, to get to College I need to take a left into traffic to get on Dundas, and then another left a mere few hundred metres to cross TWO merging lanes to College. I must admit, I usually walk or coast my bike on the sidewalk on the southside, then enter the side-street and take a much safer left. Then it’s mostly smooth sailing until Little Italy when cars, cyclists and pedestrians lose their minds and put their lives at risk on a daily basis. Then between Bathurst and University, be prepared for cabbies and cars to consistently zip in front of you with no warning to pick up fares IN THE BIKE LANE or park. Be extra cautious.

From there it depends on which work I’m going to.

    University

A seemingly straight zip down can be dangerous depending on the number of business-people and cabs and delivery trucks. A keen eye at all times as people pull amazing u-turns and stunts on this 6 lane high-way with divider. Usually not as big a problem as other major north/south routes but highly busy.

or

    Jarvis

This bike lane has really improved my commute since it’s creation. I used to take up a whole lane when this was a 5-lane mini-highway because the speed of the cars was phenomenal. It gets a bit claustrophobic when it peters out south of Queen however, so I usually take a left onto Queen and then head down Sherbournes crotch-ripping pothole bike-lane for my last few mere blocks.

I’m recording this for posterity and to explain for non-cyclists just how much of my day is spent calculating the odds of injury and least risk. In a car you’re more likely to only think about speed, speed, speed and potential for grid-lock, on a bike you’re thinking about getting across the city efficiently but also as safely as possible. With the potential removal of bike lanes on Annette, the few that are left on Dupont and the entirety of Jarvis, the decisions we make are going to be harder and more dangerous.

The city needs an active bike plan that addresses us as valued members of the city. We are students, employees, bosses, managers, parents, children, tax-payers and citizens, I think a bike plan that allows SHARED ROAD SPACE shouldn’t be that difficult to arrange, cars are just pieces of metal with people in it, many drivers also cycle and vice versa, why are we allowing ideology to control the way we use our roads?

Thanks for reading, please share and comment. I want to hear more voices.

Image 1: West Toronto Rail Path Website
Image 2: Newsodrome – Tino Reis

Yet Another Cyclist Rant

August 28, 2007 / posted in Cycling / No Comments

I’ve been biking heavily in Toronto for over 2 years now on two different bikes. Luckily enough, the only time I’ve actually been injured and not just frightened witless, was recently and due to the unlucky combination of bicycle tires and dusty streetcar tracks.

A few weeks ago, in the most unfortunate locale of Dundas and Sherbourne, I took quite a spill which left me crumpled, embarrassed, bleeding and scuffed up. Luckily I was riding with my boyfriend who hoisted not only my bike off of me, but me off of the road as I was in the way of quite aggressive Dundas traffic. (Not to mention the sketchy looking dudes who were playing a game of knifey-stabby while I was still brushing the gravel from my wounds.)

Now this was just two weeks ago and I was rather lucky in that all I have to show for it is some healing wounds and a bruised left elbow (not broken, although I did have a tetanus shot and an x-ray just to be safe.) But other than a heightened distaste for crossing streetcar tracks at less than 90 degree angles, I was unharmed.

Unfortunately, this is to say nothing of the dangers that Toronto drivers inflict on me daily.

Yesterday marked the day where I was caught in an aggressive-parking/right hand turning snafu by not one, but TWO drivers in a mere 6 hour time-span. Both were overly aggressive drivers attempting to make a speedy right into a parking spot on College street, without signaling, and basically flinging me directly into the path of their wheels and the parked cars beside me, while the other was an Ambassador Taxi who decided to take an impromptu right turn to avoid Bloor Street traffic.

Similarities in both these incidents? I yelled to let them know they were endangering me, and had BOTH of them yell back at me. I’ve had these situations occur where I am in somebody’s blind spot and they turn, and once I scream at them they frantically hit the brakes/wave me off/look completely stricken, but these two were nothing like that. They both KNEW I was there. I was shocked the first time it happened yesterday, (right in front of a cop car dont’cha know) but then stricken the second time it happened that day.

This is all coming off of the tail of a debate in the National Post about cyclists on the roads which can be followed first here then followed up here and here all of which, I think, fail to address the major issue is that while cyclists follow rules or not (in both these instances, there was nothing I could have been doing in ANY WAY that would not have been following the letter of the law) many drivers do NOT respect us, or our lives, on the roads. This frustrates me and aggravates me and leaves me bitter on my commute now to work, across the same strip of Bloor street I almost got mangled on yesterday.

Passive-Aggressive Cyclist Story #1

July 10, 2007 / posted in Cycling / 1 Comment

Today was an interesting day for biking in several ways, I was terrified this morning when I was pinched by a car parked WAYYYY too far out of it’s lane, opposite a giant school-bus that was slowly overtaking me. Then later in the afternoon, a car sped by me so fast and so crazily close (while I was comfortably riding along the curb a good distance) that he broke his passenger side mirror by CLIPPING MY HANDLEBAR.

However, nothing made me think longer than my final ride home.

I was coming back from Dundas Square and had gone a few blocks when I realized in my Woody Allen-daze and cheerful state, I had forgotten to put my lights on. So, pulling up to the sidewalk, I affixed them and made my way back to the road. This was my first “mistake.” A girl was coming towards me in the lane, but I couldn’t see her as it was 11pm, on a non-entirely-bright street, and she had no headlight, so she spooked me and I spooked her as I came in behind her. But we rode smoothly so I figured that was that.

Not quite so.

She turned out to be one of THOSE cyclists. You know what I mean. The cyclist with a bad day, with a temper or a passive-aggressive streak of words coming out of their mouths. She was dinging cars that were yielding to signs, and getting furious for pedestrians who were, despite jaywalking, several yards away from her anyway, continuing to insist they better “Watch where they are going or they are going to get run over” an entire intersection away from where this person was crossing. Basically it seemed she was looking for a way to bell somebody or yell at them, for any perceived infraction.

I figured it would be best not to pass this girl.

All was well until we hit an intersection with a long light, and a car turning right in the right hand lane. Naturally as you try to pass to the left of a car that’s turning right, I aligned myself to do just that. She however, took a strange diagonal/horizontal stretch behind this car, perhaps she didn’t realize it was a right-turning vehicle and didn’t want to back up? I still don’t quite know even NOW. But I had no idea what she was doing, my visual cues were this.

1. She was mad at everything.
2. As she was without a headlight and didn’t seem the type to signal, I assumed she was trying to re-align her bike to kitty-cross the intersection at a strange angle.

It didn’t help that when the light turned, and the car got ready to go right, she just stood there. I had given her space to either kitty cross, or get ahead of me and go around the vehicle. After some pause where I wasn’t sure what she was doing, I decided to go around her and ahead, as I did so, she scoffed, “NICE MANNERS!” to which I was really confused! I put to pedaling as fast as I could, just to get a good deal ahead of this girl, and to figure out why I was so upset with her actions.

Then it came to me, communication. She was quite fond of telling people what she was upset at and what they were doing wrong, but failing to alert people to what SHE was doing, which gives people clues to react to. And oddly enough, this is what I feel I have been lacking lately. I felt guilty, that I had been her on my bike before, when I realized that it wasn’t true. I felt more like her in my day to day interactions, which would explain why I act just like her. The contrast is, that I signal, I alert people to my presence, I’m aware of other cyclists and motorists, and despite all my positive action, I still yell at cars. The street is a great place to get frustration out because the conflict only lasts a minute, then you can drive or speed away before any reaction could even be expressed.

I still can’t decide if I should have apologized to this girl for mistaking her pause for allowing me through, and adding to her particularly ‘difficult’ day, but I am slightly relieved to know, that unfortunately, my apology wouldn’t have mattered to her.