Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
In a recent jaunt to London (England), Torontoist saw colours on the road. No, these weren't hallucinations brought on by too much ale at the local pub. The colours were those of lanes on the street: red for public transit vehicles and green for bikes. (And in case you're wondering, bikes can use the public transit lanes.) The message? If you're in a car, stay out of them.
Toronto already has bike and transit lanes, but they're relatively rare. And as any TTC rider or cyclist can tell you, cars don't always seem to obey them and the police don't always seem to enforce them.
Contrast that to London, where cars are happy—even if that's not entirely the right word—to remain stuck in long traffic queues while buses and bikes whip past.
Naturally, colouring our existing lanes isn't the final answer. Our city needs more dedicated bike and transit lanes (like the Tooker) and better enforcement of the lanes that already exist. And in an ideal scenario, we'd build physical barriers between these lanes and cars in order to further improve safety.
But colours are a start. In the same way that a crosswalk with flashing lights is better than a crosswalk without them, a coloured transit or bike lane is better than one in boring old black or grey asphalt. From the psychological standpoint of a car driver, straying into a coloured lane just seems so much worse.
Photo by Robin Rix
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
"See? Billy Idol gets it"
Just yesterday at Bay and Dundas a cyclistist was getting a ticket from 2 cops while the bus/bike lanes were full of single passenger cars and motorists were blocking crosswalks.
Is this a photoshop interpretation of a London bike lane? The idea is great and all, but are the bikes really all free-hand drawing looking? Or is this some crazy stencil technique I know nothing about?
Toronto is terrible for bikes. Plain and simple. Cabs are bullies and everyone is so pissed off getting stuck behind street cars that I'm shocked there isn't a death a day on the streets here. I mean in Queen West alone there could be an epidemic of beautiful girls in American Apparel dresses being run down... although maybe that would keep my neck from craning like crazy while I'm driving.
"Is this a photoshop interpretation of a London bike lane?"
The photo was taken in the Clerkenwell neighbourhood of London. It has been cropped but is not otherwise altered.
I was heading east by car on Danforth past Broadview yesterday around 5pm ish--it was like some kind of mondo bizarro traffic world. I really thought for a moment it was Friday and I had run into a Critical Mass gathering. Bikers were drifting across the street any which way--no signaling--just do the diagonal cut across. They were also using the no standing 4p-6p) parking lane--but then again drifting into the car used inside lane. I don't mind giving up the parking lane, there were so many bikes it really made sense, but geez LOOKOUT where you are going, I am moving right next to you in a ton of steel.
I feel like this post could become an allegorical play about black segregation. Seriously, read it over...
I think the bicyclists need to get over their superiority complex and the drivers need to get over their power trip and they both need to start obeying the traffic rules.
And I think lanes in general should be coloured. It sure would be handy if your one-way streets were marked with something ominous...like houndstooth pattern!
And in an ideal scenario, we'd build physical barriers between these lanes and cars in order to further improve safety.
There is nothing ideal about this "solution". It creates far more problems than it solves. One big thing is cars turning right in front of you: without the silly barriers it's easy enough for all road users to adjust their positions logically, but with barriers, cars will be turning across your path. Cyclists will be greatly impeded by these barriers due to the right turning traffic, the inability to make a proper left turn, the inability to pass slow-moving cyclists ahead... It would be truly horrendous. It's no coincidence that New York's attempt a while back to install physical barriers to mark bike lanes was a profound failure leading to removal of said barriers. Cyclists were just ignoring those lanes because they were inconvenient and dangerous.
There is nothing ideal about this "solution".
This might be an issue on which reasonable cyclists can disagree. Personally, I prefer a physical separation from cars, which reduces the risks of getting sideswiped or ramming into a door opened in front of you. And the way in which intersections are currently designed doesn't fill me with much confidence either.
But at the end of the day, I suspect that we both agree on the larger issue that Toronto needs to be made better for cycling and public transit.