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Extra, Extra: Buses, Bags, and Bailão on Bike Lanes

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Every weekday’s end, we collect just about everything you ought to care about or ought not miss.

  • Above: a rendering of the new articulated buses that are scheduled to start rolling down Toronto streets next fall. The TTC has ordered a total of 153 of the vehicles, which are 62 feet long.

  • City council confirmed this week that it will proceed with drafting a bylaw that prohibits single-use plastic bags. There are still some open questions, says the councillor who first proposed the ban—David Shiner (Ward 24, Willowdale)—and councillors will attempt to answer them via a public consultation. Interested Torontonians can make a deputation before the City’s Public Works and Infrastructure Committee on November 14; if you’re interested you can learn more about signing up here.
  • To the dismay of many of her constituents, earlier this week centrist councillor Ana Bailão (Ward 18, Davenport) voted against a move to save the Jarvis Street bike lane. Here is her attempt to address those concerns.

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Comments

  • http://valdodge.com/ Val Dodge

    So bike lanes belong on busy streets to protect cyclists, but don’t belong on Jarvis because it’s a busy street and dangerous for cyclists. Gotcha, councillor.

  • Anonymous

    About the new articulated buses. Wonder how many stubborn passengers will still board and egress through the front doors only. Even with Proof-Of-Payment (POP) and/or Presto, they will continue to slowdown everyone by using only one door. In addition, the front of the bus will be crowded while the back of the bus will have empty seats.

    • Anonymous

      Are the articulated buses getting Presto? When?

    • OgtheDim

      Funny but whenever I’m on the VIVA articulated, the amount of people who stay at the front is pretty low.

    • Anonymous

      It will largely depend on the presence of poles and other hand grips at the front of the bus. For the most part the new subway trains don’t have the door-blocking problem the older ones have because there aren’t many grips right at the doors. People get on and move in because they can’t stay there.

    • Anonymous

      The worst thing causing crowding at the front are the suv-size baby carriages. If you eliminate the grab bars at the front, you’re going to see a lot more people getting thrown to the floor by sudden braking and lurching.

      • Anonymous

        Until they learn they shouldn’t be standing there.

        There are no SUV-size strollers on the B-D line in morning rush hour but people still crowd the doors while, just five feet away, there’s enough room that people are reading newspapers and ballroom dancing.

        • Anonymous

          The B-D line? I guess you’re talking about the subway. I’m talking TTC buses. I haven’t really seen those kinds of issues on the subway, ever.

          • Anonymous

            You must not take the subway during rush hour very often. Door crowding is a twice-daily problem I’ve observed for years. But no matter the vehicle, as soon as people step aboard they tend to plant themselves as the first convenient grip and have to be prodded into moving any farther along. If you don’t prod and are content to stand next to them you start a blockage that results in people at the doors compressed into diamonds while a handful in the middle lounge about sipping mojitos.

          • Anonymous

            I haven’t seen that.

  • Anonymous

    Public consultation on plastic bags, but none for removing bike lanes. A city run on hearsay, the Mayor hears so it must be so.

    • City Boy at Heart

      He wasn’t even there for the vote!! Go figure.