Why I voted to kill Jarvis bike lanes: Parker

A memo from Councillor John Parker to the residents of Ward 26, Don Valley West.

From: John Parker

Toronto City Councillor

Ward 26 - Don Valley West

Toronto is a large and growing city. As bad as our gridlock problems are at present, they can only be expected to become more challenging in the future. We cannot grow enough roads to accommodate every new resident in a private car; alternative means of mobility will be required. Included among these measures will be increased use of rapid transit for long trips and bicycles for short ones.

To be fair, it is important also that we make the most of the motor vehicle carrying capacity that our roads can provide. And there will always be a robust debate between competing modal priorities and other considerations as investments of scarce land area and taxpayer dollars come under consideration.

Bike lanes provide a logical way to accommodate bicycles and cars on the same roadways. If well thought out and implemented, bike lanes can serve the interests of both cyclists and motorists, keeping each out of the way of the other. The value and importance of establishing a responsible bike lane network in Toronto is beyond debate.

Since 2001 the city of Toronto has had a comprehensive bike plan that envisions a network of bike lanes throughout the downtown area. It was drawn up after widespread consultation and was prepared by the city's transportation services department together with Marshall Macklin Monaghan, one of Canada's leading engineering firms.

The plan includes bike lanes on Sherbourne. It does not include bike lanes on Jarvis. Sherbourne is about one block to the west of Jarvis. Bike lanes have been implemented on Sherbourne and they provide ample capacity for bike traffic.

In the last council session a plan was drawn up to make improvements to the Jarvis Street corridor. It featured the removal of the centre lane (reducing Jarvis from five lanes to four) and measures aimed at enhancing the streetscape with generous landscaping and other humanizing elements along widened sidewalks.

A debate ensued between those who favoured the efforts to rescue Jarvis from its status as an unsightly traffic corridor and those who favoured retaining the valued fifth traffic lane.

Somehow, close to the end of the process, the decision was made to abandon both the fifth lane and the plan to improve the Jarvis streetscape, and instead to implement bike lanes. The decision to implement the bike lanes was then expedited and the bike lanes were installed in short order.

At last week's meeting of the City of Toronto Public Works and Infrastructure Committee the matter of bike lanes was the main item on the agenda. The key proposal included a number of measures to intended to improve elements of the existing bike plan - in many cases proposing "separated" bike lanes to provide greater safety for cyclists, as has been done in other cities. The proposal included separated bike lanes for Sherbourne.

I voted in favour of these proposals, and they were approved.

In the course of the day I brought forward two motions. One was to ask staff to consider establishing a bike path as an extension to Redway Road near Thorncliffe and Leaside in order to provide a link between Millwood Road and Bayview. The other was to reverse the earlier decision concerning Jarvis Street. Both motions passed and will proceed to consideration by the full Council.

Some have suggested that my Jarvis motion was a step backward for the cause of bike lanes. It was not. It was a recognition that the bike lanes on Jarvis are redundant. It also creates the potential for a return to the earlier discussion regarding Jarvis, a discussion that got started in the last council session but somehow got sidetracked.

This memo was sent out to Ward 26 residents who subscribe to Councillor John Parker's e-news newsletter. 

Comments

[James]

I guess Jarvis street is redundant for motor vehicles too since there are already motor vehicle lanes on Sherbourne, which Parker seems to think is "to the west of Jarvis".

[Cavendish]

Mr. Parker, a suburban councillor, and someone who, I assume, is unfamiliar with urban cycling, must remember that the elimination of bike lanes on Jarvis will not eliminate bikes. The cyclists will continue to use the roadway, only with greater peril for both themselves and motorists. I urge all Toronto cyclists to contact both the Mayor and all councillors to voice their support for the continuation of the Jarvis cycling lane. As studies have shown, cycling has increased dramatically on the street, with barely any impact on vehicular traffic on the street.

[Derek Cow]

The fact that he doesn't even know where Jarvis is relative to Sherbourne means that he has no defense for his stance on Jarvis bike lanes.
I love how this was not brought up with the Ward 27 councillor AT ALL and earlier today we had a note from Cllr. Palacio about how St. Clair was still screwed and he said "I'm the local councillor, they have to listen to me, not City Hall". Too bad that only counts when you're a suburban councillor.

When can we de-amalgamate?

[Stan Corrected]

In what way are the bike lanes on Jarvis "redundant" if people use them?
One can only hope that the good World Citizen Parker is not taking a parochial view and doesn't want his semi-surburban constituents' self-entitled air-conditioned arses to be sat in their two ton emission-spewing environmental disasters for even two minutes longer than they have to, when traipsing to and from the downtown core. We people who actually live in the affected area should at least be grateful for that.

[lukev]

If he's so hot on the 2001 bike plan, why did he vote to remove Pharmacy Avenue bike lanes? They were included in the plan...

[Scun Yun]

Bicycles, and increasingly of late, tricycles, have been used as viable mid-distance transport vehicles, carrying both people and our goods, on TORONTO's streets for more than a century.

The sad fact remains however, that over the years, a glut of over-large, over-powerful, highway-designed vehicles have grid-locked our most congested urban neighbourhoods - all day, every day, and now often into the night.

Anyone who suggests that marginalizing the use of much more efficient and sustainable options by confining them to a single "safer" rectangle of separated bike lanes in the downtown core - and meandering suburban river valleys - simply doesn't understand how this city moves.

All destination-rich main arteries in TORONTO must be made more safely cycle-accessible, not just the few arbitrary "crumbs" deemed an acceptable bother to those among us whose view of our city's streets is framed solely by their windshields.

Theirs is a contrived, distorted, often tinted perspective that is quite simply falsehood. They drive-by real life in the heart of TORONTO. They aren't engaged in it.

Nothing Councilor Parker and his confederates propose will ease the motor-vehicular snarl that chokes this city. Members of the Ford Nation should have plenty of time to ponder such as they sit in their stationary cars and trucks on our already bike-prohibited urban freeways over the next three and a half years.

And any responsibly mobile citizen injured riding on any local streets where more reasonably safe infrastructure has been REMOVED, will know just where to point their lawyers.

It could end up costing us taxpayers a lot more than a can of black paint, eh?

[Mike]

If Councillor Parker thought his motion to delete the Jarvis bike lanes was so obviously wise and democratically sound, why did he wait until the very end of the day (after the public had their chance to speak) to introduce it? And not let the local Councillor know about it until the last possible minute? And then vote against having any public consultation about it?