Toronto residents divided over proposed bike route in Parkdale  – NOW Toronto

Parkdale residents are at odds over a proposed bike route as the city aims to improve road safety and reduce local traffic. 

The route, stretching from The Queensway to Brock Avenue, is meant to connect a gap in the cycling network and improve cycling access to destinations like High Park, St. Joseph’s Health Centre, retail shopping, transit and schools. 

While the proposal seems sound, many who live or frequent the neighbourhood are worried about what adding bike lanes is going to do for the heavily congested area, which might end up ultimately funnelling traffic into school zones. 

“Hundreds of kids and families cross at Fern/Sorauren every day,”  a Reddit user said. 

“We see the volume of traffic that comes in every day off Lansdowne onto Macdonell and Fern, it’s gotten exponentially worse in the last two years. The city has stated that the volume of traffic on Macdonell is currently unsafe for bikes yet they want to shift 100% of that traffic onto Fern, which already gets a large amount of traffic itself,”

In the past 10 years, there have been 227 reported collisions along the proposed route, eight in which have involved pedestrians and 12 have involved people cycling according to the city. 

“​​As a driver, cyclist, pedestrian, and resident of this neighbourhood, I say put that bike lane in,” another Reddit user chimed in . 

“How about we trust the experts and the studies that have been done, and prioritize creating safer ways to get around the city, rather than just asking for more studies and blocking any changes for the sake of some uninformed concerns of safety to the neighbourhood children.” 

The city held public consultation groups in the neighbourhood, hosting several meetings and events to get feedback on the bike route from October 2023 until this past March. In a survey, where nearly 1,100 participants responded, when asked their thoughts on if the changes in West Parkdale would improve road safety and comfort, 57 per cent agreed, three per cent were neutral, and 40 per cent disagreed. 

Reasons for the majority agreeing included that these changes are long overdue, safe cycling encourages more people to cycle and the inconveniences to drivers are minimal, according to the consultation report. 

Naysayers cited the changes being confusing, inconvenient for drivers, the neighbourhood not having enough cyclists and that funds can be allocated to other city projects.

Councillor Gord Perks, who represents Parkdale-High Park, says the project is necessary to give cyclists a good network of bike paths. 

“A lot of people who want to be using bikes to take shorter trips aren’t going to do it if there are big holes in the network. Same as transit or cars. If we had no connection between the street you lived on and where you worked in the road network, you wouldn’t drive,” Perks told Now Toronto on Friday. 

“With the population of the city growing 50,000 people a year on average, and no new roads, the only way you can move people is to use your road space more efficiently,” he said. 

Perks says this initiative further extends Toronto’s Vision Zero Road Safety Plan, in which the city’s goal is to eliminate traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries while also committing to reducing climate change.  

“We should have a transportation network that doesn’t kill people on our streets,”  Perks said. 

“We are also committed as a city to becoming net zero in terms of our climate change emissions. And that means we have to transition people to greener forms of transportation, like bikes.” The staff report goes in front of the city council at the end of June. If the project is approved, bike lanes will be installed as early as August.