I would suggest in addition to tolls you also need really good transit. Every person you see sitting on the bus or tram is one less car in traffic. Transit should be built with the idea that it will be the best way to get somewhere instead of a form of transportation for people who can't afford a car.
To add, if I may, to the bike lane haters: I'm a commuter cyclist (and, yes, pedestrian, transit rider, and driver -- any way to get to work) who for years was ambivalent about bike lanes. I believed road users could find ways to share the road safely. I don't think that any more. In the 21 years I've commuted by bike and by car, the roads have become vastly more hazardous, and not only because the roads are more congested. Drivers are distracted (cellphones, mainly), impaired, angry, and just generally more uncivil (the decline in use of turn signals -- one of the most basic forms of driver civility -- is telling) -- kind of like our society as a whole.
I know evidence has taken a back-seat to ideological shouting in the last bunch of years, but meta-studies of collision investigation data show reliably that drivers are usually at fault when cyclists and pedestrians are injured or killed (speeding, distraction, and unsafe turns are the major problems). There is also plenty of data showing that bike lanes do not meaningfully increase congestion -- whose major causes include on-street parking, roadwork, condo / commercial construction projects that close curbside lanes for months or years, poor traffic light signal timing, and ... other cars.
As for (untrue -- many bike lanes are as congested as the car lanes at rush hour) claims that bike lanes sit empty most of the time, have you seen sidewalks? Most stretches of sidewalk see only a few dozen people a day. But why do we have them? Because they are a basic form of safety built into road design by necessity.
Not anti-car. Just ... can we focus on fixing transit, and speeding up road-work that shuts down major arterials for months every year?
I live in downtown Edmonton, and reverse commute to my office in the NW. There's decent but fragmented bike lane infrastructure in the core and in some of the new suburbs, but there's a lack of separated bike lanes in the areas just outside of the core. The handful of times I've tried commuting on my bike during rush hour have resulted in several near death experiences each time. Even when in a separated, protected bike lane some idiot in a F-150 will find a way to try to kill me.
My brother and I talk about the quality of driving dropping off a cliff in the last 10 years. The stuff we see happening on the road on a regular basis is mind blowing. People driving the wrong way, turning in front of oncoming traffic, not yielding to pedestrians in marked/lit cross walks, stopping or slowing for no reason in the middle of a major arterial, not paying attention when stopped at an intersection, it goes on and on. Most of it seems to stem from distraction, but that can't be the only cause. Seems like the human race is regressing.
Since we’re talking about obvious good policy, that will be unpopular because people want magic solutions rather than practical ones, why not further?
By that I mean tolls that increase for greater vehicle size and weight. Larger and heavier vehicles take up more space, cause more damage to roads and are more dangerous to third parties.
A Ford F150 or an Acura MDX sounds pay much more because they cost the taxpayer more. Mazda 3 or Honda civic should pay less than the trucks.
A motorcycle should ride for much less possibly virtually free because they’re so small and light.
Full disclosure, I drive a 2012 MDX.
And yes, of course you need separated bike lanes and transit.
Great idea. I like tolling by weight as well. A wee story - when moving grain by rail shifted to moving grain by trucks in Saskatchewan, the province nearly went bankrupt trying to maintain these secondary roads that were now carrying much heavier loads than they were designed for. Weight really matters on roads; heavier vehicles = higher maintenance costs over time.
If Toronto had a reasonable alternative to driving, tolls might make sense. Me, I'm neutral on them. But with hour(s)-long system shutdowns on the TTC nearly every week, and with buses and streetcars caught in congestion (not to mention semi-regular GO stoppages), transit is as hellish as driving. If Toronto could fix transit (and for this it needs a major cash injection, as well as different or at least better transit leadership), then drivers who can might switch.
If tolls are really the key to our commuting salvation, why not start with a test case on, say... city bike lanes? What's good for the goose is certainly good for that two-wheeled gander.
Am I being serious? No. There's simply no money to be made.
Adding this commuting nuisance to city roads has done more to clog up traffic and build the frustration of drivers trying to navigate through these tightly conjested areas. The near empty status of these lanes during the winter months boggles the mind on how city planners could even suggest putting them in place with straight faces.
Their free ride on roads needs to come to an end. Time to look at viable solutions to the problem their presence has created...
At least temporarily, for the love of God, they're mostly unused. I know because as I am sitting parked on what used to be a road, I see almost no bicycles on them
The thing about a lot of transit being unused is that it’s largely unfinished. A road that would get you halfway to your destination, would also go unused, but it would be a bit ridiculous to say you’d better stop building roads because people aren’t using the half built ones.
Crucially, bike transportation has to be safe all the way from point A to point B before it will be properly used. (Not just for a photo op portion in the middle of a route.)
A painted line is not Infrastructure. A concrete barrier that will F up your truck BIG time and guaranteed stop it from ploughing into cyclists if you glance at your phone IS infrastructure.
A basic question to ask about a bike lane is this. Would you have your ten ride their bike on it twice a day?
If the answer is no, then it’s not Infrastructure.
I think bike transportation is one of those transit modes that's never going to really work in Canada because of our climate and the fact that our cities were built around cars.
We don't have the density of European cities, meaning most commutes are fairly long and there's relatively few people who can realistically bike to work. Hard-core cyclists will do it; some wealthy people who can afford to live close to their downtown offices will do it. It's not really a viable option for the service worker living out in the 'burbs and commuting downtown each day, or the family that needs to drop off kids at daycare and school on the way to the office.
The Canadian climate is also a formidable factor. The all-year cyclists I knew in Edmonton always said it wasn't a matter of *if* you were going to fall on an icy, snowy street, it was a matter of *when*. A longer commute exposed to sub-zero temperatures and the snow is a big deterrent. Even in Vancouver's mild climate, the bike lanes are distinctly empty during the rainier winter months. In a big of a cruel joke, Canada's mildest climate is in the middle of hilly terrain that adds a different challenge for cyclists.
People look to cycling in Europe, and think "that'd be great - why can't we be more like Amsterdam or Copenhagen?" The answer is pretty simple - Canadian cities aren't like either. They're not as dense, the climate isn't as favorable, and they're just often not that flat either.
By number, most trips made out of the home are under 5km. That's an eminently cyclable distance. In a fairly flat, grid-network city like Toronto, any one-way trip to work under 20 km is decently cyclable, and under about 12 km is easy-peasy for anyone with average fitness (like, er, non-athletic middle-aged me).
No rational person would say every trip is bikeable or should be biked. It's not an either-or situation. I assume people can agree, though, that more use of so-called alternate modes of transport (walking, cycling, transit) would be ideal.
As for winter, I think it's very much a matter of perception. Winter riding is much warmer (and faster) than standing waiting for a bus. In Toronto there are not usually all that many days when snow is actually falling, meaning the roads are usually pretty clear. For years I was a fair-weather winter cyclist, meaning I'd ride to work whenever it wasn't actually snowing. It wasn't a big deal, and a lot of the time I did so wearing a dress. I see more people riding through the winter these days as they realize how feasible it is.
The climate is definitely a barrier to cycling year-round in Canada. The biggest barrier to three-season cycling is incomplete infrastructure. I have five friends who regularly commute various distances and through different parts of Ottawa and they all have at least one part of their commute where there’s a gap between sets of bike infrastructure and they have to do something risky to complete their route. It seems like when the planning gets really tough, the commitment to cycling infrastructure stalls and a half-assed solution is left in place.
Then someone gets killed (Laurier and Elgin st.) or seriously hurt (someone in my company spent 6 months in rehab when they were hit by a distracted driver). Of course cycling infrastructure is underused. Nobody likes to risk their health on a path to nowhere, we have families to go home to.
I cycled through Copenhagen on a trip and the clear difference is that the infrastructure is complete and thorough. There are tons of cars and tons of cyclists and it all works well together. Everyone feels safe.
Given that bike transportation works year round in Finland, it clearly can work. Seriously, Finland is cold and gets plenty of snow.
The issue is snow clearing. If you don’t clear the bike path promptly people can’t (and won’t) use it. Most Canadians cities don’t clear that snow AT ALL. Those that do have it on the “wherever we get around to it” schedule. I have cycled in snowy weather. If the path is clear, it’s safe. (Unless you go Lycra man speeds I suppose). If it’s covered in snow? Well duh!!
Not clearing snow is a choice.
The other choice is what people want to do. Maybe no one wants to do it. But a fair number of us do winter sports and don’t like getting fat. Maybe it’s still not enough of us to clear the snow.
But not doing it is a choice, not a law of nature.
Still, when cities can’t even clear the SIDEWALKS of snow, perhaps clearing transportation corridors are too much to ask.
Toronto's current climate is not the imposition it was even 20 years ago. Toronto got only 18 inches of snow through the winter/spring of 2024. Toronto is closer than anyone thinks to being effectively snow free in winter.
Agreed! Bike lanes are like 15 minute cities: nice to conjecture about but impractical except in densely packed places with humane climates. Edmonton, Canada's most northern large city, spent untold millions building safe bike lanes which go mainly UNUSED summer or winter, which says loud and clear most residents do NOT buy in. Our frigid weather and freeze-thaw icing cycles in winter make biking terrifying so at best, bike lanes here are a nod to a small minority. Incidentally, I am an ex-cyclist and rode downtown from my far flung suburban neighborhood. However, age has caught up, as it will for all of you biking enthusiasts, so enjoy and use this expensive infrastructure while you can!
Like anything else, they do have their place in cities. I think they're called bike trails, in parks. There would be outrageous indignation, and rightfully so, if someone were to propose adding car lanes to these trails so those unable to ride bikes could enjoy these amenities too.
All good things in moderation. But that does not include bike lanes on busy roadways...
Good grief, that has to be the least sensible comment on transportation I’ve read in months.
We’re talking about transportation, not recreation.
A park doesn’t get you to work. It doesn’t get you to school. It doesn’t get you to a shop. Why not? Because it’s a PARK, not a a transportation corridor.
You might as well be pointing to a race track in your city and asking “why don’t the cars use that road to get where they going, why do they have to use the transportation corridors?!?”
Andrew, you missed my point entirely. If the tables were turned, one can imagine the outrage of cyclists over the intrusion of vehicles into their space - and justifiably so. Oil and water don't mix, in parks and on commuter roads.
Poor policies resulting in poor and sometimes dangerous outcomes. What next, pedestrian crossings on airport runways?
Bikes have their place - on trails separated from vehicular traffic...
You see , there’s your mistake. You think the roads are YOUR space for your car.
They are not. Roads are a TRANSPORTATION space of which cars are one form of transportation.
You are right that cars and bikes need to be separated. And I’m tempted to shout here, but that’s literally what bike lanes are and yet you just said we shouldn’t have any bike lanes. Again parks are no more transportation infrastructure for bikes than they could be for cars because they don’t connect all the places.
So that makes your proposal for tearing up all the bike lanes no different from an insistence that bikes shouldn’t be used for transportation.
Look, I own two bicycles and enjoy the many trails in my city. The experience of having investigated far too many vehicle/bike collisions - some fatal, most with serious, life altering injuries - served as a poignant reminder that there are places for bikes other than on commuter roadways.
Simply put, the two modes of travel do not mix, with cyclists always coming out on the losing end. And no amount of engineering will change that...
This comment seems to reflect a decades-dated perception of cycling as a leisure activity or sport. Most bikes on the road, however, are ridden by people traveling to work, or to shop and, these days, include an awful lot of delivery riders.
I've never been to Copenhagen or any of the northern cycling cities in Europe, but would guess that one reason cycling works so well there is because drivers aren't gunning riders into the gutter, like they do here.
Ditto for where I live in west end Toronto. On Bloor Street between Islington Avenue and Royal York Road, a stretch that includes the large bridge over Mimico Creek, there's now chronically a line of bumper to bumper traffic in both directions that's essentially just stalled there, each line in its single lane, while bike lanes sit unused. Emergency vehicles can't get through: there's no place for cars to pull over, not even into the bike lanes, which are screened off much of the way by metal poles.
I'm all for trying to make things safe for cyclists, but this new configuration makes zero sense from any point of view. Between Dundas Street in the north and the Queensway in the south, there's simply no way for vehicles coming into Toronto from Mississauga to get across Mimico Creek and the Humber River except via Bloor Street. Olivia Chow should rethink what's been done here and restore two-lane traffic each direction in this part of the city. Traffic congestion is bad enough without creating artificial bottlenecks, and public policy that's rooted in a categorical "bikes are good, cars are bad" dogma will inevitably result in absurdities like this one.
Well, Anonymous (having the bravery to come out from behind that cloak is apparently not one of your stronger suits), this ain't no campus or high school debating class. What you're participating in now is a sport of point and counterpoint.
If you have evidence to support your suggestion that cyclists and their lanes aren't the cause of or contribute to traffic congestion in cities, then bring it on.
My proof is in the pudding of having driven through these now restrictive areas - in a number of cities, both in Canada and abroad.
Unless bike lane users have to register for either a license or registration for a bike plate infrastructure devoted to bike riding is going to cost a fortune and divert fiscal resources from roads to bikes. Of course this will be wildly unpopular so….
Indeed. Again, this is why I pay good money for The Line. This piece is well written, fun, and on the nose. And yes, tolls. Pay per use, whatever that looks like.
When I visited Japan in 2005... they had a transponder system for ALL VEHICLES on the roads. You'd get a bill every month for kms driven, and pay that. You'd pay a monthly fee for the transponder. And all citizens would pay all the usual property, income, fuel and VAT taxes, some of which would be used for roads, which are a public good - how else do goods and services we all use get moved around? We all benefit from the roads. The trade off is a public transit system that is country wide and WORKS. What a concept.
Yes, people hate paying for something that was once free. I get it. But after the initial outcry, I think we'd appreciate an ease in congestion, but only if we had a public transportation system that worked properly, not just within our cities, but, imagine this Nirvana, BETWEEN THEM. Right now, if I want to travel, not by my own car, from my home in Ottawa to Toronto, my options are VIA Rail and air, oh, and ride sharing, somehow. The schedules are not always optimal, the cost can be prohibitive depending on my budget, it takes me a full day travel (by rail) and half a day (by plane), and 5-6 hours if I'm ride sharing in a car. In Japan, and many other places in this world, there are HIGH SPEED TRAINS that move people from place to place in a largely timly fashion. I've also used them in Italy, France, and Germany just in recent years. The intercity trains connect to public transit systems within cities that work pretty well. It's a coordinated system. A proven concept.
What I'm sugesting is that we push our governments to stop the window dressing governing that they do now, and actually put some time into fixing issues that truly matter in our daily lives. A comprehensive transportation plan that connects communities and supports public transit, effectively implemented, would be a start. The solutions are before us, built by many study groups and transportation/planning professionals. We just need to get started. Stop ragging the puck and get it done. And stop worrying about the public, they will come along if there's a vision that addresses our problems, and a real plan for implementation. We all want relief from ineffective governing, and congestion.
"... we push our governments to stop the window dressing governing that they do now, and actually put some time into fixing issues that truly matter in our daily lives."
I'd say that's pretty much impossible with today's election and media coverage priorities.
Which is why I support sortition. It's the only possible solution that isn't just the insanity of doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results
If I thought tolls would work, I would happily pay, pay anything, whatever it takes to ease this misery. But how many people could possibly be driving toronto roads during rush hour who don't absolutely have to?!? I suspect the vast, vast majority of commuters are, like me, driving out of necessity
I think you'd be surprised how much people discount the indirect costs of driving in congested traffic vs. a smaller direct cost in the form of a toll or fee. They can easily be burning an extra $10 of gas per day and taking an extra 30-60 minutes out of their life every day, and that'll mean less to them than a $10 fee.
When politicians do try road pricing, they're often tempted to "split the baby" and toll some routes while leaving a "free" alternative available in an attempt to mollify the public. When they do that, it doesn't work in any sense. BC's Lower Mainland did this when they replaced the old Port Mann Bridge across the Fraser River: they tolled the new expanded bridge, but left the even older Patullo Bridge as an untolled route. The result was massive traffic back-up and congestion on all of the routes leading up to the untolled crossing, with commuters apparently willing to spend an extra 30-60 minutes commuting in their cars rather than spend the $7 for a round-trip crossing of the new bridge.
Amazingly, a great deal of the traffic also consisted of commercial trucks, who should have a VERY good idea of the cost of an idling vehicle in terms of driver pay, fuel consumption, and reduced utilization. Still, the prospect of that direct cost seemed to have some psychological weight than the much greater cost of congestion. To me, that's a strong validation of the effectiveness of road pricing: an immediate hit to the pocket book is more effective at changing behavior than existing signals like long commutes in congested traffic.
I knew a fellow who presented a Ph.D. thesis on road pricing at the University of Toronto in 1971, so the idea is not exactly new, not even in Canada. It's now standard public economics, and has been implemented in many countries.
Here's a version that was discovered accidentally in 1972 by Yves Poisson, then public transportation manager for Quebec City. The City implemented a rather steep increase in its fares, to 25 cents. Amid the uproar, M. Poisson decided to reduce peak fares to 10 cents, citing the need for workers to use transit to get to work. The new lower peak fare worked so well that they attracted motorists from their cars to public transit, and somewhat reduced road congestion.
I've seen a similar argument used somewhere to make transit free for everyone all the time.
Which offends my accounting inclination to make users pay whenever possible, but this may be a good case for pragmatism over theory. The only foreseeable drawback question is, is there in fact enough transit capacity to handle the increase?
Novel solution. Bring immigration rates down to a level that we are able to keep pace with infrastructure. Or better yet, bring rates below that level for 10 years and proceed to actually catch up. Then set rates at a level that we can keep pace with. Same applies to schools, hospitals and homes.
They're called fuel tax, and they apply to all petroleum-fueled vehicles, with the added bonus that the more inefficient the vehicle (including heavier, i.e. harder on the road surface), the more you pay.
Of course, it's just like government to implement a tax when there's already a tax in place, instead of simply raising the rates on the existing tax, something that would raise a great deal more revenue given the vastly larger revenue base.
I’m also not a fan of unnecessary complexity. However, the fuel tax hike would affect everyone who drives, including rural folks. Tolls could be targeted at specific transit corridors that are suffering from congestion. Those funds could be directed to transit projects to expand capacity (build a new bridge, add light rail, whatever).
I haven't driven into downtown Toronto for 10+ years for the reasons mentioned. I take the GO train. Tolls would be a great idea; especially if Metrolinx, the most incompetent organisation Doug oversees could actually accomplish anything in a remotely of timely manner. As mentioned, the Eglinton Crosstown will be completely about three weeks after the world ends. Ditto all day two way GO service to Kitchener; promised for 15 years and decades away from reality despite the idiotic preaching's from Metrrolinx; "it's coming....right after the Leaf's win the Cup."
Like it or not, all these 3P partnerships are complete and total failures to build things in a timely manner within reach of their original budget. Don't get me started on the insanity of Doug's suggestion building a new line to Milton (all through land owned by his friends) because they can't work a deal with CP. They could start that service tomorrow, and one summer construction season would add sufficient track considering how few trains CP currently runs there.
Traffic in Toronto is a failure of leadership....going back to Mike Harris.
Scott: believe it or not Toronto and its myriad of problems are not anything that the rest of the universe is particularly concerned about. Nice local interest story though.
There is a toll on all roads which is a fuel tax. This is designed to pay for the roads and infrastructure but playing with it is a political loser since it a tax which is visible to the voter. Why are the 400 series roads different from any other paved, all weather roads? I tend to blame the budgeting process which tends to try and contain tax rates and let future liabilities build until they become massive ( like the Gardiner ). A don't think this a thing unique to the Ford government however as all cities tend to do the same thing.
Provincial politicians in Ontario don’t care about Toronto. They do care about the 905 voters because without their support they are in opposition. Kathleen Wynn came as close as any Premier to going for it.
In addition to tolls the province should make a deal for truckers to pay a flat fee to use the 407 and get them off the 401. Mandate night time only deliveries in the inner city.
I would suggest in addition to tolls you also need really good transit. Every person you see sitting on the bus or tram is one less car in traffic. Transit should be built with the idea that it will be the best way to get somewhere instead of a form of transportation for people who can't afford a car.
To add, if I may, to the bike lane haters: I'm a commuter cyclist (and, yes, pedestrian, transit rider, and driver -- any way to get to work) who for years was ambivalent about bike lanes. I believed road users could find ways to share the road safely. I don't think that any more. In the 21 years I've commuted by bike and by car, the roads have become vastly more hazardous, and not only because the roads are more congested. Drivers are distracted (cellphones, mainly), impaired, angry, and just generally more uncivil (the decline in use of turn signals -- one of the most basic forms of driver civility -- is telling) -- kind of like our society as a whole.
I know evidence has taken a back-seat to ideological shouting in the last bunch of years, but meta-studies of collision investigation data show reliably that drivers are usually at fault when cyclists and pedestrians are injured or killed (speeding, distraction, and unsafe turns are the major problems). There is also plenty of data showing that bike lanes do not meaningfully increase congestion -- whose major causes include on-street parking, roadwork, condo / commercial construction projects that close curbside lanes for months or years, poor traffic light signal timing, and ... other cars.
As for (untrue -- many bike lanes are as congested as the car lanes at rush hour) claims that bike lanes sit empty most of the time, have you seen sidewalks? Most stretches of sidewalk see only a few dozen people a day. But why do we have them? Because they are a basic form of safety built into road design by necessity.
Not anti-car. Just ... can we focus on fixing transit, and speeding up road-work that shuts down major arterials for months every year?
I live in downtown Edmonton, and reverse commute to my office in the NW. There's decent but fragmented bike lane infrastructure in the core and in some of the new suburbs, but there's a lack of separated bike lanes in the areas just outside of the core. The handful of times I've tried commuting on my bike during rush hour have resulted in several near death experiences each time. Even when in a separated, protected bike lane some idiot in a F-150 will find a way to try to kill me.
My brother and I talk about the quality of driving dropping off a cliff in the last 10 years. The stuff we see happening on the road on a regular basis is mind blowing. People driving the wrong way, turning in front of oncoming traffic, not yielding to pedestrians in marked/lit cross walks, stopping or slowing for no reason in the middle of a major arterial, not paying attention when stopped at an intersection, it goes on and on. Most of it seems to stem from distraction, but that can't be the only cause. Seems like the human race is regressing.
Since we’re talking about obvious good policy, that will be unpopular because people want magic solutions rather than practical ones, why not further?
By that I mean tolls that increase for greater vehicle size and weight. Larger and heavier vehicles take up more space, cause more damage to roads and are more dangerous to third parties.
A Ford F150 or an Acura MDX sounds pay much more because they cost the taxpayer more. Mazda 3 or Honda civic should pay less than the trucks.
A motorcycle should ride for much less possibly virtually free because they’re so small and light.
Full disclosure, I drive a 2012 MDX.
And yes, of course you need separated bike lanes and transit.
And yes that means electric vehicles will pay more than their gas equivalents. They weight more!
Fine by me. The goal is to reduce traffic of all kinds, not just internal combustion.
Great idea. I like tolling by weight as well. A wee story - when moving grain by rail shifted to moving grain by trucks in Saskatchewan, the province nearly went bankrupt trying to maintain these secondary roads that were now carrying much heavier loads than they were designed for. Weight really matters on roads; heavier vehicles = higher maintenance costs over time.
If Toronto had a reasonable alternative to driving, tolls might make sense. Me, I'm neutral on them. But with hour(s)-long system shutdowns on the TTC nearly every week, and with buses and streetcars caught in congestion (not to mention semi-regular GO stoppages), transit is as hellish as driving. If Toronto could fix transit (and for this it needs a major cash injection, as well as different or at least better transit leadership), then drivers who can might switch.
If tolls are really the key to our commuting salvation, why not start with a test case on, say... city bike lanes? What's good for the goose is certainly good for that two-wheeled gander.
Am I being serious? No. There's simply no money to be made.
Adding this commuting nuisance to city roads has done more to clog up traffic and build the frustration of drivers trying to navigate through these tightly conjested areas. The near empty status of these lanes during the winter months boggles the mind on how city planners could even suggest putting them in place with straight faces.
Their free ride on roads needs to come to an end. Time to look at viable solutions to the problem their presence has created...
At least temporarily, for the love of God, they're mostly unused. I know because as I am sitting parked on what used to be a road, I see almost no bicycles on them
The thing about a lot of transit being unused is that it’s largely unfinished. A road that would get you halfway to your destination, would also go unused, but it would be a bit ridiculous to say you’d better stop building roads because people aren’t using the half built ones.
Crucially, bike transportation has to be safe all the way from point A to point B before it will be properly used. (Not just for a photo op portion in the middle of a route.)
A painted line is not Infrastructure. A concrete barrier that will F up your truck BIG time and guaranteed stop it from ploughing into cyclists if you glance at your phone IS infrastructure.
A basic question to ask about a bike lane is this. Would you have your ten ride their bike on it twice a day?
If the answer is no, then it’s not Infrastructure.
I think bike transportation is one of those transit modes that's never going to really work in Canada because of our climate and the fact that our cities were built around cars.
We don't have the density of European cities, meaning most commutes are fairly long and there's relatively few people who can realistically bike to work. Hard-core cyclists will do it; some wealthy people who can afford to live close to their downtown offices will do it. It's not really a viable option for the service worker living out in the 'burbs and commuting downtown each day, or the family that needs to drop off kids at daycare and school on the way to the office.
The Canadian climate is also a formidable factor. The all-year cyclists I knew in Edmonton always said it wasn't a matter of *if* you were going to fall on an icy, snowy street, it was a matter of *when*. A longer commute exposed to sub-zero temperatures and the snow is a big deterrent. Even in Vancouver's mild climate, the bike lanes are distinctly empty during the rainier winter months. In a big of a cruel joke, Canada's mildest climate is in the middle of hilly terrain that adds a different challenge for cyclists.
People look to cycling in Europe, and think "that'd be great - why can't we be more like Amsterdam or Copenhagen?" The answer is pretty simple - Canadian cities aren't like either. They're not as dense, the climate isn't as favorable, and they're just often not that flat either.
By number, most trips made out of the home are under 5km. That's an eminently cyclable distance. In a fairly flat, grid-network city like Toronto, any one-way trip to work under 20 km is decently cyclable, and under about 12 km is easy-peasy for anyone with average fitness (like, er, non-athletic middle-aged me).
No rational person would say every trip is bikeable or should be biked. It's not an either-or situation. I assume people can agree, though, that more use of so-called alternate modes of transport (walking, cycling, transit) would be ideal.
As for winter, I think it's very much a matter of perception. Winter riding is much warmer (and faster) than standing waiting for a bus. In Toronto there are not usually all that many days when snow is actually falling, meaning the roads are usually pretty clear. For years I was a fair-weather winter cyclist, meaning I'd ride to work whenever it wasn't actually snowing. It wasn't a big deal, and a lot of the time I did so wearing a dress. I see more people riding through the winter these days as they realize how feasible it is.
The climate is definitely a barrier to cycling year-round in Canada. The biggest barrier to three-season cycling is incomplete infrastructure. I have five friends who regularly commute various distances and through different parts of Ottawa and they all have at least one part of their commute where there’s a gap between sets of bike infrastructure and they have to do something risky to complete their route. It seems like when the planning gets really tough, the commitment to cycling infrastructure stalls and a half-assed solution is left in place.
Then someone gets killed (Laurier and Elgin st.) or seriously hurt (someone in my company spent 6 months in rehab when they were hit by a distracted driver). Of course cycling infrastructure is underused. Nobody likes to risk their health on a path to nowhere, we have families to go home to.
I cycled through Copenhagen on a trip and the clear difference is that the infrastructure is complete and thorough. There are tons of cars and tons of cyclists and it all works well together. Everyone feels safe.
You can pack a lot of commuters on bike lanes.
Given that bike transportation works year round in Finland, it clearly can work. Seriously, Finland is cold and gets plenty of snow.
The issue is snow clearing. If you don’t clear the bike path promptly people can’t (and won’t) use it. Most Canadians cities don’t clear that snow AT ALL. Those that do have it on the “wherever we get around to it” schedule. I have cycled in snowy weather. If the path is clear, it’s safe. (Unless you go Lycra man speeds I suppose). If it’s covered in snow? Well duh!!
Not clearing snow is a choice.
The other choice is what people want to do. Maybe no one wants to do it. But a fair number of us do winter sports and don’t like getting fat. Maybe it’s still not enough of us to clear the snow.
But not doing it is a choice, not a law of nature.
Still, when cities can’t even clear the SIDEWALKS of snow, perhaps clearing transportation corridors are too much to ask.
Toronto's current climate is not the imposition it was even 20 years ago. Toronto got only 18 inches of snow through the winter/spring of 2024. Toronto is closer than anyone thinks to being effectively snow free in winter.
Agreed! Bike lanes are like 15 minute cities: nice to conjecture about but impractical except in densely packed places with humane climates. Edmonton, Canada's most northern large city, spent untold millions building safe bike lanes which go mainly UNUSED summer or winter, which says loud and clear most residents do NOT buy in. Our frigid weather and freeze-thaw icing cycles in winter make biking terrifying so at best, bike lanes here are a nod to a small minority. Incidentally, I am an ex-cyclist and rode downtown from my far flung suburban neighborhood. However, age has caught up, as it will for all of you biking enthusiasts, so enjoy and use this expensive infrastructure while you can!
Like anything else, they do have their place in cities. I think they're called bike trails, in parks. There would be outrageous indignation, and rightfully so, if someone were to propose adding car lanes to these trails so those unable to ride bikes could enjoy these amenities too.
All good things in moderation. But that does not include bike lanes on busy roadways...
Good grief, that has to be the least sensible comment on transportation I’ve read in months.
We’re talking about transportation, not recreation.
A park doesn’t get you to work. It doesn’t get you to school. It doesn’t get you to a shop. Why not? Because it’s a PARK, not a a transportation corridor.
You might as well be pointing to a race track in your city and asking “why don’t the cars use that road to get where they going, why do they have to use the transportation corridors?!?”
Andrew, you missed my point entirely. If the tables were turned, one can imagine the outrage of cyclists over the intrusion of vehicles into their space - and justifiably so. Oil and water don't mix, in parks and on commuter roads.
Poor policies resulting in poor and sometimes dangerous outcomes. What next, pedestrian crossings on airport runways?
Bikes have their place - on trails separated from vehicular traffic...
You see , there’s your mistake. You think the roads are YOUR space for your car.
They are not. Roads are a TRANSPORTATION space of which cars are one form of transportation.
You are right that cars and bikes need to be separated. And I’m tempted to shout here, but that’s literally what bike lanes are and yet you just said we shouldn’t have any bike lanes. Again parks are no more transportation infrastructure for bikes than they could be for cars because they don’t connect all the places.
So that makes your proposal for tearing up all the bike lanes no different from an insistence that bikes shouldn’t be used for transportation.
No need to yell, Andrew.
Look, I own two bicycles and enjoy the many trails in my city. The experience of having investigated far too many vehicle/bike collisions - some fatal, most with serious, life altering injuries - served as a poignant reminder that there are places for bikes other than on commuter roadways.
Simply put, the two modes of travel do not mix, with cyclists always coming out on the losing end. And no amount of engineering will change that...
This comment seems to reflect a decades-dated perception of cycling as a leisure activity or sport. Most bikes on the road, however, are ridden by people traveling to work, or to shop and, these days, include an awful lot of delivery riders.
I've never been to Copenhagen or any of the northern cycling cities in Europe, but would guess that one reason cycling works so well there is because drivers aren't gunning riders into the gutter, like they do here.
Ditto for where I live in west end Toronto. On Bloor Street between Islington Avenue and Royal York Road, a stretch that includes the large bridge over Mimico Creek, there's now chronically a line of bumper to bumper traffic in both directions that's essentially just stalled there, each line in its single lane, while bike lanes sit unused. Emergency vehicles can't get through: there's no place for cars to pull over, not even into the bike lanes, which are screened off much of the way by metal poles.
I'm all for trying to make things safe for cyclists, but this new configuration makes zero sense from any point of view. Between Dundas Street in the north and the Queensway in the south, there's simply no way for vehicles coming into Toronto from Mississauga to get across Mimico Creek and the Humber River except via Bloor Street. Olivia Chow should rethink what's been done here and restore two-lane traffic each direction in this part of the city. Traffic congestion is bad enough without creating artificial bottlenecks, and public policy that's rooted in a categorical "bikes are good, cars are bad" dogma will inevitably result in absurdities like this one.
Where is your evidence that bikes lanes are the cause of traffic?
Well, Anonymous (having the bravery to come out from behind that cloak is apparently not one of your stronger suits), this ain't no campus or high school debating class. What you're participating in now is a sport of point and counterpoint.
If you have evidence to support your suggestion that cyclists and their lanes aren't the cause of or contribute to traffic congestion in cities, then bring it on.
My proof is in the pudding of having driven through these now restrictive areas - in a number of cities, both in Canada and abroad.
You've managed to use two logical fallacies in attempting to not respond to my question. Well done.
I don't (nor claim to) have evidence that bike lanes don't clog traffic. I'm actually agnostic about the whole affair.
But you made a claim that you can't back up, so unless you have evidence of what you assert, your argument holds no water.
Attacking me or making assumptions about my motives can't save you from a poorly formulated argument.
Unless bike lane users have to register for either a license or registration for a bike plate infrastructure devoted to bike riding is going to cost a fortune and divert fiscal resources from roads to bikes. Of course this will be wildly unpopular so….
And now a lot of cyclist all over the city use electric bikes and scooters.
Pedestrians on side walks are not even safe!
I commend all cyclist who use the roads and not the side walks.
Look for more congestion on Ave rd as bike lanes will be implemented.
lol the one using the side walk will continue to do so.
Indeed. Again, this is why I pay good money for The Line. This piece is well written, fun, and on the nose. And yes, tolls. Pay per use, whatever that looks like.
When I visited Japan in 2005... they had a transponder system for ALL VEHICLES on the roads. You'd get a bill every month for kms driven, and pay that. You'd pay a monthly fee for the transponder. And all citizens would pay all the usual property, income, fuel and VAT taxes, some of which would be used for roads, which are a public good - how else do goods and services we all use get moved around? We all benefit from the roads. The trade off is a public transit system that is country wide and WORKS. What a concept.
Yes, people hate paying for something that was once free. I get it. But after the initial outcry, I think we'd appreciate an ease in congestion, but only if we had a public transportation system that worked properly, not just within our cities, but, imagine this Nirvana, BETWEEN THEM. Right now, if I want to travel, not by my own car, from my home in Ottawa to Toronto, my options are VIA Rail and air, oh, and ride sharing, somehow. The schedules are not always optimal, the cost can be prohibitive depending on my budget, it takes me a full day travel (by rail) and half a day (by plane), and 5-6 hours if I'm ride sharing in a car. In Japan, and many other places in this world, there are HIGH SPEED TRAINS that move people from place to place in a largely timly fashion. I've also used them in Italy, France, and Germany just in recent years. The intercity trains connect to public transit systems within cities that work pretty well. It's a coordinated system. A proven concept.
What I'm sugesting is that we push our governments to stop the window dressing governing that they do now, and actually put some time into fixing issues that truly matter in our daily lives. A comprehensive transportation plan that connects communities and supports public transit, effectively implemented, would be a start. The solutions are before us, built by many study groups and transportation/planning professionals. We just need to get started. Stop ragging the puck and get it done. And stop worrying about the public, they will come along if there's a vision that addresses our problems, and a real plan for implementation. We all want relief from ineffective governing, and congestion.
Thanks for another good piece.
"... we push our governments to stop the window dressing governing that they do now, and actually put some time into fixing issues that truly matter in our daily lives."
I'd say that's pretty much impossible with today's election and media coverage priorities.
Which is why I support sortition. It's the only possible solution that isn't just the insanity of doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
If I thought tolls would work, I would happily pay, pay anything, whatever it takes to ease this misery. But how many people could possibly be driving toronto roads during rush hour who don't absolutely have to?!? I suspect the vast, vast majority of commuters are, like me, driving out of necessity
Toronto is not London
I think you'd be surprised how much people discount the indirect costs of driving in congested traffic vs. a smaller direct cost in the form of a toll or fee. They can easily be burning an extra $10 of gas per day and taking an extra 30-60 minutes out of their life every day, and that'll mean less to them than a $10 fee.
Interesting to read a proposal to allow people to pay extra money for better service. Tolls would create two-tiered roads.
I wonder if allowing people to pay extra money for better service would help our broken health care system. But that would be illegal.
Both systems seem to work well in most of the rest of the developed world.
When politicians do try road pricing, they're often tempted to "split the baby" and toll some routes while leaving a "free" alternative available in an attempt to mollify the public. When they do that, it doesn't work in any sense. BC's Lower Mainland did this when they replaced the old Port Mann Bridge across the Fraser River: they tolled the new expanded bridge, but left the even older Patullo Bridge as an untolled route. The result was massive traffic back-up and congestion on all of the routes leading up to the untolled crossing, with commuters apparently willing to spend an extra 30-60 minutes commuting in their cars rather than spend the $7 for a round-trip crossing of the new bridge.
Amazingly, a great deal of the traffic also consisted of commercial trucks, who should have a VERY good idea of the cost of an idling vehicle in terms of driver pay, fuel consumption, and reduced utilization. Still, the prospect of that direct cost seemed to have some psychological weight than the much greater cost of congestion. To me, that's a strong validation of the effectiveness of road pricing: an immediate hit to the pocket book is more effective at changing behavior than existing signals like long commutes in congested traffic.
I knew a fellow who presented a Ph.D. thesis on road pricing at the University of Toronto in 1971, so the idea is not exactly new, not even in Canada. It's now standard public economics, and has been implemented in many countries.
Here's a version that was discovered accidentally in 1972 by Yves Poisson, then public transportation manager for Quebec City. The City implemented a rather steep increase in its fares, to 25 cents. Amid the uproar, M. Poisson decided to reduce peak fares to 10 cents, citing the need for workers to use transit to get to work. The new lower peak fare worked so well that they attracted motorists from their cars to public transit, and somewhat reduced road congestion.
I've seen a similar argument used somewhere to make transit free for everyone all the time.
Which offends my accounting inclination to make users pay whenever possible, but this may be a good case for pragmatism over theory. The only foreseeable drawback question is, is there in fact enough transit capacity to handle the increase?
Novel solution. Bring immigration rates down to a level that we are able to keep pace with infrastructure. Or better yet, bring rates below that level for 10 years and proceed to actually catch up. Then set rates at a level that we can keep pace with. Same applies to schools, hospitals and homes.
We already have tolls. Everywhere.
They're called fuel tax, and they apply to all petroleum-fueled vehicles, with the added bonus that the more inefficient the vehicle (including heavier, i.e. harder on the road surface), the more you pay.
Of course, it's just like government to implement a tax when there's already a tax in place, instead of simply raising the rates on the existing tax, something that would raise a great deal more revenue given the vastly larger revenue base.
I’m also not a fan of unnecessary complexity. However, the fuel tax hike would affect everyone who drives, including rural folks. Tolls could be targeted at specific transit corridors that are suffering from congestion. Those funds could be directed to transit projects to expand capacity (build a new bridge, add light rail, whatever).
I haven't driven into downtown Toronto for 10+ years for the reasons mentioned. I take the GO train. Tolls would be a great idea; especially if Metrolinx, the most incompetent organisation Doug oversees could actually accomplish anything in a remotely of timely manner. As mentioned, the Eglinton Crosstown will be completely about three weeks after the world ends. Ditto all day two way GO service to Kitchener; promised for 15 years and decades away from reality despite the idiotic preaching's from Metrrolinx; "it's coming....right after the Leaf's win the Cup."
Like it or not, all these 3P partnerships are complete and total failures to build things in a timely manner within reach of their original budget. Don't get me started on the insanity of Doug's suggestion building a new line to Milton (all through land owned by his friends) because they can't work a deal with CP. They could start that service tomorrow, and one summer construction season would add sufficient track considering how few trains CP currently runs there.
Traffic in Toronto is a failure of leadership....going back to Mike Harris.
Scott: believe it or not Toronto and its myriad of problems are not anything that the rest of the universe is particularly concerned about. Nice local interest story though.
I think you’ll have trouble naming a major Canadian city where road congestion and bad transportation infrastructure aren’t problems.
In this case, Toronto’s problem is just an example of a problem we all have.
There is a toll on all roads which is a fuel tax. This is designed to pay for the roads and infrastructure but playing with it is a political loser since it a tax which is visible to the voter. Why are the 400 series roads different from any other paved, all weather roads? I tend to blame the budgeting process which tends to try and contain tax rates and let future liabilities build until they become massive ( like the Gardiner ). A don't think this a thing unique to the Ford government however as all cities tend to do the same thing.
Provincial politicians in Ontario don’t care about Toronto. They do care about the 905 voters because without their support they are in opposition. Kathleen Wynn came as close as any Premier to going for it.
In addition to tolls the province should make a deal for truckers to pay a flat fee to use the 407 and get them off the 401. Mandate night time only deliveries in the inner city.
Never going to happen.