Update since this video: He plans on REMOVING the Bloor Street, University Avenue, and Yonge Street, despite so much evidence that bike lanes actually reduce congestion.
not on major arteries, they don't! Keep your generalized statements out of this specific and awful problem, causing more GHGs due to the traffic slowdown!
One of the most striking things I saw when I was in Toronto this spring was a completely packed streetcar moving at only a few miles per hour through heavy congestion at rush hour. It makes you think about how much higher ridership could be if these vehicles were given dedicated right-of-ray and improved frequencies.
I was on a completely full one this summer coming back from the expo and it just stopped… for half an hour. No announcement, no traffic just stopped. Eventually people just got off and started walking… what a system…
We tried that on King St and several candidates in the last mayoral election made it a key point to remove it (they all lost). Eventually cops just stopped enforcing it.
The streetcars run every few minutes in theory. King Street has a streetcar scheduled every 2 minutes at rush hour and every 5 minutes off peak. But they often get delayed so there can still be long waits
A large part of infrastructure is designed around getting suburban drivers into and out of the city. The assumption is that suburbanites are good for the urban economy. But as we have found with the whole 'work-from-home' phenomenon, that can suddenly go away. When it does, cities are left holding the bag, with roads and zoning laws that are inconvenient for actual residents of the city.
Suburban traffic downtown and in high-density corridors is brutal even when WFH is allowed. But the urban dwellers who suffer from it have very little political influence in practice. We need more local policies that benefit the people who actually live there, rather than the folks passing by.
also like, there definitely isn't ANY other way of transporting suburbanites downtown, you totally CANNOT just run buses and trams and trains and make things better for everyone at a lower cost, no sir-ee.
@@Frostbiker roads are an expense. buildings are revenue. it is counter-intuitive for a city planner to tear down a revenue source in order to replace it with an added expense, yet that is what we do.
@@stevemahoney1733 I'm talking about tearing down entire neighborhoods in order to build highways that fed from suburbs into downtown areas, which is what we started doing in the 50's. Since shops and commercial activity existed in these cities prior to the construction of these highways, it is reasonable to assume trucks were able to make deliveries on the already-existing roads before then. Also, this road-over-building rationale is primarily a North American phenomenon, and one does not see issues with truck deliveries elsewhere throughout the world in towns which did not prioritize the insecurity of the suburban motorist over actual cold hard revenue.
Ford sucks.. but at at least he is finally doing one thing right.. getting rid of these useless bike lanes. Cyclist are such dorks.. go ride your bicycle at a park like every other kid.
I think Dougie is still bitter he didn't get the job of Mayor, so a lot of his policies are out of spite. Like shrunk Toronto's City council (Which I didn't even know a Premier could do), closed down Ontario Science Centre since Toronto owned the land but not the building, and is now fucking up it's transit and cycling by injecting more and more cars into Toronto, which can't handle any more
Bro bro one more car lane bro I swear bro bro bro traffic will be fixed forever bro bro cities stop one lane short before solving traffic forever bro bro bro.
we clearly need 6 12 lane freeways running under the 401, and maybe a few (6-100) 20 lane freeways as overhead bridge style freeways too. Finally, traffic will be solved!
@@Jakob_DK I think it would be wrong to deny induced demand if safe cycling infrastructure is available. But as the costs are so low and it contributes to the physical activity many of our doctors recommend, it's a good thing.
When your roads are already at capacity, but your population is growing, the ONLY solution is modal shift to cycling and public transit. You cannot infinitely grow car capacity in a city. This needs to be driven into politicians's heads. Rob/Doug Ford just wants to say things to appear to please car drivers (his target voters) without actually offering a solution. What is next, removing sidewalks to add more lanes on downtown streets? Just park into mega mall parking lot and walk indoors to your shop 🙂
You are right that you can't add more cars, easily. But you can't add a lot of electric bikes of all different capacities and legalities. We now have at least scooters, electric bikes, electric motorcyles, and push bikes, just for starters, on the roads and sidewalks. Not a rational mix, or easy to expand. The real issue is what underpins the expansion, and what are it's needs overall. In a 4 season country with a rapidly expanding population, we need to move a lot of goods and people, and basically what we have is 50% of the downtown roads set aside for final mile delivery workers. Cutting the roads in half probably reduces the flow by 500%. And we traded that so that people can get pizza at the door, with massive excess packaging, and other costs.
It's having the same effect on traffic the opposite direction as well. Torontonians have started moving out of the city towards Niagara and they are clogging up the highways. The last 4 years has been insane to drive on the main highway. Small towns are being built up because people from the city are moving.
Much easier solution - encourage of development of suburbs and growing population there, rather then constructing new high rase residential building in the city. I would say - stop building new schools and limit access to the existing ones - and people voluntarily will start leaving.
This is what some people can't understand....they insist on the car and seem to believe one more highway lane, one more new road, get rid of all bike lanes will solve the problem. The car traffic in the city of Toronto won't decrease when the population continues to grow and shows no signs of stopping. There just won't be a decrease in number of cars in this city. People will go visit and talk about how great Amsterdam was with its walkabikity and bike system and how beautiful the river is but then snarl at any such suggestion of doing so in Toronto.
@@AK.__they have built a lot more denser houses and condos all across the suburbs of Toronto in places like Oakville, Vaughan, Pickering exc....but they still continue to build them around car dependent culture. Still building box stores in huge parking lots and smaller Plaza malls which still are surrounded by parking lots, and all of these seem to be off of major 6 lane roads that look dangerous for cyclists & Pedestrians to travel along side. To travel across a suburb by bike would force you onto some major roads, it's difficult to travel by any secondary road because they still usually don't get a straight route on secondary roads in the sububrs. I still think they don't use simple denser straight grid systems.
99% of roads are allocated to cars but giving .05% to people on bikes, Toronto drivers will kill you for it without consequence. The last shot of the bikes parked in front of those townhouses is next to the Rail Path in the west end of Toronto, which is in the process of upgrading a pedestrian/bike path and extending to the downtown core and has come under fire for the costs. But the city has no problem throwing an extra $70 million at the Gardiner Expressway to speed up construction which by the way has already been fully funded by the provincial government for drivers who don't even live in Toronto.
Well first that’s just wrong. Even despite this abysmal cycling network that we currently have. Would cars be popular if there were no roads for them? How many cars drive through this swamp? Zero? Wonder why? 🤔
Maybe the trick is to not tell them which project is for which vehicle: "We have two traffic proposals for you: The first projects costs $1 000 per user per year and will move at most 7 000 people a day. The second project costs $100 per user per year and will move at most 70 000 people a day. Which do you prefer?"
It's funny because back like in 2017 he actually was in a video on TVO with Jagmeet Singh where they both rode a bike together and he rode on bike lanes, and at the end said "we have to do all we can to protect cyclists, you know your nervous, when there's no bike lanes"
I'm a cyclist but i don't think we should equate biking with exercise. E bikes can make cycling accessible for everyone regardless of their physical fitness
Political Blind Date, him and Jagmeet Singh went on a bike ride. I'm having trouble finding the video but if you search up on TH-cam the Toronto Star did post about the episode.
As a resident of Toronto for 30 years prior to moving to the Netherlands last year, this breaks my heart. I take absolutely no pleasure in thinking along the lines of “so glad I don’t have to put up with this anymore.” The notion that you will solve congestion by forcing everyone into a car is beyond absurd. I wish that Ontario would start moving aggressively in the right direction and improving public transit, bike infrastructure and walkability everywhere.
@@happydimsum8221 please don’t rely on this as advice since I am not a tradesperson and I am speaking from experience as a customer. From what I can tell, the housing market is similar to Southern Ontario - very hot. Lots of people renovating so lots of work for trades. HVAC in particular is probably not in as much demand here as in Ontario. Central air in residential settings is almost unheard of. There is also a fair bit of municipal heating. Re-insulating older homes is probably more in demand. Furthermore, although pretty much everyone speaks English, as a customer facing contractor, you need to speak Dutch. That is unless you want to run a business that caters to expats - which are also not uncommon. Hope this helps.
@@timbinder3260 it's weird. I'm an Ontarian, and I know so many people that love Doug and hate him at the same time. They always vote for him. I guess for lots of people they're just scared of how poorly the previous liberal caucus performed. But I guess we won't know for quite a few years since Dougie still has a high approval rating
@@timbinder3260 First of all, great username. Second, I also want to blame the voters, since they're the ones who keep handing him the majorities. Also need to blame the Conservative-owned media that backs him, the corporate-shill spineless Liberals who refuse to bring forward a decent leader who will change the status quo, and the NDP who ran Horwath 4 straight fucking times, and are going to lead Stiles into another loss. We needed Jagmeet to run for Premiere back in 2018 instead of the timeline we got.
@@timbinder3260 I guess it depends on what the voters considered their best interest. The previous premier, Wynne was a Woke spending addict. I'm not defending all of Fords choices nor am i attacking all of Wynnes but you can only spend for so long before you need to tighten the spending and reduce the deficit, hopefully Ford has, will.
I lived in Montreal in the 1990s and my main means of transport in the summer was my bicycle. This is before most of the bike infrastructure was built. Most of the time I was doing my daily commute to and from work, and stopping off to buy groceries and such on my way home. Over time you learn to use quiet side-streets in order to avoid the most dangerous traffic.
This is how I see things. If I was a cyclist, why would I demand to use an arterial roadway that is a miserable experience whether walking, biking, or driving?
Ah yes, rather than remove one of 5 lanes on a huge stroad that nobody uses, let’s cram bikes and cars into a tiny one way street to avoid inconveniencing drivers. Great logic there.
As CROW standards spread across Europe, NA local authorities keep increasing their maintenance liabilities... like, come on NA, the Netherlands figured out how to get two lane road to be the same as a four lane stroad ages ago... th-cam.com/video/FXfNXLh51yc/w-d-xo.html
“Hey, how should I bike east through old Toronto?” “Oh you take the DuPont Lansdowne Lappin Dufferin Harlem Shaw, Yarmouth Palmerton, Olive, Bathurst, Wells, Kendall Bernard bike path.” Had me dying😂😂😂
People aren't riding bikes, they are driving them. This isn't the rainbow 70s when 10 speeds showed up and they were healthy exercise and non-polluting. These are nuclear powered, lithium stored, unregulated transportation, unlicensed. Made in China, delivered by Amazon, and fueled by Pickering nuclear. Pretty cool really, but not some paradise on wheels that stands aside from the general need to provide goods for a greedy population of consumers. They won't get even the job of delivering themselves done.
@@HondoTrailside not everyone can afford to own a car. Having even an electric bike is far less road maintenance than automobiles do to streets. Plenty of us also cycle without electric. Or, own both. Being multi mobile will decrease much need for storing cars, having to park them, as population grows as well.
It feels like he’s premier of Toronto rather than Ontario, always interfering with the city. But he’s elected by all of Ontario, so often times it’s the residents of smaller communities influencing policy over T.O. Move the seat of the provincial government to London or something this is getting annoying, maybe if all the big shots are outside the city they’ll let the city decide for itself.
This has long been a gripe from parts of Ontario outside "the 905". Half the population of the province lives in there, so it's easy to give them priority and still get re-elected. Doesn't seem to matter which colour the ruling party's lawn signs are.
GTA used to have more voting power, until it was consolidated into the GTA under Mike Harris' government. Conservatives really don't like cities, do they.
@@ting280 Mike Harris also "Downloaded" a BUNCH of roads to local jurisdiction. Ontario would be so much better if it had more numbered routes like the US
We're really not. Our last Prime Minister founded and is the leader of the IDU, an organization pushing anti-progressive laws, like banning non-hetero marriages, keeping the working class powerless, etc. The frontrunner for the next PM is his right-hand man, Temu Trump, who believes in the same things.
I overheard two lawyers discussing a court case about an accident involving a bike and a car. One lawyer said to the other "what people don't realize is that if there is a bike in any lane it is legally a bike lane."
Yeah, it takes ICE infrastructure to build the infrastructure bikes use. Unless you want to cycle on the dirt. And in Ontario, the car industry played a huge role in the economy.
what?? You are nuts if you think cars will ever go away or be reduced in numbers. Bike lanes clog up roads for the dozen bike riders that use them. Why should 1% of the population get entire lanes of traffic to them selves ?
@@johnmorrison9758 I don't think cars will go away. Cities around the world are taking measures to reducing driving. The planet needs us to do this. Cities that do this are succeeding. When they take these measures, people ride bikes more, so it's no longer 1%. The fraction of people who ride bikes is not static, and the same is true for people who drive cars. And you ask why. Several reasons: congestion, safety, pollution, noise, accessibility, and I could go on and on. Take a look at the changes Paris, France has made in just a few years.
@@tomreingold4024 Montreal ranks even better on the global biking index than Paris . Montreal island and Gretaer Montreal has a population of 5.1 million with more than 1,000 km of protected bike lanes including express bike lanes and ranks #1 best biking city in north america and top 20 in teh world ( global biking index ) . Toronto is the only city in north america to merge cities as far as 150 km away in order to get the title of the largest city in Canada but the worst quality of life and no identity.
@@jeanbolduc5818 I have been learning about bike infrastructure in Canadian cities and the progress they have made. I did not know about the merger of cities, though, so thank you. Some come to NYC (where I am) and think our bike infrastructure is wonderful. I'm not happy with it yet. We have a long way to go.
I traveled to Montreal this past spring for the sole purpose of seeing the cycling scene. It was amazing. I parked my car for the week and did everything by bike. I'm in Kitchener-Waterloo and they're working at it. Much better than 5 years ago and leaps ahead of Toronto
They're great until you want to find somewhere to park on the street, I'd prefer if bike lanes were funded by everyone saying yes in a plebiscite. Divide the cost of the project by the number that said yes, no bankruptcy allowed.
Till it gets cold and now you are in the car going no where because of stupid bike lanes go ride em in the trails. Citys roads and especially toronto was not built for bikes.
@@c.curmudgeon2834 Do that with roads first. Not a single road will ever be made again. Roads are so expensive and drawn out of the public purse which is never refunded by Bluto drivers entitled to their entitlements over all others
This is just anti-virtue signaling. He's just trying to show how he hates cyclists. There's no reason the premier of the entire province should be trying to micromanage municipal concerns he has for a small area in Toronto by enacting province wide legislation. If Ford wants to be mayor of Toronto, he should quit his job as premier, and fade into obscurity when he doesn't win that election.
Lol. Riding a bike in Toronto and GTA is not feasible. It's minus 20 and snowing for the majority of the year. Let's not forget that the majority of immigrants that come here want to drive and most people have families. Also, let's not forget that distances between people's homes and things like grocery stores are simply too far. Bikes only work I'm downtown Toronto otherwise they're useless.
The idea that bike lanes clog up traffic is just wrong. Anyone who drives in Toronto can see that traffic jams are caused by too many cars, especially near highway on/off ramps (where bike lanes don't exist). As an example, Jarvis St gets jammed from the Gardiner all the way up to Queen in rush hour (there are no bike lanes on Jarvis).Traffic gets even worse when cars stop/park illegally or block intersections.
You seriously dont connect the loss of a lane on major streets with traffic? I'm not refering to the DVP however what your inplying is that if we removed a lane from the DVP that traffic & travel times wouldn't increase. Just wrong.
@@stevemahoney1733 Traffic cannot be compared with a flowing river. Traffic is the result of people's choices, and due to different available infrastructure, people can make other choices.
@@stevemahoney1733 Not necessarily. There are two phenomens, called "traffic evaporation" and "induced demand", resulting in avoiding traffic (Traffic evaporation) or in creating new traffic, even when roads have been extended (induced demand). In economic terms it can be explained with costs. The higher the costs, for example traffic, the less demand. As said, traffic isn't a river, given the situation every mode of transport is available (Sidewalks, Cycling, paths, good Public transport, Car lanes) people are able to make informed choices.
@@ralf4640 I'm not disagreeing with you. I've made my concerns through experience of riding in the downtown core known regarding closed off with concrete barrier bike lanes & the emergency vehicles response times
I absolutely love your videos. I watch them regularly and they are all very well thought out. I do often think that the people watching are like minded however. That said if you can change even a few people’s opinions you’ve made valuable progress.
it's anecdotal but the argument that car lanes are better for business doesn't work for me because when I'm driving I don't want to pay for parking, and I don't live in the city, so if I want something I get it outside of the city on the way in or the way out. when I'm on the bike and I want something I'll just park at the ring n post out front of the shop and go in.
There are cases where it is true, as much as what you're saying is also true. Generally, bike/pedestrian infrastructure is better for businesses because, as you say, it's significantly easier for bike/pedestrian traffic to impulsively stop and go in when they don't have to spend 10 minutes doing laps looking for a parking spot that will cost several dollars. That doesn't work, however, if bike/pedestrian traffic can't readily get to the area in question. There are numerous examples worldwide of cities replacing parking spots with bike lanes and that causing local businesses to suffer, simply because those bike lanes don't actually go anywhere and prospective customers still have to drive to reach the place (and if they have to drive but can't find parking, that's a lost sale). In the bigger picture, a network of bike- and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure helps businesses, but it's important to keep that big picture in mind before taking away existing car infrastructure to work toward that. Partial bike networks yield significantly fewer benefits than complete ones, so if they come with a cost, that cost may outweigh the benefits until the network is finished and the full benefits can be realized.
@@dudeguy2330 yea but it's a catch 22 though. if all the roads were built for cars, then you have to take some roads if you want to make bike lanes. you can't just create them out of thin air, you have to redesign the existing space. that's the glaring flaw in Doug Ford's argument.
Even from a motorist perspective, streets like the one at 2:40 (with two car lanes each way, no center shared left turn lane) aren't even that "damaged" by road diets that turn them into 1 travel lane each way with a center shared left turn lane. Making that change removes the problem of cars stopping in a through lane while they wait for the opportunity to turn left, which makes things safer for drivers without significantly reducing traffic speed/flow. So they're basically opportunities for "free" bike lanes.
Bicycles, ebikes, electric cargo bicycles, robo taxis and escooters are great options for last mile, short distance travel. Reduced transportation costs and fossil fuels free transportation. Cities need to do more to encourage people to ride bicycles by providing SAFE, PROTECTED BIKE LANES and trails. Every adult and child should own a bicycle and ride it regularly. Bicycles are healthy exercise and fossil fuels free transportation. Electric bicycles are bringing many older adults back to cycling. Ride to work, ride to school, ride for health or ride for fun. Children should be able to ride a bicycle to school without having to dodge cars and trucks. Separated and protected bike lanes are required. It will also make the roads safer for automobile drivers. Transportation planners and elected officials need to encourage people to walk, bike and take public transportation. Healthy exercise and fossil fuels free transportation. In the future cities will be redesigned for people not cars. Crazy big parking lots will be transformed with solar canopies generating free energy from the sun.
I love to see the looks on the faces of the sucker's driving cars when I'm getting around on my escooter just as quickly as they are at a tiny fraction of the cost. They know that when they get where they're going, they have to rely on sheer luck just to find parking. Whereas I'm just going to pull up within a few yards of the front door of the building. Meanwhile, they have to ride around and wait for an available spot only to walk at least 50 yards to get to where I'm already parked right by the door. 😂
Does regularly include winter? You are talking about something that doesn't exist. I used to commute, before bike lanes, the length of TO, and had not problems. Toronto should be rationally managed for what is there. Whether you actually want to live in the mostly youthful, mostly low value jobs landscape you describe is another thing. Someone will probably still want to arrive somewhere, not sweaty, in a suit. What I see in the bike lanes are mostly recent arrivals who have some kind of delivery job. Which is fine, but is by definition only a small percentage of people who live here. If you want local and bike based, you still need tons of goods to make it into the city. It isn't hard to see why building and housing is so expensive if your main arteries are set aside for door dash. Moved out to Pickering, probably the worst bike place I have ever cycled, and I bike tour. That is the tragedy, Toronto is the best place for bikes, the new suburbs are circuitous and cycle unfriendly. They usually have some fancy bike path that is round about and a road to nowhere, but the streets are not designed for cycling. We now have a lot of lanes, but they only exist where just keeping to the right would keep you as safe, once the going gets tough, the cars invade your space.
Except Not Just Bikes did a video on the Downs-Thompson paradox where he mentioned a startling fact: half of people living in Toronto walk to work. If your busses get stuck in traffic: traffic congestion gets worse and worse until it is literally faster to walk. Mode-shifting actually makes things more convenient for the people that actually NEED to drive.
@@jamesphillips2285 As much as I've kind of gone off NJB because of his general doomerist attitude to North American urbanism, I do like his quote that "traffic will get worse until alternatives to driving are faster," since it nicely sums up how inevitable alternative transportation is. People naturally gravitate toward the fastest option. If you make the fastest option cars, people will gravitate to driving everywhere until traffic gets so bad that they start taking alternatives. Car-centric infrastructure, however, spaces everything out so far and ruins every alternative to such an extent that traffic has to get *really* bad for that to happen, by which point everyone is miserable.
Finally someone thinking! You are only adding congestion and emissions by reducing lanes. In Mississauga they are mainly used for recreation and not to get anywhere. Get rid of all bike lanes on roads!!!!
We are talking about a government that claims raising highway speed limits to 110 will reduce congestion!!! Sure. People moving along a congested highway at 60 will get to their destination a lot faster after the sign changes from 100 to 110.
Which is even more absurd. Whenever I've driven along the highways; other cars are always going 10 to 15km above the speed limit all the time. All this will do is make the freeways even more dangerous.
@@user-iw5mp5th6d Actually, fuel taxes are not even enough to pay for the complete costs of highways. So local streets are paid for by all tax payers, also the ones without a car.
While you did mention the lack of intersection/crossing infrastructure on "side street" cycleways, I think that point deserves more emphasis. I routinely choose to ride on streets with less or no dedicated cycling infrastructure because they have proper signalized intersections with automatic signals. On a main car route, you will have no stop signs and about a 50% chance of getting a green light at every major intersection. On a side street bike route, you will have constant stop signs, often not even 4 way stops but crossings or turns onto roads where drivers have no legal obligation to stop for you. When it comes to crossing major streets, these routes usually make you press a beg button to be allowed to cross, which means you always have to stop and always have to go over to the button, which might not be conveniently located. This whole rigmarole to simply continue on my way is annoying for someone clipped in like me. The whole experience is inconvenient and makes you feel like your transportation is not a priority, because it isn't. Instead of cruising along at 20+ km/h, you are constantly stopping and trying to get back up to speed, waiting for cars, and losing time. If a side street cycleway is done right, it will have signal priority and function like a main route anyways, so you might as well put it on a main car route to reduce the number of major intersections on intersecting streets. Or better yet, make cars use the side streets and give all the main routes to cycling and transit.
In Denver, we have a super stroad (8-12 lanes wide) with a proposal to install a BRT. As a full time bicyclist/part-time cyclist, I advocate for putting the bike infrastructure on the secondary roads parallel to the stroad, as long as meaningful and prioritized connections for bicyclists to access destinations on the stroad and to get across the stroad safely and effectively are created. I’d rather focus on mode shift on a super stroad with lots of parking lot curb cuts, while creating less conflicting and more comfortable bicycle infrastructure about 1/4 mile back, with enhanced access from both sides.
When you took the example of Mtl, I was expected you to talk about Saint-Denis Street which is the perfect example of why bike lanes should be on Main Street. People were crying few years ago and now it is the street where the shops are the healthier and at rush hour there is more Cyclists than drivers, even if it was previously a 2x2 streets
In Canada, cities do not exist in the constitution. They are created by Provinces so the Province can do anything they want to them. In the 90s, the Conservative government of Ontario decided to amalgamate a bunch of cities together even though the vast majority of residents in those cities had voted to not be amalgamated.
Hey, I had a brain fart earlier. I thought you were talking about the "let's dig an highway underneath an existing highway". The guy is such a firehouse of bad ideas that it is difficult to keep up.
Yeah! When using Boyer as the main north-south biking route near the Jean-Talon Market, none of the east-west streets have stop signs. Main biking routes need to have accommodation at intersections.
The data from the Bloor-Danforth bikeway analyses show that the bike lanes had a positive effect on the businesses along this major commercial route. Most customers use the TTC, bike, or walk to these businesses. With the subway underneath, the best way to configure Bloor-Danforth to allow emergency vehicles to use it would be to remove cars and parking entirely from the route.
It’s one of the positive side effect of wide dedicated bike lanes : emergency services can take them and reduce intervention time. Bikes clear the way faster than cars.
Getting pleasant and useful bike lanes may not be a question of politics only, here in Montréal we seem to have someone who knows how to plan+design+implement bike lanes, other cities may be unable to find or not be willing to get people who are competent at this.
My city put a bike lane in from the college thru downtown, but one street over on a side street. Downtown Main street has all the shops. The side street is more like an alley being behind everything. Congestion and parking is a big problem in this area, which is a reason I only bike to downtown shops. I usually end up on a sidewalk to reach them, since biking on Main street is risking your life.
I live in south On. outside the gta and the issue I find with riding in the city is that bike routes are all leisure routes through parks. They never flow downtown, up to the university and mall. Nothing is direct and it requires cyclists to work to get around on the leisure routes. If someone wants to go to the popular areas they need to join public streets due to highly trafficked sidewalks and bans. The streets aren't safe for cyclists due to drivers that are impatient around them, I regularly have drivers splitting the lanes with me forcing me into traffic. Suddenly ending bike lanes also lead to high speed intersections becoming unsafe. Riding is kind of thrilling but my anxieties about drivers can get to me. Stay safe ❤
doug ford is a populist, he only cares about electability. the problem isn't him, it's that the population of cyclists are small and their political clout are minuscule. if ford really wants to solve congestion, have a traffic toll tax with exemptions on commercial and handicapped vehicles, or expropriate homes and businesses to widen roads. ford's idea isn't about solving congestions, its about self promotion on the short term electability at the expense of long term benefits and the vulnerable minority.
The problem is he is in the pocket of car-dependent industries but also yes that regular people have been brainwashed by these industries and their lobbying
@@aralornwolf3140 , agreed. tunneling under 401 when the crosstown lrt still isn't online. how much disruptions, time and tax payers money did that cost? how many businesses went bankrupt from that? why isn't ford talking about that?
@@aralornwolf3140See the debacle of the Katy freeway east of Houston, Texas. In some sections, counting HOV lanes and frontage lanes, there are now 26 lanes. But since it has been finished, travel time for commuters has risen. The worse is that urbanists know since the 1930s that adding lanes doesn’t work¹. And yet, you have people like Ford ... ¹: For more info, look for ”induced demand” and ”Braess paradox”.
I used to cycle commute from 401 to King street every day, and there weren't any bike lanes. Was on Bloor a few times recently and what I noticed is that bike lanes are heavily used, but 90% by electric vehicles. A lot of these are basically electric motorcycles. They were also on sidewalks. I drive from Pickering to Bloor and Avenue road, and return, once a week, and I saw only one person on an actual bike, and it was some older person. I would not want to ride that bike lane system on a regular bike, so you now need a lane for electric things, push bikes, and whatever else you want on the road. Most of the bikes looked as though there were made in China, and probably bought from Amazon. That is major industrial infrastructure at work, not to mention the nuclear power grid that supplies them. So they aren't exactly self sufficient in some alternative way. Most appeared to be on some kind of final mile delivery job, and therefore not a green economy thing so much as existing to let people be even more lazy and dependant on bad environmental practices like over-packaging, vs buying raw foods and making one trip a week. It is what it is, but I don't feel like printing up some t-shirts and having a rally for urban cycling quite yet.
A tunnel under 401 is MADNESS. Replace 2 lanes of the 401 with a frequently running express rail service that connects to major transit hubs in connected cities, and have low rate, subway-style, all-you-can-eat travel once you breach the gate. Cars are so inefficient, expensive, unhealthy, dangerous, and environmentally destructive. More transit, and more people-scale transport methods will lower the economic burden, and make cities more livable, pleasant, and connected. I would even take a bike lane between cities.
It is insane, truly. A road under a road, for massively expensive redundancy?. As you say, why not rail, well why not a rail tunnel then? Or maybe, you know, using all those existing railroad tracks for meaningful & frequent longer distance commuter rail. I thought Toronto had the Go Train and that is what it was for, something akin to the RER in Paris and so on. But I am not from Ontario, so maybe it sucks, I do not know. (We have West Coast express, but it is a rush hour commuter service only; 4 trains go downtown in the morning, then come back in the afternoon, that's it.) The point is, for the cost of building such a long car tunnel, you could build a whole new heavy rail right of way, with electrified tracks. The whole barrier to the Windsor-Quebec high speed rail corridor has been this notion that there is no place to easily put a new & segregated high speed rail line except at great cost, and now the premier wants to stack roadway on roadway instead. Where are the people with vision in this country, a sense of long term planning & survival instead of short term optics and partisan wankery? If anything, the trend of "shallow and stupid" politics is getting worse, not better. 🤬
In some locations, putting the bike lanes on side streets (or even making the side street almost bike-only) works well. E.g. in Berlin's center, Linienstraße is a side street directly parallel to Torstraße, between 50 to 75 meters away. It was made a "bicycle street", which means that beside bicyclists only people with destinations here are allowed to use them. For cars it's also mostly a one-way street (in varying directions). It's certainly a lot less loud, and less dangerous than using Torstraße. The problems are the intersections with other main streets, which don't have traffic lights. (And of course, there are not many businesses there - no chance for me to grab some food on the way home.)
Eliminate street parking and make streets one-way. That's it. That's all that has to be done. The Government Road bureaucracy shouldn't be in the parking business. One Way streets are safer for everyone and they can probably eliminate 75% of stops which create traffic.
Easy for you to eliminate parking when you don't own a business that wants customers to be able to shop in their store. Your argument is pure nonsense.
Inconvenienving both cyclists who need to get somewhere and inconveniencing residents of quiet city neighborhoods just so motorists on the arterial stroads are not inconvenienced is just absolutely crazy!
Another problem with off-street routes like 10th is crossing streets. Instead of flowing with traffic through major intersections, bikes have to stop at cyclist-triggered crossings, and cross traffic has to stop more often for crossing cyclists a block away from major intersections. Minor intersections aren't much better, as drivers are focused on getting to the major road, or have just turned off the faster major road, and often aren't paying enough attention to cyclists who have the right of way. 10th has the highest incidence of injuries to cyclists in the city. Vancouver has "good" routes like 10th that are consistent for a reasonable distance, but also plenty of its own winding routes like 8th-Yew-7th-Yukon-8th-Ontario-5th... You can go out of your way to get to one of the good routes if you're going further, but for moderate distances the route is often winding or disconnected. (York parallel to Cornwall is pretty good, but a pretty short segment that's not clear to access travelling east from Point Grey Road, which instead connects to Kits Beach which doesn't clearly connect to 1st ave to continue further East).
@@stevemahoney1733 15 minutes cities have existed for centuries, they just gave it a new name and slapped it as a conspiracy. You're literally a puppet for big oil. New york, tokyo, seoul, hell even toronto right now can be named 15 minute cities. But "oh no convenience how scary!" is REALLY what they have you saying, I'm genuinely dumbfounded.
What ? You mean that vehicules that take less room for moving one person than ones that take 10 times the space of the forementionned vehicules help reducing congestion ? That’s crazy ! Oh, wait ...
you are high on something. There will never be less cars. It is reality !! Bikes can never replace cars. Cars may have one driver most of the time, but a lot of those times, those cars are carrying something else to be delivered or taken along.
@@johnmorrison9758 dude please chill :),i drive a car mysefl, but in urban regions ther is a not enough bettter alternatives. to little trams ,to little bus lines, and not enough save bike lanes. Btw. more bike lanes means you can drive a lot easier a car because more people take the bike
Same concept applies for all the people in Minneapolis wondering why we can't route buses down residential streets to avoid replacing parking with bus lanes on arterials.
Main streets are not roads, but destinations. They don't make any sense for cars for the businesses that front them, except for employees and a handful of their customers.
Speak up for bicycles in your community. Talk to your elected officials and city transportation planners. Safe, protected bike lanes and trail are needed. Paint is not good enough.
This is all incredibly depressing because we chose to move to Toronto over Montreal for a less harsh winter….we have a 5 month old on tow and unable to make a flight across to Vancouver. Will push through this season and aim for a move to BC soon!
The entitlement of Westerners to have their own individual transport be it cars/motor bikes/ push bikes is ridiculous. Why won't Westerners walk more or take public transport? Entitlement overload
A lot of it has to do with property taxes and rough terrain during the initial colonization hundreds of years ago. European and Asian cities were cities from day one hundreds and in some cases thousands of years ago. North American cities often started as a mish-mash network of loosely connected agricultural and industrial centers that were spread out by necessity that slowly networked together. Furthermore, property taxes and land prices decline along with density creating a financial incentive to sprawl.
Its a city problem. And therefore it should only involve city tax payer dollars; i don't want my federal or provincial taxes going towards any project just for 1 city.
The point I find missing from this is why is the provincial government getting involved in city planning? Our government is divided into different levels of responsibility. They should only be interfering with municipal responsibilities when it is in regards to a provincial issue. For example, mandating an increase in available housing to accomodate an increased population of cities are falling behind.
Doug Ford is from Etobicoke (like me), he is a totally car-brained suburbanite with exactly zero understanding of cities and thinks cars are just great for everything, hence the lust for highway construction. I really don't think he's interested in learning either.
One of the things I notice on TO roads these days is massive entitlement, which is to some extent reflected here in fairness comments. Car traffic on my recent trip was about 33% over the 90km speed limit on the DVP, to the extent that there was a 3 car crash, and flip. A a cyclist, most cars seem to have texters in them. I see all kinds of electric motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles, most of which seem to be operating at some level of illegality such as no lighting, how are there electric bikes with no lights? I see a lot of electric vehicles on sidewalks. I don't know how scooters got on the roads, I am behind on that legislation. Not so long ago Segways tried to roll out, but now the cheaper, crappier is everywhere. There does not seem to be any enforcement of anything.
"Why aren't these cyclists taking the side street bike lane?" Um, the same reason you're not there? I'm convinced people don't use their brains to think.
Ford never claimed to use his brain for thinking. It is just there to keep his skull from collapsing. How did he get elected anyway? Was he running against an inanimate rod? (Simpsons reference)
I don't even know where to start, other than Ford is desperately going back to his suburbanite wedge issue playbook to try to resurrect his deeply underwater popularity. 407 is pretty much empty but we need to spend ten's of billions on a tunnel (of course completely unvalidated by any type of transportation study). Why not buy back (or just pay the tolls from the public purse if that's not possible) the 407 for a start. Also, the 407 corridor seems pretty wide with lots of grass. Why not expand that in future? What we need is a regional plan, created by credible experts, looking at future growth, land use, etc etc. and then start building out more regional rail service like in Paris, NYC, London etc. Also, why are condo's allowed to pile all their crap on the roadway and block a lane all over downtown?? Why don't delivery trucks run at night where possible (e.g. Amazon, Fedex). Finally, why don't we promote bike commuting more, now that we have a pretty great network I don't see as many bikes as I would expect on the major routes .... sadly it will be use it or loose it.
Someone needs to set up a weekly meeting with Ford to remind him that he's premier of Ontario, not mayor of Toronto. He seems to forget that frequently.
Make the cars take the secondary streets since it takes drivers no extra effort to go longer distances and they generally go to a single destination and are less likely to stop. (Not that I would want the secondary streets full of cars, but that would make the most logical sense in this illogical idea.)
Dougie is pandering to the carbrained suburban vote. Most people (that I know) in Toronto proper have no problems with bike lanes. Congestion affects suburban commuters into the core, and blaming bike lanes is an easy target. But really, we aren't the problem, we are actually the solution!
I’ve been commuting by bicycle in Toronto for over 30 years. I can’t stand bike lanes, I find them unsafe and often congested. If I can avoid bike lanes I do. If I need room I take it, easy…
Unfortunately, both sides are wrong here. A city Toronto’s size and growth should be constantly digging subways and tunnels, but takes 10Y siestas. Under pressure, the city reduced parking in High Park. Literally blocking off perfectly usable paved parking. Go visit Madrid, every new intersection is super pedestrian friendly and has a parking lot underneath. Stop picking sides in a bicycle vs car BS argument.
Update since this video: He plans on REMOVING the Bloor Street, University Avenue, and Yonge Street, despite so much evidence that bike lanes actually reduce congestion.
not on major arteries, they don't!
Keep your generalized statements out of this specific and awful problem, causing more GHGs due to the traffic slowdown!
@@kathrynoneill81 they do especially on major arteries
@@kathrynoneill81 You drive along Bloor, University and Yonge when there are subway lines? Do you ever exercise?
I saw this earlier this week, this actually baffles and enrages me
@@kathrynoneill81 source?
One of the most striking things I saw when I was in Toronto this spring was a completely packed streetcar moving at only a few miles per hour through heavy congestion at rush hour. It makes you think about how much higher ridership could be if these vehicles were given dedicated right-of-ray and improved frequencies.
I was on a completely full one this summer coming back from the expo and it just stopped… for half an hour. No announcement, no traffic just stopped. Eventually people just got off and started walking… what a system…
We tried that on King St and several candidates in the last mayoral election made it a key point to remove it (they all lost). Eventually cops just stopped enforcing it.
The streetcars run every few minutes in theory. King Street has a streetcar scheduled every 2 minutes at rush hour and every 5 minutes off peak. But they often get delayed so there can still be long waits
Giving any other mode of transportation the right-of-way in any situation is literally 1984.
@@Ely-zf4yt like it is done for cars, all over America?
A large part of infrastructure is designed around getting suburban drivers into and out of the city. The assumption is that suburbanites are good for the urban economy. But as we have found with the whole 'work-from-home' phenomenon, that can suddenly go away. When it does, cities are left holding the bag, with roads and zoning laws that are inconvenient for actual residents of the city.
Suburban traffic downtown and in high-density corridors is brutal even when WFH is allowed. But the urban dwellers who suffer from it have very little political influence in practice. We need more local policies that benefit the people who actually live there, rather than the folks passing by.
also like, there definitely isn't ANY other way of transporting suburbanites downtown, you totally CANNOT just run buses and trams and trains and make things better for everyone at a lower cost, no sir-ee.
@@Frostbiker roads are an expense. buildings are revenue. it is counter-intuitive for a city planner to tear down a revenue source in order to replace it with an added expense, yet that is what we do.
@@Alex-od7nl You don't connect roads with revenue? How do stores get walk in traffic without roads? How do stores get inventory?
@@stevemahoney1733 I'm talking about tearing down entire neighborhoods in order to build highways that fed from suburbs into downtown areas, which is what we started doing in the 50's. Since shops and commercial activity existed in these cities prior to the construction of these highways, it is reasonable to assume trucks were able to make deliveries on the already-existing roads before then. Also, this road-over-building rationale is primarily a North American phenomenon, and one does not see issues with truck deliveries elsewhere throughout the world in towns which did not prioritize the insecurity of the suburban motorist over actual cold hard revenue.
Quick tip: don’t elect anyone named Ford for anything.
He is the second Ford Ontario has had. As if his brother wasn’t *b*fat enough
unless you want to huff gas and smoke crack.
Idk if there was a position for minister of beer sales I'd consider him
Unless Hollywood started choosing actors by democracy.
Ford sucks.. but at at least he is finally doing one thing right.. getting rid of these useless bike lanes. Cyclist are such dorks.. go ride your bicycle at a park like every other kid.
Fords ideas are so blatantly against cities (specifically Toronto) that it’s insane to me how he still has a job
Because he can alienate voters in the major Ontario cities and everyone else will still give him a majority
I think Dougie is still bitter he didn't get the job of Mayor, so a lot of his policies are out of spite. Like shrunk Toronto's City council (Which I didn't even know a Premier could do), closed down Ontario Science Centre since Toronto owned the land but not the building, and is now fucking up it's transit and cycling by injecting more and more cars into Toronto, which can't handle any more
His name is Ford.😀
Thank the rest of Ontario and the suburbs. Toronto does not speak for the rest of Ontario.
He should go meet his brother.
"One more lane"
Yes, one more bike lane :-)
It just result in more (bike) traffic :-)
Bro bro one more car lane bro I swear bro bro bro traffic will be fixed forever bro bro cities stop one lane short before solving traffic forever bro bro bro.
@@Jakob_DK yeah thanks for proving that they work
we clearly need 6 12 lane freeways running under the 401, and maybe a few (6-100) 20 lane freeways as overhead bridge style freeways too. Finally, traffic will be solved!
@@Jakob_DK I think it would be wrong to deny induced demand if safe cycling infrastructure is available. But as the costs are so low and it contributes to the physical activity many of our doctors recommend, it's a good thing.
Crazy, let’s spend more money for car infrastructure that population increase will eventually make obsolete.
We need to turn Bloor into a 8 lane highway to accommodate 3 million vehicles a year.
@@PWingert1966 Or, just return it to the previous 2 lanes each direction with painted bike lanes.
No thanks, I don't want to go with the Liberal plan of 100 million people by 2100....
@@PWingert1966 nice sarcasm. I hope...
If Ford has his way, it won't be long before the 401 highway joins the Katy freeway and turns the whole continent into a highway.
When your roads are already at capacity, but your population is growing, the ONLY solution is modal shift to cycling and public transit. You cannot infinitely grow car capacity in a city. This needs to be driven into politicians's heads. Rob/Doug Ford just wants to say things to appear to please car drivers (his target voters) without actually offering a solution. What is next, removing sidewalks to add more lanes on downtown streets? Just park into mega mall parking lot and walk indoors to your shop 🙂
You are right that you can't add more cars, easily. But you can't add a lot of electric bikes of all different capacities and legalities. We now have at least scooters, electric bikes, electric motorcyles, and push bikes, just for starters, on the roads and sidewalks. Not a rational mix, or easy to expand. The real issue is what underpins the expansion, and what are it's needs overall. In a 4 season country with a rapidly expanding population, we need to move a lot of goods and people, and basically what we have is 50% of the downtown roads set aside for final mile delivery workers. Cutting the roads in half probably reduces the flow by 500%. And we traded that so that people can get pizza at the door, with massive excess packaging, and other costs.
It's having the same effect on traffic the opposite direction as well. Torontonians have started moving out of the city towards Niagara and they are clogging up the highways. The last 4 years has been insane to drive on the main highway. Small towns are being built up because people from the city are moving.
Much easier solution - encourage of development of suburbs and growing population there, rather then constructing new high rase residential building in the city. I would say - stop building new schools and limit access to the existing ones - and people voluntarily will start leaving.
This is what some people can't understand....they insist on the car and seem to believe one more highway lane, one more new road, get rid of all bike lanes will solve the problem. The car traffic in the city of Toronto won't decrease when the population continues to grow and shows no signs of stopping. There just won't be a decrease in number of cars in this city.
People will go visit and talk about how great Amsterdam was with its walkabikity and bike system and how beautiful the river is but then snarl at any such suggestion of doing so in Toronto.
@@AK.__they have built a lot more denser houses and condos all across the suburbs of Toronto in places like Oakville, Vaughan, Pickering exc....but they still continue to build them around car dependent culture. Still building box stores in huge parking lots and smaller Plaza malls which still are surrounded by parking lots, and all of these seem to be off of major 6 lane roads that look dangerous for cyclists & Pedestrians to travel along side. To travel across a suburb by bike would force you onto some major roads, it's difficult to travel by any secondary road because they still usually don't get a straight route on secondary roads in the sububrs. I still think they don't use simple denser straight grid systems.
99% of roads are allocated to cars but giving .05% to people on bikes, Toronto drivers will kill you for it without consequence. The last shot of the bikes parked in front of those townhouses is next to the Rail Path in the west end of Toronto, which is in the process of upgrading a pedestrian/bike path and extending to the downtown core and has come under fire for the costs. But the city has no problem throwing an extra $70 million at the Gardiner Expressway to speed up construction which by the way has already been fully funded by the provincial government for drivers who don't even live in Toronto.
It's pretty disgusting. People are brainwashed.
That's because bikes aren't popular except downtown
Well first that’s just wrong.
Even despite this abysmal cycling network that we currently have. Would cars be popular if there were no roads for them? How many cars drive through this swamp? Zero? Wonder why? 🤔
Maybe the trick is to not tell them which project is for which vehicle:
"We have two traffic proposals for you: The first projects costs $1 000 per user per year and will move at most 7 000 people a day. The second project costs $100 per user per year and will move at most 70 000 people a day. Which do you prefer?"
Drivers cannot kill a cyclist and get away check reality before you comment
Something about Ford’s appearance leads me to believe that Ford has never ridden a bicycle.
Lmao
It's funny because back like in 2017 he actually was in a video on TVO with Jagmeet Singh where they both rode a bike together and he rode on bike lanes, and at the end said "we have to do all we can to protect cyclists, you know your nervous, when there's no bike lanes"
I'm a cyclist but i don't think we should equate biking with exercise. E bikes can make cycling accessible for everyone regardless of their physical fitness
Something about Ford's appearance leads me to believe he has a tremendous burden of psychological damage.
Political Blind Date, him and Jagmeet Singh went on a bike ride. I'm having trouble finding the video but if you search up on TH-cam the Toronto Star did post about the episode.
As a resident of Toronto for 30 years prior to moving to the Netherlands last year, this breaks my heart. I take absolutely no pleasure in thinking along the lines of “so glad I don’t have to put up with this anymore.”
The notion that you will solve congestion by forcing everyone into a car is beyond absurd. I wish that Ontario would start moving aggressively in the right direction and improving public transit, bike infrastructure and walkability everywhere.
How are the trades over there specifically HVAC. I'm hopefully planning on moving there
@@happydimsum8221 please don’t rely on this as advice since I am not a tradesperson and I am speaking from experience as a customer. From what I can tell, the housing market is similar to Southern Ontario - very hot. Lots of people renovating so lots of work for trades. HVAC in particular is probably not in as much demand here as in Ontario. Central air in residential settings is almost unheard of. There is also a fair bit of municipal heating. Re-insulating older homes is probably more in demand. Furthermore, although pretty much everyone speaks English, as a customer facing contractor, you need to speak Dutch. That is unless you want to run a business that caters to expats - which are also not uncommon.
Hope this helps.
Dougs ideas keep getting worse and worse
I blame the voters of Ontario. Their apathy, let this guy in, against their own best interests.
@@timbinder3260 it's weird. I'm an Ontarian, and I know so many people that love Doug and hate him at the same time. They always vote for him. I guess for lots of people they're just scared of how poorly the previous liberal caucus performed. But I guess we won't know for quite a few years since Dougie still has a high approval rating
@@timbinder3260 First of all, great username. Second, I also want to blame the voters, since they're the ones who keep handing him the majorities. Also need to blame the Conservative-owned media that backs him, the corporate-shill spineless Liberals who refuse to bring forward a decent leader who will change the status quo, and the NDP who ran Horwath 4 straight fucking times, and are going to lead Stiles into another loss. We needed Jagmeet to run for Premiere back in 2018 instead of the timeline we got.
Do you think it’ll help if we highlight that the tunnel idea is weird compared to idk almost anything else from trains to bikes to congestion charges
@@timbinder3260 I guess it depends on what the voters considered their best interest. The previous premier, Wynne was a Woke spending addict. I'm not defending all of Fords choices nor am i attacking all of Wynnes but you can only spend for so long before you need to tighten the spending and reduce the deficit, hopefully Ford has, will.
I lived in Montreal in the 1990s and my main means of transport in the summer was my bicycle. This is before most of the bike infrastructure was built. Most of the time I was doing my daily commute to and from work, and stopping off to buy groceries and such on my way home. Over time you learn to use quiet side-streets in order to avoid the most dangerous traffic.
This is how I see things. If I was a cyclist, why would I demand to use an arterial roadway that is a miserable experience whether walking, biking, or driving?
Ah yes, rather than remove one of 5 lanes on a huge stroad that nobody uses, let’s cram bikes and cars into a tiny one way street to avoid inconveniencing drivers. Great logic there.
I thought side streets were places to park cars for free. Where would you put a bicycle lane on a side street without inconveniencing drivers?
As CROW standards spread across Europe, NA local authorities keep increasing their maintenance liabilities... like, come on NA, the Netherlands figured out how to get two lane road to be the same as a four lane stroad ages ago... th-cam.com/video/FXfNXLh51yc/w-d-xo.html
“Hey, how should I bike east through old Toronto?”
“Oh you take the DuPont Lansdowne Lappin Dufferin Harlem Shaw, Yarmouth Palmerton, Olive, Bathurst, Wells, Kendall Bernard bike path.”
Had me dying😂😂😂
It’s essentially; “I only drive, I do not ride bike, so F those that may want to.”
People aren't riding bikes, they are driving them. This isn't the rainbow 70s when 10 speeds showed up and they were healthy exercise and non-polluting. These are nuclear powered, lithium stored, unregulated transportation, unlicensed. Made in China, delivered by Amazon, and fueled by Pickering nuclear. Pretty cool really, but not some paradise on wheels that stands aside from the general need to provide goods for a greedy population of consumers. They won't get even the job of delivering themselves done.
@@HondoTrailside not everyone can afford to own a car. Having even an electric bike is far less road maintenance than automobiles do to streets. Plenty of us also cycle without electric. Or, own both. Being multi mobile will decrease much need for storing cars, having to park them, as population grows as well.
Such a great explainer video! Thank you for this, and for sharing the Petition!
It feels like he’s premier of Toronto rather than Ontario, always interfering with the city. But he’s elected by all of Ontario, so often times it’s the residents of smaller communities influencing policy over T.O. Move the seat of the provincial government to London or something this is getting annoying, maybe if all the big shots are outside the city they’ll let the city decide for itself.
This has long been a gripe from parts of Ontario outside "the 905". Half the population of the province lives in there, so it's easy to give them priority and still get re-elected. Doesn't seem to matter which colour the ruling party's lawn signs are.
@@bonemar66 But he's not giving the GTA priority, his policies are only hurting the GTA!!!
GTA used to have more voting power, until it was consolidated into the GTA under Mike Harris' government.
Conservatives really don't like cities, do they.
@@slothnium Mike Harris was also the guy who sold the 407. the more I learn about him the less I respect him.
@@ting280 Mike Harris also "Downloaded" a BUNCH of roads to local jurisdiction. Ontario would be so much better if it had more numbered routes like the US
Why does Doug Ford keep getting elected? I thought Canadians were better than that
Although Ford's party got 61% of the seats in the Ontario Legislature in the last election, they actually only got 40% of the votes.
The perversity of first-past-the-post voting.
We're really not. Our last Prime Minister founded and is the leader of the IDU, an organization pushing anti-progressive laws, like banning non-hetero marriages, keeping the working class powerless, etc. The frontrunner for the next PM is his right-hand man, Temu Trump, who believes in the same things.
@@sgtpastry I hope for your sake that you don't go down the path we went on with Trump
@@scpatl4now Trump was hardly where you took the wrong turn. He was just where all the previous bad choices led.
My god. A perfect video on this topic DOES exist. 👏
Good morning!
I wish Doug would come down from rexdale and hop on a bicycle. Otherwise, he might end up like Rob...🥓
🥓 🥓
There is no reason to cycle in Toronto. Why would anyone want that?
A politician named "Ford" making carbrained policies, no pun intended.
Great Video! Sums the reality up perfectly.
Thank goodness for channels like this that champion the societal benefits of active transportation. Hopefully this knowledge reaches the ignorant.
I overheard two lawyers discussing a court case about an accident involving a bike and a car. One lawyer said to the other "what people don't realize is that if there is a bike in any lane it is legally a bike lane."
That should work well on the 401 or dvp.
Cars also take bike lanes when they have a chance too
The car lobby be strong my friends
As it should be.
Yeah, it takes ICE infrastructure to build the infrastructure bikes use. Unless you want to cycle on the dirt. And in Ontario, the car industry played a huge role in the economy.
Adding space for bikes reduces the need for space for cars. Bike infrastructure relieves traffic congestion. But Ford won't understand this, will he?
what?? You are nuts if you think cars will ever go away or be reduced in numbers. Bike lanes clog up roads for the dozen bike riders that use them. Why should 1% of the population get entire lanes of traffic to them selves ?
@@johnmorrison9758 I don't think cars will go away. Cities around the world are taking measures to reducing driving. The planet needs us to do this. Cities that do this are succeeding. When they take these measures, people ride bikes more, so it's no longer 1%. The fraction of people who ride bikes is not static, and the same is true for people who drive cars. And you ask why. Several reasons: congestion, safety, pollution, noise, accessibility, and I could go on and on. Take a look at the changes Paris, France has made in just a few years.
@@tomreingold4024 Montreal ranks even better on the global biking index than Paris . Montreal island and Gretaer Montreal has a population of 5.1 million with more than 1,000 km of protected bike lanes including express bike lanes and ranks #1 best biking city in north america and top 20 in teh world ( global biking index ) . Toronto is the only city in north america to merge cities as far as 150 km away in order to get the title of the largest city in Canada but the worst quality of life and no identity.
@@jeanbolduc5818 I have been learning about bike infrastructure in Canadian cities and the progress they have made. I did not know about the merger of cities, though, so thank you. Some come to NYC (where I am) and think our bike infrastructure is wonderful. I'm not happy with it yet. We have a long way to go.
Blaming is easy and politicians rarely ever work hard.
Didn't you basically do the exact same thing?
I traveled to Montreal this past spring for the sole purpose of seeing the cycling scene. It was amazing. I parked my car for the week and did everything by bike. I'm in Kitchener-Waterloo and they're working at it. Much better than 5 years ago and leaps ahead of Toronto
Doug Fords will come and go. Bike lanes are on the right side of history and gaining popularity world wide.
They're great until you want to find somewhere to park on the street, I'd prefer if bike lanes were funded by everyone saying yes in a plebiscite.
Divide the cost of the project by the number that said yes, no bankruptcy allowed.
Till it gets cold and now you are in the car going no where because of stupid bike lanes go ride em in the trails. Citys roads and especially toronto was not built for bikes.
Okay, Fukuyama.
@@villagelife7591Toronto wasn't built for cars either, and it sure as shit shouldn't be demolished to cater for it
@@c.curmudgeon2834 Do that with roads first. Not a single road will ever be made again. Roads are so expensive and drawn out of the public purse which is never refunded by Bluto drivers entitled to their entitlements over all others
This is just anti-virtue signaling. He's just trying to show how he hates cyclists. There's no reason the premier of the entire province should be trying to micromanage municipal concerns he has for a small area in Toronto by enacting province wide legislation.
If Ford wants to be mayor of Toronto, he should quit his job as premier, and fade into obscurity when he doesn't win that election.
I just call it sin or vice signaling, because what’s the opposite of a virtue?
@@sonorioftrill sin signaling will be better received cause of the alliteration (which sounds silly but human psychology is weird)
I mean, who DOESN'T hate cyclists?
I mean, who DOESN'T hate cyclists?
@@earthwormjim6962 normal people?
If he was serious about clearing up traffic, he'd be investing as much he possibly could into public transit and bikes.
Lol. Riding a bike in Toronto and GTA is not feasible. It's minus 20 and snowing for the majority of the year. Let's not forget that the majority of immigrants that come here want to drive and most people have families. Also, let's not forget that distances between people's homes and things like grocery stores are simply too far. Bikes only work I'm downtown Toronto otherwise they're useless.
Thanks for bringing attention to this!
The idea that bike lanes clog up traffic is just wrong. Anyone who drives in Toronto can see that traffic jams are caused by too many cars, especially near highway on/off ramps (where bike lanes don't exist). As an example, Jarvis St gets jammed from the Gardiner all the way up to Queen in rush hour (there are no bike lanes on Jarvis).Traffic gets even worse when cars stop/park illegally or block intersections.
You seriously dont connect the loss of a lane on major streets with traffic? I'm not refering to the DVP however what your inplying is that if we removed a lane from the DVP that traffic & travel times wouldn't increase. Just wrong.
@@stevemahoney1733 Traffic cannot be compared with a flowing river. Traffic is the result of people's choices, and due to different available infrastructure, people can make other choices.
@@ralf4640 Absolutely. Now, do you not agree that traffic increases when cities remove one of the two lanes ? Choices, right?
@@stevemahoney1733 Not necessarily. There are two phenomens, called "traffic evaporation" and "induced demand", resulting in avoiding traffic (Traffic evaporation) or in creating new traffic, even when roads have been extended (induced demand). In economic terms it can be explained with costs. The higher the costs, for example traffic, the less demand. As said, traffic isn't a river, given the situation every mode of transport is available (Sidewalks, Cycling, paths, good Public transport, Car lanes) people are able to make informed choices.
@@ralf4640 I'm not disagreeing with you. I've made my concerns through experience of riding in the downtown core known regarding closed off with concrete barrier bike lanes & the emergency vehicles response times
I absolutely love your videos. I watch them regularly and they are all very well thought out. I do often think that the people watching are like minded however. That said if you can change even a few people’s opinions you’ve made valuable progress.
This is the same guy who plans to dig tunnels under the 401 to add more car lanes.
this screams freedom and individual liberty (the provincial government stopping cities from developing the way they choose to)
it's anecdotal but the argument that car lanes are better for business doesn't work for me because when I'm driving I don't want to pay for parking, and I don't live in the city, so if I want something I get it outside of the city on the way in or the way out. when I'm on the bike and I want something I'll just park at the ring n post out front of the shop and go in.
There are cases where it is true, as much as what you're saying is also true. Generally, bike/pedestrian infrastructure is better for businesses because, as you say, it's significantly easier for bike/pedestrian traffic to impulsively stop and go in when they don't have to spend 10 minutes doing laps looking for a parking spot that will cost several dollars. That doesn't work, however, if bike/pedestrian traffic can't readily get to the area in question. There are numerous examples worldwide of cities replacing parking spots with bike lanes and that causing local businesses to suffer, simply because those bike lanes don't actually go anywhere and prospective customers still have to drive to reach the place (and if they have to drive but can't find parking, that's a lost sale).
In the bigger picture, a network of bike- and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure helps businesses, but it's important to keep that big picture in mind before taking away existing car infrastructure to work toward that. Partial bike networks yield significantly fewer benefits than complete ones, so if they come with a cost, that cost may outweigh the benefits until the network is finished and the full benefits can be realized.
@@dudeguy2330 yea but it's a catch 22 though. if all the roads were built for cars, then you have to take some roads if you want to make bike lanes. you can't just create them out of thin air, you have to redesign the existing space. that's the glaring flaw in Doug Ford's argument.
You are a gem. I bet the corner store guy has the merchandise dropped in baskets brought by bike.
@@mrputter-rs the trucks blocked car lanes before they became bike lanes. they can go back to blocking car lanes instead of bike lanes.
Even from a motorist perspective, streets like the one at 2:40 (with two car lanes each way, no center shared left turn lane) aren't even that "damaged" by road diets that turn them into 1 travel lane each way with a center shared left turn lane. Making that change removes the problem of cars stopping in a through lane while they wait for the opportunity to turn left, which makes things safer for drivers without significantly reducing traffic speed/flow. So they're basically opportunities for "free" bike lanes.
Bicycles, ebikes, electric cargo bicycles, robo taxis and escooters are great options for last mile, short distance travel.
Reduced transportation costs and fossil fuels free transportation.
Cities need to do more to encourage people to ride bicycles by providing SAFE, PROTECTED BIKE LANES and trails. Every adult and child should own a bicycle and ride it regularly. Bicycles are healthy exercise and fossil fuels free transportation. Electric bicycles are bringing many older adults back to cycling. Ride to work, ride to school, ride for health or ride for fun. Children should be able to ride a bicycle to school without having to dodge cars and trucks. Separated and protected bike lanes are required. It will also make the roads safer for automobile drivers. Transportation planners and elected officials need to encourage people to walk, bike and take public transportation. Healthy exercise and fossil fuels free transportation. In the future cities will be redesigned for people not cars. Crazy big parking lots will be transformed with solar canopies generating free energy from the sun.
I love to see the looks on the faces of the sucker's driving cars when I'm getting around on my escooter just as quickly as they are at a tiny fraction of the cost.
They know that when they get where they're going, they have to rely on sheer luck just to find parking. Whereas I'm just going to pull up within a few yards of the front door of the building. Meanwhile, they have to ride around and wait for an available spot only to walk at least 50 yards to get to where I'm already parked right by the door. 😂
Does regularly include winter? You are talking about something that doesn't exist. I used to commute, before bike lanes, the length of TO, and had not problems. Toronto should be rationally managed for what is there. Whether you actually want to live in the mostly youthful, mostly low value jobs landscape you describe is another thing. Someone will probably still want to arrive somewhere, not sweaty, in a suit. What I see in the bike lanes are mostly recent arrivals who have some kind of delivery job. Which is fine, but is by definition only a small percentage of people who live here. If you want local and bike based, you still need tons of goods to make it into the city. It isn't hard to see why building and housing is so expensive if your main arteries are set aside for door dash.
Moved out to Pickering, probably the worst bike place I have ever cycled, and I bike tour. That is the tragedy, Toronto is the best place for bikes, the new suburbs are circuitous and cycle unfriendly. They usually have some fancy bike path that is round about and a road to nowhere, but the streets are not designed for cycling. We now have a lot of lanes, but they only exist where just keeping to the right would keep you as safe, once the going gets tough, the cars invade your space.
@@ionflow1073 Looser detected. "Escooter".
I know this is off topic, but I wish more drivers would choose vehicles like the cute compact Mitsubishi van shown at 4:17!
car drivers greatest fear is being released by urbanists.... minor inconvenience
Except Not Just Bikes did a video on the Downs-Thompson paradox where he mentioned a startling fact: half of people living in Toronto walk to work.
If your busses get stuck in traffic: traffic congestion gets worse and worse until it is literally faster to walk.
Mode-shifting actually makes things more convenient for the people that actually NEED to drive.
@@jamesphillips2285 As much as I've kind of gone off NJB because of his general doomerist attitude to North American urbanism, I do like his quote that "traffic will get worse until alternatives to driving are faster," since it nicely sums up how inevitable alternative transportation is. People naturally gravitate toward the fastest option. If you make the fastest option cars, people will gravitate to driving everywhere until traffic gets so bad that they start taking alternatives. Car-centric infrastructure, however, spaces everything out so far and ruins every alternative to such an extent that traffic has to get *really* bad for that to happen, by which point everyone is miserable.
@@jamesphillips2285 NJB and especially his fanboys are scum. The most obnoxious people.
@@dudeguy2330 NJB fanboys are the worst.
@@crowmob-yo6ry
Even then, I’ll still take them over carbrained NIMBYs any day
Finally someone thinking! You are only adding congestion and emissions by reducing lanes. In Mississauga they are mainly used for recreation and not to get anywhere. Get rid of all bike lanes on roads!!!!
Where's the girl? I miss when it was both of you guys. Great video though!
Woman. She is a woman.
We are talking about a government that claims raising highway speed limits to 110 will reduce congestion!!! Sure. People moving along a congested highway at 60 will get to their destination a lot faster after the sign changes from 100 to 110.
Which is even more absurd. Whenever I've driven along the highways; other cars are always going 10 to 15km above the speed limit all the time.
All this will do is make the freeways even more dangerous.
It is all based on the weird idea that car traffic somehow is more important than other traffic.
@@user-iw5mp5th6d Actually, fuel taxes are not even enough to pay for the complete costs of highways. So local streets are paid for by all tax payers, also the ones without a car.
@@harenterberge2632
But vehicle-owners make up the vast majority of tax-payers.
That doesn't matter though they still don't deserve the roads @@shauncameron8390
@@shauncameron8390tax payers do not deserve any more respect than people who pay no taxes your not contributing any more to society
@@shauncameron8390 moving the goal post much?
While you did mention the lack of intersection/crossing infrastructure on "side street" cycleways, I think that point deserves more emphasis.
I routinely choose to ride on streets with less or no dedicated cycling infrastructure because they have proper signalized intersections with automatic signals. On a main car route, you will have no stop signs and about a 50% chance of getting a green light at every major intersection. On a side street bike route, you will have constant stop signs, often not even 4 way stops but crossings or turns onto roads where drivers have no legal obligation to stop for you. When it comes to crossing major streets, these routes usually make you press a beg button to be allowed to cross, which means you always have to stop and always have to go over to the button, which might not be conveniently located. This whole rigmarole to simply continue on my way is annoying for someone clipped in like me. The whole experience is inconvenient and makes you feel like your transportation is not a priority, because it isn't. Instead of cruising along at 20+ km/h, you are constantly stopping and trying to get back up to speed, waiting for cars, and losing time.
If a side street cycleway is done right, it will have signal priority and function like a main route anyways, so you might as well put it on a main car route to reduce the number of major intersections on intersecting streets. Or better yet, make cars use the side streets and give all the main routes to cycling and transit.
Ah, the Ford Family... Ruining Toronto since 1995...
In Denver, we have a super stroad (8-12 lanes wide) with a proposal to install a BRT. As a full time bicyclist/part-time cyclist, I advocate for putting the bike infrastructure on the secondary roads parallel to the stroad, as long as meaningful and prioritized connections for bicyclists to access destinations on the stroad and to get across the stroad safely and effectively are created. I’d rather focus on mode shift on a super stroad with lots of parking lot curb cuts, while creating less conflicting and more comfortable bicycle infrastructure about 1/4 mile back, with enhanced access from both sides.
When you took the example of Mtl, I was expected you to talk about Saint-Denis Street which is the perfect example of why bike lanes should be on Main Street. People were crying few years ago and now it is the street where the shops are the healthier and at rush hour there is more Cyclists than drivers, even if it was previously a 2x2 streets
We talk about Saint-Denis enough lol
lol you literally routed my entire daily commute 😂
Why is it up to Doug Ford and not city-level politicians?
Highways generally fall under the purview of the province (MTO), not the municipality. The MTO manages all 400-series highways.
In Canada, cities do not exist in the constitution. They are created by Provinces so the Province can do anything they want to them. In the 90s, the Conservative government of Ontario decided to amalgamate a bunch of cities together even though the vast majority of residents in those cities had voted to not be amalgamated.
Hey, I had a brain fart earlier. I thought you were talking about the "let's dig an highway underneath an existing highway". The guy is such a firehouse of bad ideas that it is difficult to keep up.
In Canada, cities are at the mercy of the province.
Yeah! When using Boyer as the main north-south biking route near the Jean-Talon Market, none of the east-west streets have stop signs. Main biking routes need to have accommodation at intersections.
Omg i love the Kei van in the thumbnail
The data from the Bloor-Danforth bikeway analyses show that the bike lanes had a positive effect on the businesses along this major commercial route. Most customers use the TTC, bike, or walk to these businesses. With the subway underneath, the best way to configure Bloor-Danforth to allow emergency vehicles to use it would be to remove cars and parking entirely from the route.
It’s one of the positive side effect of wide dedicated bike lanes : emergency services can take them and reduce intervention time. Bikes clear the way faster than cars.
Getting pleasant and useful bike lanes may not be a question of politics only, here in Montréal we seem to have someone who knows how to plan+design+implement bike lanes, other cities may be unable to find or not be willing to get people who are competent at this.
My city put a bike lane in from the college thru downtown, but one street over on a side street. Downtown Main street has all the shops. The side street is more like an alley being behind everything. Congestion and parking is a big problem in this area, which is a reason I only bike to downtown shops. I usually end up on a sidewalk to reach them, since biking on Main street is risking your life.
I live in south On. outside the gta and the issue I find with riding in the city is that bike routes are all leisure routes through parks. They never flow downtown, up to the university and mall. Nothing is direct and it requires cyclists to work to get around on the leisure routes. If someone wants to go to the popular areas they need to join public streets due to highly trafficked sidewalks and bans. The streets aren't safe for cyclists due to drivers that are impatient around them, I regularly have drivers splitting the lanes with me forcing me into traffic. Suddenly ending bike lanes also lead to high speed intersections becoming unsafe. Riding is kind of thrilling but my anxieties about drivers can get to me. Stay safe ❤
doug ford is a populist, he only cares about electability. the problem isn't him, it's that the population of cyclists are small and their political clout are minuscule. if ford really wants to solve congestion, have a traffic toll tax with exemptions on commercial and handicapped vehicles, or expropriate homes and businesses to widen roads. ford's idea isn't about solving congestions, its about self promotion on the short term electability at the expense of long term benefits and the vulnerable minority.
The problem is he is in the pocket of car-dependent industries but also yes that regular people have been brainwashed by these industries and their lobbying
Widening roads is never the answer though...
@@aralornwolf3140 , agreed. tunneling under 401 when the crosstown lrt still isn't online. how much disruptions, time and tax payers money did that cost? how many businesses went bankrupt from that? why isn't ford talking about that?
@@aralornwolf3140See the debacle of the Katy freeway east of Houston, Texas. In some sections, counting HOV lanes and frontage lanes, there are now 26 lanes. But since it has been finished, travel time for commuters has risen.
The worse is that urbanists know since the 1930s that adding lanes doesn’t work¹. And yet, you have people like Ford ...
¹: For more info, look for ”induced demand” and ”Braess paradox”.
Populists are pure evil. Ford is Canada's Trump.
Bike lanes are a bad idea. Ford is right on this issue! And FYI … I am an avid cyclist 🚴! ❤
Doug ford had his midlife crisis last week
I used to cycle commute from 401 to King street every day, and there weren't any bike lanes. Was on Bloor a few times recently and what I noticed is that bike lanes are heavily used, but 90% by electric vehicles. A lot of these are basically electric motorcycles. They were also on sidewalks. I drive from Pickering to Bloor and Avenue road, and return, once a week, and I saw only one person on an actual bike, and it was some older person.
I would not want to ride that bike lane system on a regular bike, so you now need a lane for electric things, push bikes, and whatever else you want on the road. Most of the bikes looked as though there were made in China, and probably bought from Amazon. That is major industrial infrastructure at work, not to mention the nuclear power grid that supplies them. So they aren't exactly self sufficient in some alternative way. Most appeared to be on some kind of final mile delivery job, and therefore not a green economy thing so much as existing to let people be even more lazy and dependant on bad environmental practices like over-packaging, vs buying raw foods and making one trip a week. It is what it is, but I don't feel like printing up some t-shirts and having a rally for urban cycling quite yet.
Just make the main streets only consist of bike lines and send the cars through the side streets. Problem solved.
A tunnel under 401 is MADNESS.
Replace 2 lanes of the 401 with a frequently running express rail service that connects to major transit hubs in connected cities, and have low rate, subway-style, all-you-can-eat travel once you breach the gate.
Cars are so inefficient, expensive, unhealthy, dangerous, and environmentally destructive. More transit, and more people-scale transport methods will lower the economic burden, and make cities more livable, pleasant, and connected.
I would even take a bike lane between cities.
It is insane, truly. A road under a road, for massively expensive redundancy?. As you say, why not rail, well why not a rail tunnel then?
Or maybe, you know, using all those existing railroad tracks for meaningful & frequent longer distance commuter rail. I thought Toronto had the Go Train and that is what it was for, something akin to the RER in Paris and so on. But I am not from Ontario, so maybe it sucks, I do not know. (We have West Coast express, but it is a rush hour commuter service only; 4 trains go downtown in the morning, then come back in the afternoon, that's it.)
The point is, for the cost of building such a long car tunnel, you could build a whole new heavy rail right of way, with electrified tracks. The whole barrier to the Windsor-Quebec high speed rail corridor has been this notion that there is no place to easily put a new & segregated high speed rail line except at great cost, and now the premier wants to stack roadway on roadway instead.
Where are the people with vision in this country, a sense of long term planning & survival instead of short term optics and partisan wankery? If anything, the trend of "shallow and stupid" politics is getting worse, not better. 🤬
In some locations, putting the bike lanes on side streets (or even making the side street almost bike-only) works well. E.g. in Berlin's center, Linienstraße is a side street directly parallel to Torstraße, between 50 to 75 meters away. It was made a "bicycle street", which means that beside bicyclists only people with destinations here are allowed to use them. For cars it's also mostly a one-way street (in varying directions). It's certainly a lot less loud, and less dangerous than using Torstraße. The problems are the intersections with other main streets, which don't have traffic lights. (And of course, there are not many businesses there - no chance for me to grab some food on the way home.)
Eliminate street parking and make streets one-way. That's it. That's all that has to be done.
The Government Road bureaucracy shouldn't be in the parking business.
One Way streets are safer for everyone and they can probably eliminate 75% of stops which create traffic.
Easy for you to eliminate parking when you don't own a business that wants customers to be able to shop in their store. Your argument is pure nonsense.
i'm so glad you mentioned how terrible 10th avenue is in vancouver
Common Doug Ford L
You know that our 🦕 mayor is just dying to say that he just wants to “Make Toronto Great Again”. 😒 Strong vibes.
Thanks/Merci!
Keep peddling the pedallers!
Thank you!
So many twists and turns on those side streets.🤯
you wanted to exercise !!
Inconvenienving both cyclists who need to get somewhere and inconveniencing residents of quiet city neighborhoods just so motorists on the arterial stroads are not inconvenienced is just absolutely crazy!
Another problem with off-street routes like 10th is crossing streets. Instead of flowing with traffic through major intersections, bikes have to stop at cyclist-triggered crossings, and cross traffic has to stop more often for crossing cyclists a block away from major intersections.
Minor intersections aren't much better, as drivers are focused on getting to the major road, or have just turned off the faster major road, and often aren't paying enough attention to cyclists who have the right of way. 10th has the highest incidence of injuries to cyclists in the city.
Vancouver has "good" routes like 10th that are consistent for a reasonable distance, but also plenty of its own winding routes like 8th-Yew-7th-Yukon-8th-Ontario-5th...
You can go out of your way to get to one of the good routes if you're going further, but for moderate distances the route is often winding or disconnected.
(York parallel to Cornwall is pretty good, but a pretty short segment that's not clear to access travelling east from Point Grey Road, which instead connects to Kits Beach which doesn't clearly connect to 1st ave to continue further East).
They should ban cars.
So you're in favour of 15 minute cities ?
@@stevemahoney1733 i'm in favour of trains and public transit, sweaty.
That's not a realistic option for Toronto, and probably not desirable. You don't need to ban cars if you design for people instead
@@stevemahoney1733 15 minutes cities have existed for centuries, they just gave it a new name and slapped it as a conspiracy. You're literally a puppet for big oil. New york, tokyo, seoul, hell even toronto right now can be named 15 minute cities. But "oh no convenience how scary!" is REALLY what they have you saying, I'm genuinely dumbfounded.
@@frempy4426 you definitely need to ban cars if you're designing for people.
we should ban all vehicles from our streets.
Except maybe bikes?
Crazy, i would think to fight trafic you should builld more bike laners so there are less cars!?
Unfortunately common sense is not common with our politicians
@@Alpine1 so sad
What ? You mean that vehicules that take less room for moving one person than ones that take 10 times the space of the forementionned vehicules help reducing congestion ? That’s crazy !
Oh, wait ...
you are high on something. There will never be less cars. It is reality !! Bikes can never replace cars. Cars may have one driver most of the time, but a lot of those times, those cars are carrying something else to be delivered or taken along.
@@johnmorrison9758 dude please chill :),i drive a car mysefl, but in urban regions ther is a not enough bettter alternatives. to little trams ,to little bus lines, and not enough save bike lanes. Btw. more bike lanes means you can drive a lot easier a car because more people take the bike
Same concept applies for all the people in Minneapolis wondering why we can't route buses down residential streets to avoid replacing parking with bus lanes on arterials.
I'm so glad I left Ontario, it's just backwards step after backwards step
Putting bike lands on side streets pretty much guarantees they'll be super low priority for sweep of snow and leaves too
You should join nebula!
Main streets are not roads, but destinations. They don't make any sense for cars for the businesses that front them, except for employees and a handful of their customers.
Just by practicing every day, Ford has managed to come up with increasingly stupid ideas.
His brother was just about as “bright” as this one. Voters who elected him should be weeping every day.
Remember Ford’s giant Ferris wheel on the waterfront? Exactly.
Speak up for bicycles in your community.
Talk to your elected officials and city transportation planners.
Safe, protected bike lanes and trail are needed. Paint is not good enough.
This is all incredibly depressing because we chose to move to Toronto over Montreal for a less harsh winter….we have a 5 month old on tow and unable to make a flight across to Vancouver. Will push through this season and aim for a move to BC soon!
The entitlement of Westerners to have their own individual transport be it cars/motor bikes/ push bikes is ridiculous. Why won't Westerners walk more or take public transport? Entitlement overload
Because it's unreliable and not everyone likes crowds.
A lot of it has to do with property taxes and rough terrain during the initial colonization hundreds of years ago. European and Asian cities were cities from day one hundreds and in some cases thousands of years ago. North American cities often started as a mish-mash network of loosely connected agricultural and industrial centers that were spread out by necessity that slowly networked together. Furthermore, property taxes and land prices decline along with density creating a financial incentive to sprawl.
Its a city problem.
And therefore it should only involve city tax payer dollars; i don't want my federal or provincial taxes going towards any project just for 1 city.
Funnily enough a lot of urban tax revenue goes towards rural areas, i wouldn't throw stones from a fragile glass house...
Ontario should make these 2 entire road a bike/pedestrian path. Dundas and Young.
And Bloor/Danforth.
The point I find missing from this is why is the provincial government getting involved in city planning?
Our government is divided into different levels of responsibility. They should only be interfering with municipal responsibilities when it is in regards to a provincial issue. For example, mandating an increase in available housing to accomodate an increased population of cities are falling behind.
Doug Ford is from Etobicoke (like me), he is a totally car-brained suburbanite with exactly zero understanding of cities and thinks cars are just great for everything, hence the lust for highway construction. I really don't think he's interested in learning either.
One of the things I notice on TO roads these days is massive entitlement, which is to some extent reflected here in fairness comments. Car traffic on my recent trip was about 33% over the 90km speed limit on the DVP, to the extent that there was a 3 car crash, and flip. A a cyclist, most cars seem to have texters in them. I see all kinds of electric motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles, most of which seem to be operating at some level of illegality such as no lighting, how are there electric bikes with no lights? I see a lot of electric vehicles on sidewalks. I don't know how scooters got on the roads, I am behind on that legislation. Not so long ago Segways tried to roll out, but now the cheaper, crappier is everywhere. There does not seem to be any enforcement of anything.
"Why aren't these cyclists taking the side street bike lane?" Um, the same reason you're not there? I'm convinced people don't use their brains to think.
Ford never claimed to use his brain for thinking. It is just there to keep his skull from collapsing. How did he get elected anyway? Was he running against an inanimate rod? (Simpsons reference)
For every bike you remove from the road, means you add a car to the road. If you want to reduce congestion, reduce how many cars you have on the road.
I don't even know where to start, other than Ford is desperately going back to his suburbanite wedge issue playbook to try to resurrect his deeply underwater popularity. 407 is pretty much empty but we need to spend ten's of billions on a tunnel (of course completely unvalidated by any type of transportation study). Why not buy back (or just pay the tolls from the public purse if that's not possible) the 407 for a start. Also, the 407 corridor seems pretty wide with lots of grass. Why not expand that in future? What we need is a regional plan, created by credible experts, looking at future growth, land use, etc etc. and then start building out more regional rail service like in Paris, NYC, London etc. Also, why are condo's allowed to pile all their crap on the roadway and block a lane all over downtown?? Why don't delivery trucks run at night where possible (e.g. Amazon, Fedex). Finally, why don't we promote bike commuting more, now that we have a pretty great network I don't see as many bikes as I would expect on the major routes .... sadly it will be use it or loose it.
Wait ... So, you won’t have a problem with the FedEx driver waking you up at 2:00 in the morning to deliver you a package ?
Someone needs to set up a weekly meeting with Ford to remind him that he's premier of Ontario, not mayor of Toronto. He seems to forget that frequently.
Make the cars take the secondary streets since it takes drivers no extra effort to go longer distances and they generally go to a single destination and are less likely to stop. (Not that I would want the secondary streets full of cars, but that would make the most logical sense in this illogical idea.)
I arose with your voices in my head. Ambulant, I bike! I subscribe! I have unwittingly developed a large language model of you two. 😅
Dougie is pandering to the carbrained suburban vote. Most people (that I know) in Toronto proper have no problems with bike lanes. Congestion affects suburban commuters into the core, and blaming bike lanes is an easy target. But really, we aren't the problem, we are actually the solution!
I’ve been commuting by bicycle in Toronto for over 30 years. I can’t stand bike lanes, I find them unsafe and often congested. If I can avoid bike lanes I do. If I need room I take it, easy…
Unfortunately, both sides are wrong here.
A city Toronto’s size and growth should be constantly digging subways and tunnels, but takes 10Y siestas.
Under pressure, the city reduced parking in High Park. Literally blocking off perfectly usable paved parking.
Go visit Madrid, every new intersection is super pedestrian friendly and has a parking lot underneath. Stop picking sides in a bicycle vs car BS argument.