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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ก.ย. 2024
- This is the locally-recorded vide from my recent livestream in Toronto: • Toronto's New Painted ...
A lot of people were linking this video to others to show the problem with North American bicycle gutter design, but the original feed was quite choppy, due to the poor-quality LTE mobile network coverage (another thing Canadian cities don't do well).
To see the original livestream with chat, go here: th-cam.com/video/PraSpBZJc6M/w-d-xo.html
One thing that strikes me most is just how loud it is, continuously. Just a consistent wall of noise. I would be interested in the difference in volume (min, max, average) between a normal ride here and a comparable trip in NL.
Yeah. Its the same where I live
I actually turned down the volume on my audio input to its lowest ahead of this ride, knowing that it would be loud. So It's even worse than you think, because when I stream in the Netherlands, I have my mic input volume set higher.
I felt the same thing when I walked in Guelph.
I live in Amsterdam. the noise in this vid is fucking amazing. jesus christ. how can people live here? it will make you sick. No rest no peace 😭🤢
@@leenprael3583 it’s why a large amount of North America can’t stand living or visiting large urban spaces. I grew up in a pretty rural/exurban setting and find big US cities jarring and exhausting.
"I used to be an advocate, but I kept calling people idiots." I feel your pain.
Yeah. 😔
What a stressful ride! I wonder what people driving would think if car lanes just ended abruptly, scaffolding was blocking the lane, or a bicycle was left parked for a “second” in a vehicle travel lane while they ran inside the building. It’s good to see Toronto taking steps to improve and hopefully over time proper infrastructure will be added.
As a daily rider of these routes, this is a MASSIVE improvement to my stress levels versus what it used to be (nothing).
What some folks who don't live here might not understand is that this small improvement has taken sooo many years, funerals, public pressure, and collectivism to achieve. Were in the stage of showing it's not the end of the world for drivers. When these streets come up for total reconstruction (usually every 50 years or so) this will be improved and made permanent. Yonge and Danforth are coming up in a few years.
I'm a very defensive and aggressive cyclist because that's what makes you survive in this city. For so many of us, this is a bit of respite that we've been waiting for.
It will only get better from here!
32:00 There was a lot of resistance from retail business owners to install the bike lanes, especially from some of the more vocal Danforth merchants. When COVID came along, the city allowed the cafes to serve patrons on street patios but not indoors, so they needed to choose outdoor service (plus take-out) or nothing. So many chose the street patios over car parking. Hopefully these same merchants will see they serve 30 clients on the patios which, if they were dedicated to parking, they would hold 4 or 5 cars. So... a handful of patrons who drive... or pack out the cafe and the patio (and still serve a few drivers who can park out back). So the merchants who so strongly resisted the bike lanes getting installed, these same people are asking to have the precious car parking removed in favour of street side cafes. We win them over to our side. And we want to keep them on the side of bicycling.
I feel like these bike lanes are symbolic of how we solve most problems in Canada: do the absolute bare minimum so that we don't threaten the status quo. Housing and public transit are treated the same way.
Same case here in the US, it’s sad
I feel the major cities are starting to come around on public transit. Montreal is opening the REM which is huge, a world class improvement. Toronto closed King Street to prioritize streetcars, has made massive improvements to its bus network (especially night buses), electrified and massively increased service on the GO, and all the major Canadian cities have flagship public transit infrastructure projects in the works.
Obviously it's still not very fast but I'd say it's a massive leap forward from the 90s.
To be fair, a lot of bike infrastructure in the netherlands started out pretty crappy too, and gradually improved.
Retrofitting stuff as an afterthought isn't ideal, but it's a way to get started with things that weren't considered in the original design.
But if the lanes stay permanently, they're going to have to be considered in the next designs once it's time to resurface the street.
That's when you can start seeing real solutions.
Yes! I was hoping for prerecorded rides. Now I can relive the horror of Toronto's infrastructure without choppiness
thanks for the re-uploaded video! this really feels like watching a man risking his life biking in downtown Toronto just to get good footage for his audience...
im using a small number of screenshots from various parts of this video in a presentation im making for my town council. mostly for the bad. also to help explain priority walk signals
No problem. You have my permission.
She wasn't asking you, she was telling you 😝
Well I feel a lot better about the quality of bike infrastructure in Australia after watching this. All the Netherlands videos make me sad about how much more we need to do. But this makes me realise how far we have come.
These separated lanes feels like cars are protected from you, not the opposite
The unspoken point of bike gutters is to improve the flow of traffic by keeping slow moving bikes out of the road. Cities that care about cyclists do not install bike gutters.
Minneapolis is supposedly "one of the most bike-friendly cities in the US" but from what I've seen it's all painted bicycle gutters just like this. LOVE all the right-hand turn lanes that cross over them too. >.>
Right hang turns that cut into bike lanes is insane, I’ve got one on my street and I’d bet 1 in 100 cars check before cutting across the bike lane to take the right
This is so much more stressful than your Dutch rides good god. I came here for relaxation, not near death experiences.
Check out the bike blogger who does even more insane shit
14:52 It amazes me what can be a city centre in NA. Everything looks so weirdly disproportional to what's in Scotland.
Nice, dine alongside a four lane road. Hope you smell and taste the food you’re taking over the exhaust fumes.
I'm pleasantly surprised by the little buffer strip they put between the bicycle gutter and the stroad, that makes it already massively better than a really basic gutter. However it's indeed way too narrow. This wouldn't even work for 3wheeled vehicles like a 3wheel bike or handbike. Missed opportunity from an accessibility standpoint! In NL having all those nice bike lanes everywhere makes getting around with such devices or mobility scooters a breeze.
I no longer take our infrastructure in the Netherlands for granted. I feel so lucky to be born here!
The air quality must be horrendous too
It like the people who make these bike lanes don't actually use bike lanes. This is so frustrating
23:06 That's a decapitation device on wheels.
That bit approaching the bridge that you describe as "pretty scary sometimes" (at 20:50 ) looks remarkably like Innes Road here in Ottawa, a six-lane straight up road that turns into a stroad, with a limit of 80 km/h that everyone pretty much ignores. Worse, it's the main cycle connection between the east end and the rest of the city, so it's either face the danger or go quite far out of your way.
The city does say they "might" be giving us a MUP connection. In a decade.
Rome wasn't build i a day. You fight for each bit and then one day critical mass is achieved. Once that happens public opinion and politicians will fight for more of it and infrastructure of higher quality. There's plenty examples of cities in Europe where that happened recently.
Yes we spoiled you in Amsterdam
Best regards
Frits
Don’t you just love when the bike lane is even narrower than the already narrow sidewalk?
And yet, this is so much better than what one can experience in Scarborough :/
God, that noise level is horrible (on the street, not in the video audio).
Yes, there is a constant blast of traffic all day, every day. I love the people who say they live in the suburbs to avoid the noise of the city, when the noise in the city is mostly caused by the people who insist on driving into the city from the suburbs. 🙄
Add it to the long list of reasons why I live in the Netherlands, instead of these car-infested cities.
@@njblive like even listening to the video with the noise turned down it was headache inducing, this type of noise pollution is borderline criminal
@@njblive those pickup trucks sound like cars from the 1950’s…
Just the sheer amount of space that is reserved for transportation being used so inefficiently is a shame. Also the cars seem to drive way too fast for built-up areas. And even if you didn't want to get rid of a car lane, there is a lot of fairly useless grass that I'm sure you could compensate for in a different place with real green spaces. So much potential. At least it's a start
Who needs NJB Live when you can have NJB Pre-recorded?
Only 50 seconds in and there are already share-o's, yuck
You're my dawg but, I'm giggling a little bit about how flustered you're getting over this route. I live in mid cali and i would love, live a bicycle route that was that nice! Omg, we have half finished, dead ending, literally Gutters masked as bike lanes
Separated bike lanes? You're looking at it the wrong way! It's the car lanes which need be separated from everything else. They have the dangerous vehicles on them.
I love riding my bike as many places as I can, but those bike lanes would get a hard nope from me; way too much danger and stress there 😬
If you want to see some of the new higher standard in Toronto. Scarlett Rd has recently been installed with higher continuous curbs, with public art.
They aren't perfect but the road diet has made a huge difference in connecting cycling routes.
Just imagine the Maastricht solution here, a double level car tunnel with a park and separated bicycle lanes on top.
I’m laughing my socks off hearing you nagging and umphing about the bicycle infrastructure, the continuous red lights and the quality of asphalt surface (or the lack of it). You became so Dutch in such a short time. You’re spoiled to the core.
lol! I've learned not to accept mediocrity. And I've broken my North American Stockholm Syndrome.
The guardrails on the north and south side of the Beltline bridge (on the west side of Yonge) is intended to keep cars from driving off on to the subway tracks. We can paint that, to make the bike trip more inviting, the way the city painted the short jersey barriers on Richmond/Adelaide and King.
@15:35 yep, that symbol for the bike lane seems about right. Painted bike lanes are black diamond trails for sure
I've moved from Toronto in the last half year.... And I miss even this
Someone called flexi-posts vertical paint. It seems to suit.
It's interesting to see that during a lot of this video a snapshot of one section on street would probably have more bikes then cars.
Check out the painted bike lanes on Yonge, north of Toronto, between Highway 7 and Major Mackenzie Drive. You will be at a loss for words. I went on a wonderful summer day and we saw 11 cyclists. Just one was in the bike lane. The rest were on the wide sidewalks. These bike lanes make the ones in Toronto look like heaven.
I usually go up/down those bike lanes on yonge from davisville to bloor and oh my I felt very claustrophobic for you. Not the best but honestly less of a stroad than it was before, plus you won't believe how drivers are always like "ughhhh they're making more bike lanes"
Being a tall guy, I've smashed into a couple of those patio umbrellas last summer.
0:31 We're not even a minute in, and I already get this unsafe feeling from you cycling right there!
Thank you for putting yourself in the trenches for cycle infrastructure
Thanks for the video, it was really enjoyable. It is good that there were improvements and let's hope it will last!
Of course, the quality is not what a bike commuter would desire, but surely it is better than before, I did actually like the seating outside, even it did reach up to the bike lines, it did separate with a greenery, that was pleasant. That is positive.
The negatives? NOISY! I really mean noisy. And the road quality did really remind me what we have in UK - not everywhere, but we have our share of potholes and bumps in the roads.
In any case, enjoy the well deserved holiday!
I'm not overly keen on the plastic bollards, but they do at least stop cars from parking in the cycle lane...and ours (Ipswich, England) are below my handlebar height (highest Brompton)
Toronto has a habit of doing an exhaustive test pilot for new bike lanes. They are starting to adopt the approach of building bike lanes when the street needs to be either resurfaced (just scrape and repave the top) and especially when they rebuild (remove everything including curbs and sidewalks, sometimes allowing for water works rebuilding at the same time). The exhaustive test pilot should be done one or two years before the road gets redone so we can make the usual tweaks. These tweaks can't be done easily after the street was rebuilt. So the testing of the design before it's permanent is essential. The first version usually needs some work to iron bugs out.
Also, after all that work designing, consulting with the public, it's a lot harder for the city to just rip the bike lanes out after. That was done on Jarvis, Pharmacy and one other. The anti-bike lane councillors won't be able to just remove them without going through a second consultation process.
Are you allowed to ride the sidewalks when there are no “bike lanes”?
No, riding on the sidewalks is never allowed in Toronto. But people do (and I don't blame them) because it's insanely dangerous.
Scary. Dangerous. I did a similar biking trip a couple of decades ago along Bathurst and I thought for sure I was going to die.
i cant believe i just watched a 50 min video of someone biking in canada
Who is Toronto for ? Obviously not for people.
The planters on Danforth are all filled with grass and weeds. But for some reason, they work. They just look awesome!
The city promised to install bike lanes on Danforth to Victoria Park Avenue but they certainly don't plan bike lane installations around potential usage so we will likely get them in late August, September, or October.
Did you get them?
I never heard anything definitive til recently@@barto22 . So... the bike lanes on Danforth, extended to Victoria Park Ave have been promised for summer of 2022, with a large number of other new bike lanes and bike lane upgrades. I was personally surprised with how much they are intending for 2022. But that still seems a world away. Currently I'm waiting for just a short fence (about 25 metres long to get installed on an underpass on Eglinton so new bike lanes that were finished about a month ago can be released for public use. This fence could theoretically be installed during a blizzard because it just gets bolted to the concrete. It does not depend on warm temperature or dryness. But I have my fingers crossed on this too.
This reminds me a lot of Yellowknife NWT for some of our side-roads downtown (mainly passing by schools), however I can't help but pray we can eventually get a proper main street that's not car centric anymore. We normally have a festival every year where main street is completely blocked from traffic and it's honesty the best part of the entire year.
Traffic doesn't even need much diversions to go around the main downtown streets either, they have plenty of alternate access to suburbs
What are the traffic rules when the busstop and the bicycle lane merge, with the green paint on the asphalt. Is it allowed to go around the bus and go on the road mixing with the cars or do you have to wait until the bus left the bicycle lane?
Yes, cyclists can ride around the bus into traffic. It can get quite dangerous some time though, if traffic is fast.
I'm from bicycle lanes and The Netherlands are much better here, but at least it's better than nothing I suppose. I hope you will one day have the infrastructure we have, it makes the world a better place when cities are designed for people and not for cars.
Wait, did I do grammar wrong?
yay! thank you
21:29 What in the fresh hell?
Yeah. I wonder why so few people cycle in Canada? Must be the weather. 🙄
If I came across this I’d go “So this is how my life ends”
It's called "Welcome to Toronto" 😂
I ride every day in Toronto and often take the sidewalk in tight situations, mostly where there are a combination of outdoor patios squeezed near streetcar tracks on potholed and rough remaining pavement. I had to alert the city to many dangerous spots because they don't take the initiative. I almost want to get ticketed on the sidewalk, just so I can go to court and expose the issue. Maybe cyclists could band together and purposely ride the sidewalks as a form of civil disobedience. I think that would be just fine.
Do it! It's a good idea!
😱😱😱 a little swerve to the left and you're under a car, a distracted driver and you're under a car
Call me Dutch, but if i have to get in the car lane because the bike lane is obstructed, i will be in the middle of that car lane.
Drivers might get annoyed behind me, but most will not run me over. (Actually most understand this.) If i stay all the way to the right however, they ll pass me by without even slowing down, which is much more dangerous. You do have to make a little speed tho. Slow cyclists; Just stay to the right and pray..
Also there's a lot of communication involved. Very clear signaling, checking, and a little nod or signal to thank people who took me into consideration. Communication keeps traffic flowing.
I dont see a lot of that on the streets of Toronto.
I wonder.. Am i missing it or is there really less of it?
If you try riding in like that in Toronto you will get honked at, the driver will drive within centimetres of your back tire, and they will pass you going very fast, sometimes hitting your bike in the process.
@@njblive
Yeah. I am quite shocked at the examples of how cyclists are regarded in north america. Its hard to fathom.
All trough your ride i was thinking 'Jeez am i glad i am not him'.
I guess thats why i appreciate your channel so much. A very different perspective on what we see as normal. Your videos have certainly made me appreciate our infrastructure a lot more.
18:07 City of Toronto truck driver guns it off the signal change ... when there's no place to go! ??? (clogs the intersection if they don't get lucky and traffic actually moves) This is standard driving in Toronto - and all the while they scream bloody murder when it happens to them.
26:57 Note it sensed you were coming and started a signal phase before you got there. Known locally as a Crossride (first one).
Google hates me but let's try one more time. I wanna believe those diamonds mark where a bicycle and a automobile had a physical interaction. It's kind of insane and I hope your life insurance company isn't watching.
I cycle quite a lot during the warmer months and would love to do it more often however the infrastructure is still very much lacking. I always wear a helmet and I virtually never go on the streets Downtown, because even these painted bicycle gutters make me feel very unsafe and vulnerable. I tend to stick to the park trails going through hydro corridors and the Don Valley. I do go on streets but only ones that are smaller with "less" traffic.
I thought a rich country like Canada could afford at least one decent bicycle lane in every major city of the country. I’m still amazed by this ‘fantastic’ bicycle gutter. But these weren’t that bad if car and truck drivers would stick to regular traffic rules by not parking, stopping or driving in the bicycle lanes. And construction sites couldn’t steal the bicycle gutters without bicycle detours.
Vancouver is so much bettet
Hey, you could be recording Mapillary street-level image sequences for OpenStreetMap editors to use. BTW, Mapillary, like Google Street View, has time travel feature.
I love watching your videos but this one looks terrifying. Are you still alive?
Well at least there's no snow.... in Spokane Washington they won't clear the bike Lanes, yet they continue to want to build more bike lanes that can't be used 3-4 months out of the year.
19:00 The pedestrian light had not turned green for the lady yet, hadn't it?
Paint is not infrastructure!!!!!!
over in ireland tho i did see some painted bicycle gutters, but they werent painted they were red tarmack on the edges of the road, and it was a country road where space is tight, so tbh its not too shit,
Nice vid! But those "bike lanes" are terrible! I'm happy to live in Montreal, where more and more bike lanes are created. And much larger, secure and comfortable bike lanes! I think that in 20 years from now, we'll be as good as the Netherlands, no kidding.
A problem, I find, with barriers between motor Lane and bike lane is that cities seem to install them prolifically without considering how it blocks off the usual street sweeper equipment from cleaning the bike lanes. Here on the US left coast, the bike lanes can collect compostables and trash which increases risk, offsetting the original risk reduction had by installing the barriers.
Believe it or not, but there are smaller sweepers for cyclelanes. But they have to buy them.
Only one car driving in the bike lane and nobody trying to intentional kill you - I guess, compared to videos I've seen from places like LA this is great :)
Hotline Jason Slaughter. You gotta get Terry B to film you next time so we get the full experience.
I lived in Toronto for 15 years I never understood the appeal of roadside patios, eating in traffic literally
Roadside patios are quite nice if your city isn't a car infested shithole though.
4:51 ehm, I need to stop there for the signs… they are for giraffes on bicycles, right?
The hedge growing halfway into the southbound bike lane at the start of Yonge, it needs to be removed. It will make a big difference to how much of that part of the bike lanes work. The good news is, remove it and we have more room for bikes! The bad thing is... remove the hedge and the city will be able to install the precast curbs along the bike lane (and keep it skinny) instead of along the car lane (to make the bike lane a sliver wider), which cyclists can do now. Nobody will park their car in this open section so the curbs are not desperately needed right here at this spot.
So I went up and down the Yonge bike lanes today and the hedge I'm talking about is now gone. So things are slowly changing. Let me know if this is a decent improvement.
It's at 2:43. The hedge is cut back now.
If this was my morning commute every day, i would go 100% WFH. No way I’m going to risk life and limb just to go to work in an office building.
Do you have the footage of the other stream
I don't always have the footage of the streams. It depends how I film it, if I have enough SD card space, and if I remember to record, even if I do have a record ability. :)
Brave man. I would buy an SUV next day if I moved there.
What equipment did you use for this recording?
All information is in the description.
This is so scarry...so narrow fietsstrook..
oh interesting, welp thanks for giving me more reasons to remind myself to never go to canada, and more reasons to go to the netherlands and sweden
I'm happy to live in a relatively bike-friendly city (outside of netherlands and sweden)
Don't go to Canada for the cities. Go to Canada for the outdoors and National Parks.
@@reileypalma2129 We have great national parks too...
I feel like bike lanes are very dangerous to constantly enter them and exit them when ever they start or stop, or when people stop in them. Unless there is a complete network, it’s too dangerous.
Well, yes, but this is all Toronto can build, politically. And many of the past projects have been much worse, which lead to very few people using them, which was then used to justify removing bike lanes and not adding any more.
Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating the bicycle gutters is approximately 3,720 to 1!
Don't tell me the odds!
I was riding my bike in Germany and I don't know why people say that they have a good cycling infrastructure, because it was terrible.
Ad those moments you notice how good the infrastructure overall is in the Netherlands, not only for cycling.
Watching this video, I already don't even want to visit that city. It looks terrible. They try to make it look good with some plants, but what a terrible concrete hell, with cars.
the bikes are identical to buenos aires bikes
This is awful. But only like 70% as insane as the stuff I've seen Louis Rossmann deal with in New York. Where ebikes are illegal, there's trash everywhere and you expect him to get shanked every time he stops.
Boy this is really bad compared to Montreal. Hope you check out the REV next time you visit!
Nice that tax dollars can be spent keeping the cleaner, friendlier traveler
in the second class citizen space known respectfully as the "gutter". Frigging hate cars. Simply need more HPV's on the road!
As an biker of Amsterdam i am scared to drive in Toronto. Wtf is this bikelane??
What a nightmare!
I'm scared just watching this especially when you're beside high speed trucks and cars
Not so different where I bike though 😅
lol and they use it for construction storage
At least this is the worst cycling line in the city and you go back through a biking lane that's a lot safer, right? Right?
We might not know you in person, but we love you, so please do not ride your bike there ever again, FFS!!
lol! And to think I used to ride these streets almost every day, before any of these lanes were even installed!
@@njblive Yea well, those days are now over, ok? Lol.
I enjoy your video's very much, btw.
i hear there’s lots of jobs on yonge street
"Painted bicycle gutters" Let's be honest, most of the time they weren't even painted :P
Well they were once painted. Maybe the paint is gone, but there was paint there once... I think. 😂