Toronto’s Bloor bike lanes heralded but city lags behind other Canadian centres
TORONTO — When a stretch of separated bicycle lanes along a major thoroughfare in Toronto was recently made permanent, cyclists rejoiced and local politicians heralded the move as a major step forward for Canada’s most populous city.
But for all the attention garnered by the lanes on a 2.4 kilometre stretch of buzzing Bloor Street West, urban planners and advocates say Toronto still has a piecemeal approach to bike infrastructure that has left it lagging behind urban centres like Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.
Bike lanes, they note, while pitting motorists against cyclists in some quarters, are expanding as the cities they’re built in cater to what appears to be a rising number of residents who want to travel on two wheels.
“What we’re seeing is a revolution, a transformation, in thinking around urban biking,” said Brent Toderian, a former chief planner for Vancouver and the president of the Council of Canadian Urbanism.