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Everybody hates Adelaide Street’s new bike lane

Everybody hates Adelaide Street’s new bike lane

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(Image: PostTweetism/Twitter)

The official opening of Adelaide Street’s new separated bike lane should have been a moment worth celebrating for Toronto’s two-wheeled commuters, who had waited almost three years for the project to wind its way from city hall’s drawing boards to downtown pavement. And yet, judging by the reaction in the media and elsewhere online, the only thing worse than no bike lane at all is a bike lane that isn’t perfect.

The controversy stems from the fact that the lane has no physical separation from the rest of the street—just the usual lines of white paint. Because of the wording of a June city council decision, everyone was expecting, at minimum, a row of flexible bollards to protect the new lane from Adelaide’s heavy auto traffic.

The reason the bollards have failed to materialize isn’t entirely clear. Stephen Buckley, the city’s transportation manager, has told the Star that, because the new lane is part of a pilot project, the city has some latitude to experiment with different lane configurations if it wants. In other words, there are no bollards because bureaucrats don’t want them there.

For obvious reasons, this hasn’t gone over well with bike advocates. Cycle Toronto is in full-on publicity mode and Now Magazine has taken up the cause. Meanwhile, at street level, every motorist incursion into the Adelaide bike lane is being documented by cell-phone-wielding cyclists, who have been posting their pictures on Twitter and eliciting the kind of collective outrage usually reserved for war crimes. Here’s a small sample.

It begins:

And here’s one from J.P. Boutros, who is running for his former boss Karen Stintz’s Ward 16 council seat:

Burn:

And the mob begins to thirst for blood (or, at least, parking tickets):

Even at the best of times, cyclist/cabbie relations are tense, but add fresh bike lanes to the mix, and, well:

Delivery trucks have also come in for quite a bit of criticism:

And the outrage builds:

Several observers have caught people just straight-up driving in the bike lane to bypass traffic jams, which is shitty:

And oh yes, there are conspiracy theories:

In all, the lane seems not to have been the cure-all for cyclist woes that many hoped it would be:

Basically, it seems like cyclists won’t be happy until those barriers are installed:

Once this conflict is resolved, it will be on to the next fight. Because in the world of cycling infrastructure, controversy is a permanent condition.

Topics: adelaide street bike lanes bikes City Hall cycle toronto cycling Transit

104 thoughts on “Everybody hates Adelaide Street’s new bike lane”

  1. The author adopts a very curious tone in this article. He is able to demonstrate a dozen documented cases where the bike lane is being abused, but pours scorn on the cyclists who want something done about it. I guess cyclists are supposed to just shut up and take what they are given.

  2. Any car that parks in the bike lane should be fair game to have its windows smashed, exterior keyed, hood shit on, etc.

  4. Bl-law amendment: Allow citizens to take pictures of offending vehicles parking illegally using some kind of City of Toronto (311) app that time stamps the pictures and uploads it to a site where they can be verified and vetted and then issue tickets to the owner / company. This would empower cyclists and allow for self-reporting these problems to the authorities versus simply venting about it on social media. Consequently, I believe this would be an effective method to curb illegal parking and illegal use of bike lanes at a MUCH lower cost than implementing flexible bollards and barriers.

  5. As a person who drives in Toronto, I’d be lying if I said, “I don’t hate bikers in TO”. It’s so dangerous the way these bikers swing out sometimes not even signalling or anything. That said, that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to be safe. There definitely needs to be a physical barrier separating the two lanes but it seems unlikely to happen. At the end of the day, Toronto is effed up, it wasn’t designed with the future in mind and there’s only so much you can do without completely knocking down buildings to widen and expand lanes.

  6. Pictures taken of vehicles on public roads are not “peeping tom” pics – you pervert!

  7. You just can’t please some people. Hey, here’s an idea; since Bicyclists want all these rights, how about a tax on bikes. Kind of like how cars pay gas tax, etc which is money for the city. Kind of like how bus commuters pay fares; etc. Let’s start charging a fee for these bike lanes; then we will talk about making them better.

  8. Well where are they supposed to do delivery from? Middle of the fucking road? Fuck your bike lanes.

  11. Kind of like how they already pay municipal and property taxes for the city – to use a vehicle that doesn’t wear down roads or emit any poisons. Let’s have some tax credits for cyclists!

  12. wannabe by-law officers ~ actually. Because you can prove most offenses with a time / location stamped photo.

  14. So do car drivers, along with gas tax, and other fees (parking, etc). Bus/subway commuters as well. It’s only fair that cyclists be expected to pay a fee for special lanes dedicated for them. These bicycle paths aren’t free. Tax time for cyclists. Bob Jones for City Council.

  15. I would gladly pay a surcharge equal to the median price of a new bicycle if the same surcharge also applied to automobile purchases.

  16. Think of all the road improvements we can make with a $30,000 – $40,000 new vehicle tax! And with a reduction in the number of cars on the road, traffic will no longer be a problem. Win-win.

  17. We get a nice sum of over $200 million from gas tax alone, not to mention parking which is in the hundreds of millions as well. We could start charging parking fees for bike stands too! And maybe charge the bikes $15 a month to use city trails. Now you’re talking! We could add millions per year to the city treasury!

  18. As long as it costs a minimum of $60,000 to purchase a vehicle, you can do whatever dumb shit you want.

  19. Only if, but that’s outside municipal jurisdiction. You might want to learn a bit about that first. We wouldn’t want people buying automobiles outside the city. They already add a TON to city treasury through other means. It’s the bicyclists who aren’t adding their fair share. Time to make them start paying up for these bike trails.

  20. Pretty easy to re-coup costs with a hefty toll on all vehicles entering the downtown core. Also could easily charge additional road usage fees. We should be discouraging people to use cars and encouraging people to bike/use transit, not the other way around.

  21. Sounds great in an idealist world, but in a realist world that isn’t so simple. Family’s need to get their kids to and from places, and public transit isn’t going to work for many of them. People require groceries, and to purchase heavy/large objects – move to and from, cargo, goods, etc. Traveling up north, or outside of the GTA, etc. If it were so simple, we would have done it by now. Perhaps automated vehicles of the future will help, who knows.

  23. “If it were so simple, we would have done it by now.”

    Terrible logic. Tell that to the Wright brothers.

  24. Sure. That seems reasonable. Forget about legal means for resolving bad / illegal driving behaviour. I hope you don’t mind that if you want to play by those rules, anyone that observes you doing so should be allowed to beat the living pulp out of you for doing hundreds or thousands of dollars of damage to property. Perhaps they should key your forehead or shit on your face?

  25. rofl. Bicycles! It’s as innovative as flight! lol. Like I said, automated vehicles is the future. Bicycles will play a small part, but self-driving vehicles will solve many logistical/traffic problems.

  27. You’re welcome. Come on over and join us on /r/futurology for more visionary looks into the coming years.

  29. It’s OK, Bob. By the sounds of things you’re likely (considerably) older than I am and have will likely (not certainly, but likely) see considerably less technological innovation in your lifetime. I can understand why you come off as bitter and pessimistic.

  31. Perhaps, or perhaps just wiser, and more intelligent. I grasp a larger perspective than you, it appears. It’s okay, not everyone is to grasp the greater complexities of things. I can understand why you come off as simple and naive.

  32. FYI we can all see you upvoting your own posts, Bob. Welcome to the internet.

  33. Congratulations! You learned something new! Small steps, but it all adds up. Good job young obi wan.

  34. Also, this sounds like something you’d have to be at least 40 to say earnestly.

  37. We should all take considerable comfort in the fact that most of us will still be alive when “Bob Jones” is dead.

  39. Us as in, you and you’re teenage brethren? Perhaps, perhaps not. My grandfather is alive and healthy at 94; long life seems to be in my families genes.

  42. You’re obviously simple. Let me explain it to you. If you are going to suggest a completely unreasonable response to a minor traffic offense, then you should be prepared to accept a completely unreasonable response to your major vandalism. In the end, no one wins in these scenarios. Perhaps next time you shouldn’t be so daft as to suggest such idiotic ideas. They don’t further your cause.

  43. Can I take photos of cyclists running red lights, riding on the sidewalk and passing right turning cars on the right and expect those folks to be ticketed as well? Just askin’

  45. ZachSwan would assault a human being for scratching an inanimate object, apparently.

  47. Not only are you too simple minded to comprehend how foolish and mean-spirited your suggestion was, you also lack the most basic reading comprehension skills. Your assertion is false. Now on your bicycle child: go troll elsewhere.

  48. You advocate violent response to a non-violent act and seem surprised when called out on how sick and twisted this is. OK, psycho.

  50. I’m a cyclist and I approve of this suggestion. Too many people are cyclists simply because they don’t know the rules of the road,or, don’t care. The rules of the road should be followed by everyone who uses it.

    By the way, I hope you aren’t defending drivers who abuse bike lanes on the grounds that some cyclists are jerks…

  52. This headline should be changed to ‘Douchebags Out in Force on new Adelaide Bike Lanes’

  53. Oh my, you are precious, little McTootie. After all this, you still don’t get it and keep coming back for more. Read again. I’m clear that both vandalism and violence are unreasonable responses to a simple traffic offense, which really only requires a cyclist to slow temporarily, shoulder check and when safe move 3′ to the left and ride around. There are laws in place to deal with infractions. The $150 fine is sufficient penalty for this and it’s reasonable to expect the police to enforce this. Advocating for people to smash windows and destroy paint jobs causing hundreds or thousands of dollars of costs to your fellow citizens is malicious and disgusting. Try to think of someone other than yourself for a moment and consider the hardship that this over the top response would cause to other people.

    I’m sure they’re too polite to tell you this to your face so I’ll do it for them. Your parents are extremely disappointed in how you’ve turned out. I truly hope you are not representative of the best advocates the bicycle lobby has in this city. If you are, people like me who would like to see more and safer bicycle infrastructure in Toronto are seriously screwed in this quest.

  55. No, psychotic and mean is encouraging people to inflict expensive damage to other people’s property. That would be you, you poor thing.

  56. Inserting childish insults into your rhetoric does not make it more convincing or less indicative of a violent, disturbed personality.

    FYI I haven’t ridden a bicycle in almost eight years.

  60. I’m glad you expanded on your ad hominem attack. It’s unfortunate you recognize this is a troll and still couldn’t resist engaging with petty insults. It undermines any reason in your arguments.

    FYI

  61. ^^ This from an Internet troll who advocates trashing peoples’ property in response to a minor inconvenience.

  62. Yes, “Internet” troll “advocates” X.

    Guppies like ZachSwan respond with bristling earnestness.

    It’s the circle of life.

  63. Seems that there needs to be a courier park/bike lane. Parked cars are never okay. Where are the courier supposed park? They are usually only there 5 mins or less or do we all need to pick up our deliveries? Put in the barriers I guess. It works for other cities. Why do a half-assed job. Either it is a bike lane or it isn’t…commit Toronto.

  65. I’m going to start taking pictures and tweeting all the bikes riding on the sidewalk. Bicyclists want to own the road, the bike lanes and the sidewalk. Plus they think that traffic lights don’t apply to them.

  66. Another cyclist here who agrees, as long as you are also talking about the many motorists who also break the laws, including speeding, failing to signal, not stopping fully at stop signs, turning right on a red without stopping, illegal u-turns, etc.

  67. Cyclists ruin my life. They are inconsiderate and aggressive. I am mainly a pedestrian, and hate the self righteous cyclist more than anyone in a car.

  68. Gas taxes don’t pay for city roads. Gas taxes go towards highways. Property taxes pay for city roads. I own a house, a business and a bike here in Toronto: I think I’m already paying for car and truck space (for my neighbours and co-residents who drive, as well as delivery vehicles — yay! Use those lanes!) as well as bike lane / cycle track space.

  72. I’d suggest you take great care in choosing whose car (or other inanimate object) you vandalize. My car is worth far more to me than your life. (So’s my bicycle, for what it’s worth). I’m basically indifferent to whether you live or die. However, were you to damage my property, I’d no longer be indifferent, and I’d make you pay. There are many, many people who feel the same way, I can assure you.

  73. I believe you value human life more than your internet posturing makes it seem.

  75. I mean, I believe in the unlikely event that you would ever catch someone in the act (because lets face it, the people who do this tend to pick their targets fairly well), you wouldn’t kill them unless you’re a psychopath. Maybe you are, though.

  77. Please. Please tell me where your car is so I can challenge your idle Internet-tough-guy threat.

  79. Nope, i was actually commenting on the pointlessness of vigilante responses as a means of bylaw enforcement. Stupid and dangerous behaviour isn’t restricted to any particular category of road user, including pedestrians for that matter. I do think many of the cycling lanes were suddenly dropped in with little advance notice – it will take some time for folks who habitually use those routes to change their habits.

  80. pull up to the next street and park in a legitimate parking spot. The city streets are shared, so how about – fuck selfish delivery drivers.

  81. yeah, and let’s start taxing pedestrians for every walkable surface in the city! you’re full of amazing ideas, you’ve got my vote!!

  82. “Because in the world of cycling infrastructure, controversy is a permanent condition.”

    This is such a strange article. You’ve clearly shown how many motorists are going against the law, yet you’re accusing cyclists of being complainers.

    Here’s a thought: go out and cycle in the bike lane on Adelaide, which has a speed limit of 60km/h. Ride at speed, and then try merging into the traffic lane (while you’re going 20-30km/h) to get around the car/delivery truck. See if it doesn’t scare you shitless, and see if it isn’t an incredibly dangerous thing to do.

    Any motorist who blocks up the lanes like this is, quite simply, a selfish ass.

  83. just gimme more side streets with opposing one way intersections: huron from college to queen area – best n/s rd w/popplain/rushill from chaplin/eg all the way to front (w/peter/bjw).

  85. you cannot legislate reflexes.

    only when cars are separate from bikes will there be safety for cyclists.

  86. Why would I tell some anonymous internet scumbag where to find my car? If you want to test my idle internet-tough-guy threat, why don’t you run an experiment, start keying cars, and see how long you retain all your teeth; I can guarantee you won’t have to look to hard to find someone who would inflict serious damage on you for keying their car.

  88. “My car is worth far more to me than your life.”

    Surrender your license now. You’re clearly not mentally fit to operate a motor vehicle.

  89. If you compare the number of dedicated space reserved for cyclists vs. cars you’ll realize that it’s probably 1% or so.

    Just how much space is given over in the city for car parking alone, that’s not even counting the thousands of square metres of road space.

  90. Nice view camera, poseur. Next time try wearing your glasses when you look at the groundglass, so you can bring your avatar into focus. Now get lost.

  91. And for what it’s worth, Mikey, my car is worth much more to me than your life as well. You’re just another faceless cueball.

  92. This is a completely inappropriate tone for an article like this. Despite the fact that the writer himself presents photodocumented evidence of valid complaints of unlawful behaviour that directly endangers cyclists and drivers and pedestrians – accidents affect everyone, after all – he has chosen to present it in such a way as to make it sound like the whole issue is cyclists being whinging crybabies.

    I am not a cyclist and I find this lack of enforcement on the part of the city, as well as the actions of every person who violates the bike lane, to be outrageous. *Everyone* should be outraged by this, not simply cyclists. It is blatant proof that their elected officials do absolutely nothing to maintain the law or the safety of the citizens of the city.

    Mr. Kupferman, your lack of integrity and your agenda are showing, sir, and they are most unflattering.

  94. ok so privacy for sex offenders no public data base but this bs ok. F9ck cyclists are d8ckheads

  95. you’re comparing sex offenses to parking infractions = you’re an ignorant lil’ troll aren’t u ?

  96. Gonna cry to mommy ,typical no brainer cycle bunny. Would like NSA to clear his cycle lane. Guys like you give cyclists the reputation as masters of the road until the hit the reality of 4000 lbs cars.

  97. If Stephen Buckley is right, that the city can experiment with a few different prototypes of bike lanes, then they should take a block or two and place the parking lane beside the bike lane so the parked cars protect the cyclists. That can potentially make everyone happy. Drivers know where to park and cyclists know they won’t be run over. Maybe everyone can get along, for a change. After all, using parked cars to barricade bike lanes works well in NYC, the Netherlands and Copenhagen.

    What TO does a lot of right now is put the bike lane in the door zone of the parked cars. A lot of drivers as well as cyclists don’t even know what a door zone IS. If you’re one of these people, please take the time to google it and look for videos which demonstrate why this is the worst place for a cyclist to be. The city is just waiting to get sued by every cyclist who gets doored because they are officially instructing cyclists to ride there. A worse potential is for the cyclist’s family to sue instead because he or she was thrown into the active car lane and run over.

  98. I know a lot of cyclists who would have no problem policing bike lanes. The new fine for bike lane parking is $150. I’ve seen parking enforcement virtually every day I’ve used the bike lane on Adelaide but I’m sure they don’t catch everyone. Of course, I’m sure this app would need to have overload protection when a hundred cyclists report the same car within a ten minute span.

  99. JScooter, let’s keep in mind that cars don’t just produce noise and air pollution. They produce danger pollution for everyone around them. That much metal, glass, plastic and fuel all wrapped up create virtually all the danger that produces deaths on the road. The source of danger is from cars and trucks, not bikes or pedestrians.

    Google the term Iowa Stop. In Iowa, as well as Paris, France and other places, cyclists are legally allowed to treat a red light like a stop sign and a stop sign like a yield sign. Think of it this way. When a pedestrian has a stop sign, we don’t expect him or her to come to a complete stop -that’s ridiculous because the pedestrian is so much slower than a car as well as not producing the same danger. It’s the same idea for blowing through a stop sign on a bike. If the speed isn’t high and the way is clear, it really doesn’t affect safety, which is the bottom line.

    It’s just not a tit for tat situation. It’s not about equality or fairness from the point of just sharing with everyone equally. What’s safe for pedestrians and cyclists is definitely not the same for cars and trucks.

    You did bring up a point all road users should know about and thoroughly understand. Without naming it, you described the dead man’s corner, which kills cyclists with reliable predictability ENTIRELY because people don’t know what it is.

  100. The city is giving Toronto drivers the opportunity to behave so they don’t have to put posts in. Somehow they think we’ll be the exception to the rule internationally. God if they want to experiment why not save us all a lot of money and BS and just throw down traffic dividers? Those cement barriers they use for highways and whatever. They can drop ’em in off a truck and move them around ’til they figure it out. Oh is that too much of an incursion? Abuse it and you lose it, drivers. You wreck our right of way? We take your lanes. Respect our right of way. You abuse these painted lanes and they’ll throw posts in there.

  102. Why isn’t parking their truck in a legal spot an option? Is it because the convenience of the delivery truck driver has greater priority than the convenience and safety of cyclists? Let’s take it further: is the convenience of doing their job more important than the convenience of ANY driver or rider of a vehicle whose right of way they interfere with, such as on a four lane downtown street where stopping is prohibited at all times?

  103. Toronto’s problem is that everything new is always a pilot project that requires years of research and analysis, including proven solutions that have existed for years in other regions. Separate bicycle lines from traffic lanes by a barrier or dedicated parking lanes, if space is an issue. If you go with the latter, include intermittent railing with caution markings to protect cyclists from being doored by exiting passengers.

    Or just let the air out of their tires; it’ll act as a deterrent without damaging any property. Certainly, the tires may be damaged if the driver proceeds drives away on them, but recall what you learned during driving school: always do a circle check of your vehicle.

    Full disclosure: I’m a driver, cyclist, and pedestrian, and I see bad behaviour among the whole lot of them.

  104. I drive, cycle, and walk all over this city and the surrounding regions, and I find offending behaviour by members of all groups. However, here is why cyclists are so vocal about cars: when drivers make mistakes, people are crippled or die. Flesh and bones stand no chance against a the momentum of a tonne or more of metal.

    The other day, I was cycling home and came to a stop behind another cyclist at a red signal at Castle Frank on Bloor St. Up from behind us a third cyclist zips through the red light, and the guy waiting ahead of me yells “It’s a red light, moron”. Guess what the yeller did a few minutes later on? He rode through a red himself.

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