A few shots / updates from a ride yesterday along the Rosedale Valley Road MUP and the Bayview bike/pedestrian path.
Below: The RVR MUP is plowed, but narrowly. I passed a couple of walkers and it was far too narrow for a safe pass. Would be worse with opposite direction cyclists. I'm not certain how many passes the plows do, but I'm guessing two? I think with those narrow buckets they use for these trails, a third pass would be warranted – but that would probably mean four, assuming they need to return to a truck that is sitting at one end of the trail.
In good news, the protective scaffolding has been removed from the trail under the "new" pedestrian bridge that is now in its third year of construction (below). Ironically, they had a crane crew working directly above the trail here, so I had to shout for them to not drop anything on me. Not sure my bike helmet is rated for 75-foot hammer drops. In any case, it's hopefully a sign that the bridge is nearer to completion than a few weeks back when the protection was still in place.
Coming off the RVR path, southbound cyclists are obliged to (legally) proceed along the west-side trail on Bayview, if they want to access River Street further south. This is the weird arrangement with the one-way bike lane and a bidirectional footpath separated by a dotted line. I always stare at the paint logos in bewilderment. To my surprise the trail was blocked under the Riverdale Viaduct, by several cones and a large construction vehicle. As you can see there is no safe passage for a cyclist here, and I had to skirt the road-side of the bollards with fast-moving traffic. A worker told me the closure would only be a day or two, but this is one of the many occurrences I run into each day that show the city has not gotten serious about improving construction site safety for cyclists, pedestrians and people with disabilities. Thism, despite assurances there were doing so a few years ago.
On the plus side, this work indicates that promised upgrades to the Riverdale Viaduct -- which ties into the Lower Don Trail improvements -- are proceeding.
You take the good, you take the bad, you take 'em both and there you have: cycling in Toronto.
