TwoWheelPoli
Active Member
That note from @Northern Light is making me feel a bit of dread.
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- Thread starter MetroMan
- Start date
Northern Light
Superstar
Its not the worst you might imagine; but there are problems.
That's all I can say for now. I will endeavour to be more forthcoming when I can.
UntitledCyclist
Active Member
"There are problems" is the new motto of life in this province under Ford.
TwoWheelPoli
Active Member
A bit short notice, but I just found out through my Discord messages this morning that there will be a public consultation tonight for the Markland Wood Streets Plan. The survey will be open until June 9.
It could be a good opportunity to push for safety changes including on Bloor from Highway 427 to Mississauga.
www.toronto.ca
It could be a good opportunity to push for safety changes including on Bloor from Highway 427 to Mississauga.
Markland Wood Streets Plan
Attend the public drop-in event on May 26 2026 and leave comments on the interactive map by June 9 2026. View meeting materials in Public Consultation tab below. In consultation with the local community, the City is developing a Neighbourhood Streets Plan for the Markland Wood area that will...
www.toronto.ca
Northern Light
Superstar
A bit short notice, but I just found out through my Discord messages this morning that there will be a public consultation tonight for the Markland Wood Streets Plan. The survey will be open until June 9.
It could be a good opportunity to push for safety changes including on Bloor from Highway 427 to Mississauga.
Markland Wood Streets Plan
Attend the public drop-in event on May 26 2026 and leave comments on the interactive map by June 9 2026. View meeting materials in Public Consultation tab below. In consultation with the local community, the City is developing a Neighbourhood Streets Plan for the Markland Wood area that will...
A look at the collisions panel for meeting tells a very clear story:
Circles are collisions; filled in, circles, fatalities. Very clear Burnamthorpe is THE big problem in this community. Other places to make improvements for sure. But to save lives and limbs.....that one is tops, 9 /13 collisions involving serious injury or death, both of the fatal ones.
The City did install bike lanes/cycle tracks on Burnhamthorpe west of Mill late last year, and did improve that intersection. But Burnamthorpe east of Mill has not been addressed as yet.
There are portions with excess width, but for the most part, insufficient room for cycling infra w/o removing lanes.
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This panel shows us where major road/sewer work is planned over the next few years. Burnamthorpe is not on that list, but Bloor west of West Mall is; and West Mall south of Bloor, so those roads are mandatory gets where feasible.
These ones are both tough too. There just isn't much slack in terms of overly wide lanes or blvds to play with; it shows the importance of getting the provincial laws restricting bike lanes tossed/repealed.
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One small idea gets my attention, extending the formal, paved multi-use path down to Bloor here:
(existing MUP in green)
Mill road also looks like an interesting option for a cycling facility, it typically runs 9-10m wide but with only 2 travel lanes. An on-road facility (w/o touching the blvds) would make no parking allowed, but on much of the road, that doesn't seem like it would be an issue.
The blvds themselves are quite wide, though exiting tree placement making poaching space awkward if you don't want to fell a lot of nice trees.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
The City should be focusing on extending the MUP on Burnhamthorpe from Mississauga. It's a great cycling route in Mississauga which just dead-ends at the City boundary.
Burnhamthorpe definitely has the space - no reason it shouldn't be able to be extended to the West Mall at a minimum.
Burnhamthorpe definitely has the space - no reason it shouldn't be able to be extended to the West Mall at a minimum.
Northern Light
Superstar
There's room, but not in the curb to curb ROW if you don't take lanes away. (for the most part, there is a really wide bit around Mill).
But if you look at this bit near Elmcrest:
Yes, the boulevards are wide, but when you map it through, you're going to have to remove the trees closest to the curb (there is room to replant), but also you're going to have to move the street light/utility poles.
Mind you, looking a bit further east, some of these trees are in awful shape, I'd love to know why they under performed so badly:
East of Old Burnamthorpe there really are no spacious blvds to work with, and the centre turning lane would have to come out:
From here to West Mall the options are limited.
MUP for ~800m Mill Road to Old Burnamthorpe is worth a shot. It would be nice to get it to at least Renforth.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
I'm meaning an off-road MUP similar to what is in place in Mississauga or what Toronto recently did on Kipling south of Steeles. They are far safer and more comfortable for cyclists on suburban arterials like these anyway.
It's definitely possible east of Old Burnhamthorpe, but there would be larger impacts and you may have to compromise and delete a separate sidewalk on one side of the street. Ped volumes aren't significant on Burnhamthrope, and peds could still use the MUP, so I personally would be fine with that.
Northern Light
Superstar
I get that, but you have to find the room in the ROW, and I just showed you how you could (or could not).
You can't make it appear out of thin air, the space has to be reallocated from somewhere.
StreetcarRider
Active Member
I'm not familiar with this particular area, but there seems to be a lot of space between the road and a narrow sidewalk. Some suburban places widen sidewalks, and mark one side for pedestrians and the other for cyclists, instead of taking roadspace. Cycling in that kind of arrangement feels safer to me, because you're further away from high-speed traffic, but can still get to all the interesting destinations on the roadway. And typically pedestrian numbers are low in these kinds of places anyway, because of the spread-out design.
Northern Light
Superstar
On the approach to West Mall (from the west), this is what the ROW looks like:
Pink is the property line. Between the two you have 26M of play.
The curb lanes have to be 3.3M, the interior 3M. so you need 13.2M minimum for the road surface.
That leaves lots of room! But, the sidewalks have to be 2.1M each according to guidelines. That cuts you down another 4.2M leaving 9M, still good, but that's almost exactly what you need for the road of street trees (2 x 3M). You could pinch it a bit, but not much.
Removing the trees would get blowback, and should, it would exacerbate the urban heat island effect, climate change and flooding.
Now....if you replace one of the sidewalks with an MUP, that's probably viable with a lot less damage. But that's if you want a 3M shared facility. Anymore than that and you're at least removing the existing trees and replanting, and even that is tough.
Remember also, Burnamthorpe is not scheduled for major road work, so the City would prefer not to have to move utility poles, trees, curbs or catch basins.
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Further images:
This is the width of the south blvd in the section I noted: (3.5M)
This is the same image as above, but with a 3M wide MUP in lieu of the sidewalk:
That leaves less than 2M to the curb, which is tight for growing healthy trees (but plausible) But the utility poles would all have to be moved.
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I'm very pro cycling facility and the one who raised the need for something here. I just think that easterly segment is really tough to make work w/o taking car lanes away, or expropriating some front lawns or other compromises that might not go over well.
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innsertnamehere
Superstar
West of Old Burnhamthorpe the ROW is plenty wide enough:
East is tougher than I first thought, the ROW is narrower than typical - but even then with some careful consideration you could probably squeeze in a 3-metre MUP, particularly on the south side:
Burnhamthorpe ultimately has a 27m ROW through here - that should be plenty to fit a MUP in with a 5-lane cross section as well.
Of course the City also has expropriation abilities. 905 municipalities use it regularly to upgrade arterials, and for some reason the City likes to act like it doesn't have that power. They could easily buy up the front few metres of people's front yards here.
Ultimately it comes down to money, and the City always wants to do these projects with minimal investment by really converting existing infrastructure instead of building actual new infrastructure.
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StreetcarRider
Active Member
Apparently some places in suburban Quebec, when faced with these kinds of space constraints, designate one of the sidewalks for bikes and the other for pedestrians. Not a great solution because of all the street-crossing, but cheap and gives everybody some room.
Northern Light
Superstar
I edited my post above yours to show measurements.
Northern Light
Superstar
I don't think it would be plausible to prohibit pedestrians from a sidewalk, potentially the only one in front of their homes.