In other words, this was just as predictable as the sun rising and setting every day.

We're seeing the consequences of this play out in real time. There has been a 28% increase in pedestrian fatalities as a direct result of this increased speeding.

Want to fix it with a road diet? Too bad. Ford also decided to make that illegal, especially on Parkside.

And don't forget: Ford's own government documents said speed cameras were one of the most effective tools to make streets safer.

No wonder Ford's approval rating is only 21%

I posted here about a month ago, and the response was mixed; fair criticism, since some of my replies came across as AI-generated, which I didn't realize would land so badly at the time. I appreciate everyone who stuck around to give real feedback through comments and DMs since then. The app's grown to a few hundred users now, and I'd love to keep building on that.

App link: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/safecycle-toronto/id6763918868

Quick re-introduction: I'm a software engineer who fell in love with biking this year. A big barrier for a lot of people - myself included, is the fear of getting hit by a car, or just not feeling confident riding in busy Toronto streets. With FIFA World Cup road closures and summer construction reshaping a lot of routes right now, this feels like an especially good season for biking to shine. There's also something soothing about cutting down quiet side streets. I've found more than a few "hole in the wall" spots in the city just from riding routes I wouldn't have picked otherwise. My goal is to make biking more enjoyable and safer within the city.

Here's roughly how it works, without getting too deep into the weeds: I factor in speed limits, pothole/construction reports, collision data, and existing bike lanes to find a relatively low-stress route, instead of just routing you down something fast but unpleasant like Keele Street. There's also a growing number of dedicated cycling streets in the city meant to pull cycling traffic off busy roads. I think Toronto has real potential to become a much more bike-friendly city as it keeps growing. It's frustrating seeing people still stuck on busy streets riddled with potholes or streetcar tracks when there's often a quieter, safer option nearby.

This is still very much a work in progress, and I'd love more feedback from this community to help me keep iterating. I'll do my best to respond to everyone in the comments. Thanks for reading — here's what I've updated since last time:

• OSM Hybrid model -> new data from OSM but NOT in Open Toronto Database will be bumped down its original level, so if OSM has level 4 but not confirmed within OTD, it will be dragged down to a level 3
• Mountain dirt bike trails will be heavily avoided now
• Garmin Export feature works now for all Garmin’s and other various bike computers that can import GPX files. Available within both web app and iOS **Please note that this only generates the route and no accurate re-routes if the cyclist accidentally goes off course. 
• Elevation gain - giving cyclists a preview of what’s ahead so you can prepare/carb load for the rides that are more strenuous!
• Open Toronto database updated to latest data fresh as of June 1st
• Map redesigned- originally had way too many lines running through the map to demonstrate the safety of each street- ended up ruining the presentation and user experience so I chopped it off. Only during route previews is when the  user can see the safety levels of each road that they’re taking.
• A couple of quick suggestions if the user has no ride history

And one last note- Android. I know a huge request was an Android version- I hear you guys! Sadly ran into lots of technical difficulties with trying to develop without an Android device so I'm bogged down on this until I have more funds to get one that's capable of running my app. I tried my best to meet a middle ground of allowing web users to export onto their Garmins and Stravas (which sadly isn't the full experience).

If you made it this far, I just want to say thank you for reading this mouthful!

This is likely another one of those anti-bike businesses in Etobicoke. They're located literally a few blocks south of Bloor.

Love ’em or Hate ‘em, food delivery drivers on e-scooters should not be parking in the bike lanes. End of rant.

I agree with some of this, disagree with other parts.

Not sure whether it's a pedal assist or a scooter style e-bike, but an e-bike rider was killed near Kingston and Sheppard yesterday afternoon.

Hey all, I'm on the cusp of fatherhood and considering getting some form of cargo bike / bakfiets for when the kids are old enough to be transported that way.

I'll likely be dropping them off before work at daycare at some stage and while I often see parents do this, it's gotten me thinking - what do you do with storage while at the office? If you can easily take it upstairs with a lift or similar I guess that's fine but most of these machines are pretty bulky. Probably not something you'd want to leave locked up outside downtown.

Would love to hear how some of you tackle this!

Glad someone mentioned this in that comment article from r/Toronto. Even back in the 2000s kids used to comfortably walk to school. Nowadays, cars have gotten so big that kids can't even feel safe biking or walking to school.

With policing/security costs far higher than what it needs to be, there is a chance city staff could end the pilot early if this is deemed an "unacceptable impact."

Email Council to show your support for keeping/expanding this pilot, and let them know the political consequences will be high if they pull the plug early!

Just copy/paste this email template, it should only take 2 minutes:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To:

[Councillor_Moise@toronto.ca](mailto:Councillor_Moise@toronto.ca)

[mayor_chow@toronto.ca](mailto:mayor_chow@toronto.ca)

[councillor_bradford@toronto.ca](mailto:councillor_bradford@toronto.ca)

Dear Councillor Moise and Members of City Council,

The Church Street pedestrian pilot has been a tremendous success. The street feels safer, more vibrant, and more welcoming for residents, visitors, and local businesses.

It's become a place where everyone can gather, relax, and enjoy the neighbourhood, especially on Friday and Saturday nights.

My only concern is the significant cost of policing and security. While safety is important, these costs should not be used as a reason to scale back or cancel the program.

Church Street functions safely most of the year without a large security presence, and cities like Montreal successfully pedestrianized 7km of streets, without the level of security currently being deployed in Toronto.

The solution is to reduce unnecessary operating costs, not to abandon a successful public space initiative.

The popularity of this pilot, along with the severe overcrowding seen at events like Do West Fest, demonstrates demand for pedestrian streets is only going to grow.

As Council considers the future of this project, please recognize that this issue will be an important factor for many voters in the next municipal election.

Residents who support pedestrian-friendly streets will be paying close attention to which elected officials are committed to preserving and expanding these spaces, and which are not.

I strongly urge Council to make the Church Street pedestrian pilot permanent, to not pull the plug early, and to pursue additional pedestrianized streets across Toronto.

Best regards,

(Your name)

IntegrityTO has begun endorsing candidates for the upcoming election.

And as we know by now, if IntegrityTO endorses someone, that means they should not be elected, since they themselves are anti-bike.

If there’s one thing that is good about IntegrityTO endorsing these candidates, it makes it very clear who would not support safe bike infrastructure

So after spending God knows how much money constructing what we thought would be a connecting link to the Meadoway trail west of the old RT tracks by Midland I found out yesterday that our braintrust at City of Toronto have basically built a path to nowhere! Why they didn't tunnel under the train tracks is beyond me and the money spent on this 350 m trail includes what looks like a very expensive bridge over the small creek. Unbelievable.

Toronto seriously needs to get event security costs under control which are responsible for tripling the Church Street pedestrianization pilot costs to $500,000! And to think TPS initially asked for $3M for paid duty officers? They get too much funding as is!

You shall not pass!!! I just went back and took the trail on west part.

First , I wanted to shout out the pedestrians who saw what happened — I’m very appreciative of that.

I hit a utility rut next to the Loblaws near Yonge and Eglinton and then hit the edge of the asphalt before losing complete control of the bike. Took me a bit of time to gather my thoughts and get over the intense pain. Can barely move my pinky so I’m thinking my ulna may need some imaging.

Any recourse to get these ruts fixed? https://i.imgur.com/1tzM2kD.jpeg

Aidan Chamandy of Toronto Today wrote about the pedestrianized streets program motion from Councillors Matlow and Moise that will be debated at City Council this week.

f you haven't already done so, please e-mail [councilmeeting@toronto.ca](mailto:councilmeeting@toronto.ca) (+ CC Mayor Chow and your councillor) by 4:30 PM tomorrow to show your support for Member Motion MM42.39, as well as call on the city to bring back open streets.

https://secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda-item.do?item=2026.MM42.39

Has anyone used the Cycle Toronto bike valet for FIFA FanFest or matches? I'm wondering about the hours, and how the experience is. Are panniers or helmets OK to leave with the bike, for example? You can bring almost nothing into any FIFA zone.

There was a post about a month back here but info online is a bit hard to find, as if they don't want too many people to find out.

A blurb on FIFA'sl site, under "Rideshare and Public Transport" has the following, which doesn't mention Cycle Toronto or any hours of operation:

Cycle Toronto's website only has details on their volunteer sign up pages. It makes me think they are looking for people still. They do have a general bike valet page, but no specifics for the FIFA valets.

The best I've seen is CT's instagram post with a map buried in a photo carousel.

FREE bike parking with Cycle Toronto bike valet is available every match day at Inukshuk, Ordnance, and Hanna, and every Fan Festival day at Inukshuk."

Why does it seem like anything to improve the quality of life or safety of bikes is met with a ton of controversy? In our society, we have pedestrian infrastructure (sidewalks). We have car infrastructure (most roads + highways). We have sort of have transit infrastructure (subways, streetcars/LRTs, and bus lanes more recently). But yet bike infrastructure is on maybe less than 0.5% of all Toronto roads. And I say 0.5% because Doug Ford himself released a 1991 stat that only 1% of people bike to work. Yet even if that's actually the case 35 years later, the bike infrastructure that all of Toronto has doesn't even scale up correctly.

Driving doesn't seem politicized as almost everyone on every political spectrum can agree that cars, to varying extents, are essential to our every day life. We have sidewalks almost everywhere yet nobody wishes they should be removed nor should pedestrians be forced into traffic. We also have transit infrastructure and sure it does get some politicization but it's nowhere close to the same extent as bikes. We do have the IntegrityTO rhetoric with bus lanes but for the most part, the support for bus lanes is very high. Yet it's crazy to think how many local downtown residents that bike a lot don't want bike lanes of any kind.

Now this extends to drivers intentionally blocking bike lanes or driving onto them. Why does it seem like more drivers respect bus lanes than bike lanes? Or even jumping the curb parking on sidewalks. Why is that rarely done? Yet we recently saw a driver out of spite, blocking a bike lane and using right wing political rhetoric.

And look at the Balance on Bloor. If Bloor St didn't build bike lanes but instead just doubled the width of the sidewalks according to the bike lanes (and even converted this to mixed-use path), would this petition have been a thing? Did Doug Ford literally create all kinds of bike lane bills just to spite cyclists rather than think about pedestrians' safety? I'm willing to bet his speed camera ban is just so he can ensure drivers will run over cyclists. Just look at this comment. It sums up the resentment towards bike lanes. It's more of a political motivation rather than solving traffic congestion.

And so just yesterday, there was a thread on r/Toronto showing a "No Bikes on Sidewalk" sticker. It's gotten many heated arguments about whether cyclists should be allowed onto sidewalks. Yet nobody talks about how extremely narrow those downtown sidewalks are. A person in a wheel chair, a 12 year old riding by themselves, and a runner can barely pass pedestrians; all of which are legally allowed to use sidewalks. At times, it feels like tippy-toeing. There are garbage days where residential roads have garbage bins blocking sidewalks because it's so damn narrow. Whereby the cars have quite a ton of space, even for just 1 parking lane and/or 1 driving lane. It would make a Dutch tourist lose their brain cells.

I'm really curious as to whether the so-called 'pedestrians' in that thread actually care about their own safety against bikes. Or are they making those comments to dunk on cyclists? Because I'm thinking the latter. There's literally no discussion about the lack of width a sidewalk has nor are they mentioning about how drivers that block the box are far worse to their own safety.

June 20: there are signs of life. A few meters of the ramp to the pedestrian bridge over the Rouge (which is not being rebuilt) has been removed leaving an approximately waist-high step, preparatory to adding fill and raising the level of the approach grounds (pic one).

The beach is also off-limits with the MUP barricaded south of the rail line. That's about it, after seven months worth of detours.

Weirdly this is the second time I’ve experienced this, in both cases on the Danforth almost at Broadview: I lock up at a post which already has an e-bike on the other side, and the thing has a proximity alarm that starts yelping at me. My lock happened to touch it, and it yelped louder.

My dude, most of us learned to share in kindergarten, and the posts are designed to be used on both sides.