Regarding local…

Regarding local infrastructure, I would stress that side streets in urban and suburban residential areas are critical pieces, often overlooked beyond simple signs marking them as bike routes.

In Toronto in particular, we have an alleged network of cycling routes with little to no investment or development. Many of them are 40 km/h, and yet riding on them daily is still a scary endeavour as cars whip past way too close at higher speeds than they should. Honked horns, gestures to move out of the way of cars, and other aggressive behaviours on 1-lane roads are all too common in areas where drivers should be slowing down and approaching cautiously due to their nature as residential neighbourhoods.

Reducing speeds with traffic calming measures would help encourage cycling between adjacent residential communities, as well as for children commuting to school, in addition to the numerous benefits of lower speeds.

Toronto has few of these measures apart from speed humps, but chicanes and other ones could be used to create effective bike boulevards linking many communities together, discouraging all but local car traffic and creating spaces outside of arterial separated bike lanes that cyclists could feel were meant for them.

Similarly the many of us who don't live in the downtown core miss out completely in the cycling investment that happens only in dense areas, when an easy network could be created within all of our local communities. We all deserve to be safe.

[Original Comment ID: 196329]