Comments on Ontario’s…

Comments on Ontario’s Cycling Strategy:

Lots of great ideas and clearly lots of great work by devoted civil servants but here are a few concerns/ comments.

Comments on the interconnected maps / consultation strategy

•Road cyclists number in the tens of thousands in Ontario. They are major source of tourism dollars in Ontario. For evidence of the numbers of road cyclists, one only needs to look to the hundreds of cycling clubs in Ontario, the vast majority of which are all road cyclists. No member of this large stakeholder group was included in consultation. Instead, consultation focused more on commuters and occasional recreational users. Important people to talk to for sure, but a major gap is evident because no one consulted with the people who will spend the most time on bikes in Ontario.

•Most cyclists that travel to places, spend money and ride are road cyclists on road bikes (skinny tires). Road cyclists cannot use gravel roads.

•The report cites competitive road cyclists training for Olympics etc. Ontario’s competitive cyclists need safe connected routes on pavement, not gravel. Road riders cannot train on gravel roads so any connected routes with gravel are useless for training for competitive/ Olympic events.

•Similarly road riders train at speeds greater than 28 km/h which makes mixed use trails such as the Lakeshore path in Toronto unsafe and illegal.

•The largest population of cyclists is in Toronto. There is very little safe infrastructure to support them in and around the city. Proposed routes often end abruptly or are difficult to get to.

•Maps attached to the EBR posting are very difficult to understand. What road is under consideration? It is unclear in the attached map which roads are identified.

Improve Cycling Infrastructure

•A lot of the tangible action items are very high level and unmeasurable. (How does one attach metrics to 'Develop funding partnerships'? Does three partnerships mean this has been achieved?) Attention needs to be devoted to increasing the number of highways in Ontario with cycling signage and wider shoulders. How about 80 per cent of new Ontario roads have adequate shoulders for cyclists? Measurable metrics tied to safety are key. Tracking injuries and death is important.)

•Too much attention is on what municipalities will do versus what the province can do right now to improve safety on provincial highways.

Make Highways and Street Safer:

•Updating legislation based on evidence based research is a great policy.

•Better education for road users is also needed. Metrics should be attached to this policy. Why are we not teaching new drivers the Dutch reach to prevent urban dooring? What about requiring new drivers to talk about cycling safety during a driving test?

•Police involvement is key. Metrics are needed to measure success. (Examples include: Require OPP to perform spot checks in areas used by cyclists to ensure cars are following the one meter rule. Establish a police action plan for cyclists who are confronted with a dangerous driver.) Currently police are doing almost nothing to protect vulnerable road users from dangerous drivers. Most cyclists do not feel they are taken seriously by the OPP.

Promote Cycling Awareness and Behavioural shifts

•The idea that cycling promotion will get people to commute via bike is incorrect. Various jurisdictions have shown that once roads are safe, cyclists will use them. It’s that simple. (See Bogotá.) The focus must be on increasing safety for all vulnerable road users. If people feel like they will die, they won’t ride their bikes.

[Original Comment ID: 209470]