The City of Toronto is hosting a public meeting on Monday, February 6, 2012 where staff will present their recommendations for additions to the city’s off-road cycling network. Although none of the proposed routes are in Ward 29, a number of them do plug gaps in the Don Valley trail system or make connections to other routes like the Gatineau Hydro Corridor. Staff’s final report will be submitted to the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee in March, and for final approval by City Council after that. We encourage all interested cyclists to attend the meeting on Monday evening to examine the planned improvements and talk to staff. Ward 29 Bikes representatives will be attending; look us up if you’re there.
Who: City of Toronto Staff and you!
What: New multi-use trails public meeting
Where: Northern District Public Library
40 Orchard View Boulevard (1 block north of Eglinton Ave, east of Yonge) (map)
When: 5:30–7:30 p.m., Monday, February 6, 2012
Map from the City of Toronto website.
Have you always wanted to be in a parade? Wave to cheering crowds? Celebrate your community? This is your chance! Ward 29 Bikes invites you and your friends to join us in the East York Canada Day Parade, Friday 1 July 2011, starting time 9am.
For further information and staging details, please contact Kathy at kathy@29bikes.ca.
Join Ward 29 Bikes for the signature Bike Month event, the Group Commute to City Hall. Groups of riders from the east, west, and north will all converge on Nathan Phillips Square for the anual pancake breakfast and kick-off to a month-long celebration of cycling. The Danforth ride departs from Woodbine at 7:00 a.m. Members of Ward 29 Bikes will be joining the ride at the corner of Danforth and Chester Avenues (just to the east of Carrot Common) when it rolls by around 7:20 a.m. Hundreds of cyclists will cross the Bloor Viaduct and connect with the other groups heading to the morning’s festivities at City Hall. Contact us if you need any additional information. We hope you see you there!
Join Ward 29 Bikes and the East York Historical Society for a cycling tour of some of Ward 29′s historic sites. Discover the Taylors and Playters, explore the villages of Todmorden and Chester, and learn about the history of East York and area while riding with the whole family.
Meet at Playter Gardens at the corner of Danforth and Cambridge Avenues any time between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to pick up a route map and additional info. The full tour will take approximately 90 minutes at a leisurely pace and is suitable for the whole family. The route is mostly on quiet neighbourhood streets or dedicated bike lanes, but there will be some short sections along main roads. Watch this site or contact us for more information.
We’re also looking for additional volunteers to help before and on June 11. If you’re interested in helping, please contact us or send email to info@29bikes.ca.
Update, May 19: the closure is now scheduled to begin on Tuesday, May 24.
For those cyclists accustomed to accessing the Don Valley, the
Brick Works or
Todmorden Mills via Pottery Rd. a change of route will soon be required.
The City expects reconstruction of Pottery Rd to last from Monday May 16 to September 6—the whole summer! (Exact dates will probably change though). An alternative route into the Don Valley is Beechwood Drive (at Broadview and O’Connor;
see Google Map).
Local business access will be maintained (although only from one end of Pottery Rd, access either from Bayview Ave or Broadview Ave), and pedestrian access from Broadview Avenue (to Fantasy Farms & Todmorden Mills) will also be maintained. However there will be no through traffic on Pottery Road during construction… Work will typically take place from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. from Monday to Friday, with work after hours and on weekends as required.
There’s no mention to what extent construction will affect (north-south) traffic along the Don Valley recreational trail.
Once reopened in the Fall the rehabilitated Pottery Rd. will feature a 2 meter wide segregated, shared pathway on its western flank (much like it does presently); and bicycle friendly redesigns of the Pottery Rd pathway’s line beneath the DVP overpass as well as the Don Valley Recreational Trail/Pottery Rd. intersection.
In just a week, a transformed city council will take power under the leadership of Rob Ford. Should cyclists distress? Perhaps. But there is cause for celebration in east Toronto.
This year’s municipal election gave rise to a number of excellent candidates, and Ward 29 was no exception. Local candidates Chris Caldwell, Jennifer Wood, and Jane Pitfield all took very supportive positions on cycling, as did Mary Fragedakis, who will now represent Ward 29 at City Council.
In Ward 32, residents delivered an undeniable landslide victory to Mary-Margaret McMahon, and with that victory comes a renewed sense of responsibility where cycling and the environment are concerned. Both Fragedakis and McMahon participated in the Bike Month Group Commute last May and have been unequivocal in their support for cycling.
These new councillors match nicely with the return of incumbents Janet Davis (Ward 31) and Paula Fletcher (Ward 30). The latter, who hashed out a narrow victory to keep her seat, has the greater challenge of establishing herself as a pro-cycling councillor, especially after her misvote on the proposed 12-week trial of separated bike lanes on University Avenue. But both are clearly distinguished from the bike lane requiem touted by our newly elected mayor.
So as a new administration takes over at City Hall we can at least look to the four Wards that border Danforth Avenue from Broadview to Victoria Park to offer a balanced perspective where the needs of cyclists are concerned. That balance is seemingly more important than before, and it is reassuring that their voices will be backed by the collective and growing support for cycling that exists within our extended community.
The Bloor Viaduct is getting some fresh paint this week. On Tuesday night, city work crews laid out the first hint of what’s to come, painting thin guide marks for the full lane markings to follow. As Dan Egan detailed at our public meeting on Wednesday, the project will considerably widen the existing bike lanes along the entire length of the Viaduct and add new treatments to address the conflict zones at the DVP on-ramps identified in our 2008 Bloor Viaduct Safety Report. The new lanes are not only wider, but will also feature a small buffer zone to put even more space between cars and bikes.
We’ll have more information about the new configuration on the Viaduct once the painting is complete, but we thought you’d like a sneak peek into the work in progress on Thursday night. The whole repainting project is scheduled to be completed by next week.
The work crew sets up on Danforth for an evening of re-striping the lanes.
The new bike lanes will be much wider than the old ones, with the extra space gained by shaving a little off each of the mixed-use lanes.
When you ride the new luxury bike lanes on the Viaduct, you can thank Chris and Rob for doing the work. Thanks, Chris and Rob! And thanks too to everyone else at the City who are helping to make crossing the Don Valley safer for all cyclists.
Ward 29 Bikes once again took part in Monday’s group commute, the official kick-off to Bike Month in Toronto. For the second year in a row, riders welcomed perfect cycling weather bright and early in the morning. Hundreds of cyclists from the east, west, and north converged on Yonge and Bloor before heading down to CIty Hall for the annual pancake breakfast.
This being an election year, we were pleased to be joined on the ride by five of the six declared candidates to replace retiring Ward 29 Councillor Case Ootes. Thanks to Chris Caldwell, Mary Fragedakis, Jane Pitfield, John Richardson, and Jennifer Wood for joining us for the ride.
Here are a few pictures from the ride:
Riders, including candidate Jennifer Wood here, pause on Yonge Street south of Bloor to allow stragglers to catch up so that we can all head downtown as one big group.
Hundreds of cyclists, including candidate John Richardson in the yellow helmet, stream into Nathan Phillips Square, locking up their bikes on the way to the pancake breakfast.
Our own Vincent de Tourdonnet was interviewed by Radio-Canada.
Councillor John Parker (Ward 26) took Jane Pitfield for a spin in a quadricycle from Centre Island.
The group commute is always a great way to start the best cycling month in Toronto. There are dozens more Bike Month events throughout the city over the next four weeks, including our own east end cycling advocacy meeting on Wednesday, June 9. Be sure to head out to at least a couple of events in June and help make it the best Bike Month ever!
Join Ward 29 Bikes and other local cycling advocacy organizations at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 9 in the council chambers at the East York Civic Centre at 850 Coxwell Avenue (at Mortimer, 1 km north of Danforth Avenue) as we celebrate the growth in active community-based cycling groups in the east end. Each of the cycling advocacy groups in attendance will share information about what they’re up to, and all attendees will participate in a moderated forum to discuss effecting change through political engagement.
You may have heard that there’s a municipal election this year, and this is your chance to help ensure that the safety of cyclists is one of the top local issues. Join us on June 9 and have your voice counted. We look forward to seeing you there.
Who: Ward 29 Bikes and other east end cycling advocacy groups.
What: Celebrate the growth in local advocacy, participate in a moderated forum.
Where: East York Civic Centre at 850 Coxwell Avenue. Take the O’Connor 70 bus north from Coxwell station or the Mortimer 62 from Broadview or Main stations.
When: Wednesday, June 9, 2010: Meeting 7–9 p.m. There will also be an informal social gathering at Remarks Bar & Grill at 1026 Coxwell Avenue (south of O’Connor) after the meeting. Join us there any time after 9 p.m.
Why: Because we all love cycling!
The Ward 29 Bikes information table at the local Community Environment Day a couple of Saturdays ago was quite popular, sandwiched as it was between the free compost and discount green bins. We spoke with dozens of cyclists, including three candidates for Ward 29 councillor in the upcoming municipal election, mayoral hopeful George Smitherman (above), and retiring councillor Case Ootes. The biggest concern among the people who visited our table was safety: they wanted safe, convenient, and well-maintained cycling routes throughout Ward 29, whether for going downtown for work, to the Danforth for shopping, or to local destinations like schools, parks, and libraries.
We helped many cyclists identify safer recreational and commuting routes, while taking recommendations about what infrastructure was most important. No surprise there: practical bike lanes led the charge. But we also heard a lot about the need for more bike parking at shopping destinations like the Danforth, and about the sorry state of maintenance on many common cycling routes. Coming up this summer, we’ll be producing an audit of these very concerns. Stay tuned.
And a thanks to retiring Ward 29 councillor Case Ootes (above) and his executive assistant Sunny Petrujkic for helping to arrange our presence at this year’s Community Environment Day. We look forward to working with Ward 29′s new councillor at next year’s event.
Thanks to Ward 29 Bikes member Kathy Chung for the bottom three pictures.
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