What's wrong with Toronto's bike lanes?

This looks pretty useful. Maybe the city is encouraging
stunt driving and wants us to jump over obstacles.

Every day I read blogto.com and although they do their best at pointing out all of the best things about the city, there's really no competing with the fail that is Toronto's infrastructure, from big picture to small. Airport accessibility? Fail. Transit system? Fail. Roads & highways? Fail. Bicycle safety & accessibility? You guessed it, a big giant FAIL. How can a city as large and populated in Toronto - Canada's largest city - be struggling to find 'solutions' to all of the above mentioned issues? How can we not have at least ONE of those things right? I think the answer might be a little confusing: we spend too much time planning.

The old construction adage is to measure twice, and cut once - but what happens when someone questions the blueprint before you can make the cut? You have to measure twice once again. Toronto is stuck in a perpetual state of measurement, without any cuts (well, aside from the figurative ones like jobs, community programs, transit expansions, but that's a whole other topic). 

So here we are, in a city whose residents love where they live, but have no way to get around. It sounds like a bit of a one-sided relationship doesn't it? 

This is traffic moving well!

I'll put the subject of the roads/highways & transit on hold for now, and focus only on our bicycle lanes here - since that's what originally led me to this point. 

Toronto hates bicyclists. That is the only thing that could account for such a poor system, with no sniff of change on the horizon. Sure they've painted a few lines here or there (see the header picture), but when it comes to true bicycle lanes, SAFE ones, I've only ever seen reduction. So we're on the same page, let's compare what I'm talking about here....

^ That's the simple bicycle lane - the ones that Toronto has the most of. They're better than nothing, don't get me wrong, but if you want to start seeing a significant number of users, we need something a little safer on the high traffic streets. Just look at that bus - if I were that old man, I would be very happy to be wearing my depends at that moment (aside: are they really trying to make adult diapers seem 'cool' with their new commercials? Terrible marketing). Anyway, there's a number of things wrong with these lanes - they're stressful, they're dangerous, and they're more expensive than you think. The cost might just look like a simple painting of stripes and symbols, but most roads with these lanes need to be resurfaced before painting (at least on the lane) and that isn't cheap. 

BlogTO.com posted this rendering of the proposed Sherbourne bike lanes today, and I think that we can all agree that this is a MUCH better option than the white lines of death that we're used to seeing. The curb is there to stop cars (and busses) from coming anywhere near the riders, the lane is paved in concrete to avoid potholes and quick degradation, and even manhole covers are flattened for ease (and safety) of riding. Pretty sweet! If we could put these all over the place, we could have just as good a system as NYC has - Michelle and I used it thoroughly when we visited in May. The only problem...is that the city will never pay for these to be installed on every roadway that needs one out there.  

So....my solution? Paint the town green! Honestly - I think that everything they've proposed in the rendering for the Sherbourne lanes is great, but one of the small details that I think is effective is the green lines to identify the lanes. When we rode around Manhattan, the one thing I noticed is that all of the lanes are painted green...like this:

Okay, okay, it doesn't keep you from getting hit by cars, and it doesn't protect you from busses sideswiping you, but it sure as hell makes it easy for you to see where your lane is, and forces drivers to pay more attention to the bicycle lanes. The biggest problem I think - as someone who drives and (not as much as I should) bicycles, is that the white lines just become noise when you're looking at the road. The lines are the same colour as the lines you're following, and let's be honest, we (as drivers) have kind of learned to just ignore the diamond that means "bike lane". So let's start out with what I believe will be a cheaper option for those roads that need it the most - green paint. If the city doesn't agree, then maybe we can all just stop at home depot and dump a can of Forest Green on your local bike lane?

What do you think?