Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists ARC Bike Lane Monitor
Toronto cyclists standing together.
 legal defence, direct action, lobbying, education
In the Spring of 1999 ARC members surveyed the traffic patterns in Toronto bike lanes in order to answer the nagging question: Are cyclists paranoid, or are the bike lanes really full of parked cars? We kept track of how long each motor vehicle stays in the bike lane. We also counted how many times cyclists were forced to merge with motor vehicle traffic or to take the sidewalk. From this we determined some useful things, such as: How many seconds does it take for a motor vehicle to endanger a cyclist by stopping in the bike lane? ARC wrote to the Toronto Police Chief, asking for increased enforcement. In the Fall of 2000 the Toronto Police had an enforcement "blitz" which targetted bike lane parkers. The blitz covered the area we had studied the year before. Hundreds of tickets were issued to motorists, and a couple of hundred vehicles were actually towed. According to the police reports it was a pretty aggressive program. So ARC took up the stop watches again to see if there was any measureable improvement in the weeks following the blitz. See the results below, and click the links for more detail.

Number of Incidents College St.

Note: An incident is defined as a cyclist encountering a motor vehicle which is blocking the bike lane. Some cyclists encountered more than one obstructing vehicle, therefore the total number of incidents is greater than the total number of cyclists.
LocationDate 1Date 2
University Ave. to Huron St. April 13 1999 Sept 9 2000
Incidents: 50 96
Huron St. to Spadina Ave. April 13 1999 Sept 9 2000
Incidents: 60 60
Bathurst to Lippincott (South) April 17 1999 Sept 30 2000
Incidents: 65 227
Bathurst to Lippincott (North) April 17 1999 Sept 30 2000
Incidents: 85 48

 

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