As advocates, we accept that improving our communities is a slow, piecemeal effort that can take years to come into full focus. But what if we got city leaders to commit to the skeleton of the fully embodied street system up front? Frustrated by the pace of progress in their city, Cycle Toronto launched a campaign for a Minimum Grid of more than 100 miles of protected bike lanes and bicycle boulevards. Jared Kolb told us more in our recent State of the Movement report...
By Jared Kolb, Executive Director, Cycle Toronto
Our Minimum Grid campaign was born after a frustrating period of inaction on the cycling file at Toronto City Hall under the leadership of Mayors Rob Ford and David Miller.
By the end of 2013, the City of Toronto's on-street bikeway network had barely grown from 2009 levels. Despite increased ridership, Toronto City Hall reduced safe on-street cycling infrastructure by removing bike lanes on Pharmacy Avenue, Birchmount Road and Jarvis Street. City Hall also created Toronto's first protected bike lanes on Sherbourne Street, retrofitted Wellesley Street with paint and bollards and created a bicycle boulevard on Shaw Street.
Toronto's glacial pace was compounded in the face of an ambitious 2001 Bike Plan that called for 495 centre lane km of on-street bike lanes but by 2011 had built only 112 km, or roughly 23% of the plan.
In May 2014, ahead of a looming municipal election we launched our campaign calling on all council and mayoral candidates to commit to building a city-wide Minimum Grid of 100 kilometers of protected bike lanes and 100 kilometers of bicycle boulevards by 2018.
After a significant engagement campaign with candidates, we successfully got 25 of 44 elected city councillors to commit to the target. While Mayor John Tory did not commit to the Minimum Grid, our engagement campaign led to his first bike ride of the downtown core and reversal of his opposition to protected bike lanes on Richmond Street and Adelaide Street, a pilot project that was extended in 2015.
There's still much to be done. City staff are drafting a new 10 year bike plan. The 2016 cycling implementation program includes a 44% increase in cycling's capital budget and more than 20 km of on street bike lanes. It's not the Minimum Grid, but we're back on the road to achieving it.
Visit the micro-site http://minimumgrid.ca/ to learn more about the campaign. Click here to learn more about Cycle Toronto.
