How about some people lanes?
Fixing Toronto Part 13
Spring has arrived, and I have great expectations about seeing rampant bike traffic on Dupont, Annette, and the Queensway, to name just three streets that have been changed by our wise City Council over the past year in an effort to green our city. Bike lanes are the new black, it would appear.
But what’s even more green than biking? Walking, of course. But for some reason, even though Council has moved to protect cyclists, they’ve not recognized the obvious sensibility of creating “people lanes” on our downtown sidewalks.
Ask anyone who works downtown, and they’ll tell you that it can be very hazardous walking on Wellington, Bay, King and Adelaide to name just a few streets that are popular with the Mad Max bike courier types. Getting clipped by a fellow racing at what seems like 30 mph is no fun, and it’s not like you can do anything about it.
Now that they’ve got their own lanes, perhaps cyclists will get off the sidewalks of Toronto.
What say you, Legislators? How about enforcing the “people lanes”?
MRM
Cyclist here, 2km every day to Bay & Adelaide. It’s the risk management commuters like me that the bike lanes are really for, and my local route (Shuter Street) sees quite a lot of commuter bike traffic.
Bike couriers are a breed apart – nothing can tame them. Generally, if someone’s cycling on the sidewalk, I make no attempt to clear a path for them and usually throw over a nonplussed look. No adverse incidents yet.
As a pedestrian, I appreciate those who follow the informal rules of the sidewalk like keeping to the right and allowing people to "pass" on the left. No patience for the wide, slow or upstream.
Some cyclists are awful ambassadors to cycling. Then again, some bankers are awful ambassadors to banking.
RealTalk
On that basis, would it also be a pedestrian’s fault if they were struck and killed by an errant car as they used a crosswalk, on the basis that they weren’t sufficiently “aware” of “their surroundings”?
MRM
To an extent, yes. If the pedestrian was indeed fully aware of their surroundings, they would have noticed the errant vehicle not stopping once they took appropriate measures at the crosswalk to indicate they were going to cross – and thus, a rational individual aware of their surroundings would not have stepped foot on the road until it was safe to do so.
Don’t get me wrong, the driver of the vehicle is at fault to a degree as well. But one can’t expect some flashing yellow lights hanging over a street to make up for their ignorance of what is going on around them and provide protection from potential dangers.