There's been a lot of discussion about most of the bikelanes in Toronto being filled with snowbanks (something not likely to change any time soon due to another storm on it's way...), and TreeHugger Lloyd Alter wrote about it recently, as he's trying to wean himself off his car and onto his bike for trips downtown:

I thought it might be interesting to see how the City copes and how much concern they have for the bicycling crowd.

The short answer is not much concern at all. I am very fortunate to have some form of bike lane for almost the entire distance between my home and the University. The start was not promising; as you can see they have ploughed the road nicely, dumping all of the snow into the bike lane. In fact, they might as well just rename it the snow lane, for the snow always seems to end right on the painted line.

As you can see from the signage, this is both a bike lane and a snow route; these are designated streets where if the Mayor announces a snow emergency, all the cars have to move or be towed so that the loaders and dump trucks can take away the snow.

More at TreeHugger.

Know of a bikelane that needs clearing? You can talk about on the BikingToronto Community.

Labels: infrastructure, news