Cyclists Protest Removal Of Bike Lanes In Toronto With Mass Ride [treehugger]

Chuckman's Toronto Collection Volume 5/CC BY 3.0

Toronto's Jarvis Street used to be rather lovely, a true complete street with trees and a green boulevard separating sidewalks from the road. Then it got widened and widened until it was five lanes, with the middle lane an odd reversible lane that switched from southbound to northbound at the afternoon rush hour, confusing a lot of people. A few years back the City ripped out the ugly wires and lights that indicated direction in that reversible lane, removed the lane and installed bike lanes.

Last July 13, when Mayor Rob Ford still had people listening to him on council, they voted to paint out the bike lanes and put the reversible lane back. No matter that the accident rate had dropped because the confusion was gone, or that bike usage tripled. No matter that a man elected because of his "respect for taxpayers" was going to spend a quarter of a million dollars to do it. As Richard Florida tweeted at the time, "How did it come to this?"

[Read more at treehugger]