When you write about municipal politics you expect, eventually, to write about residents and traffic.
Residents complain about the number of cars passing in front of their homes and ask the city to install signals, stop signs or speed bumps — and that’s news. They want to discourage heavy trucks rumbling in front of their homes and ask the city set up truck routes — someplace else. They worry about buses in front of their homes by demanding the TTC reroute the service elsewhere.
That’s why learning about residents who want the city to increase, not decrease, the amount of traffic in front of their homes is news indeed.
Last week, councillor Michelle Berardinetti, saying she represented “hundreds” of Pharmacy and Birchmount residents, asked the Public Works and Infrastructure committee to approve the removal of cycling lanes from Pharmacy Avenue and Birchmount Road in Scarborough. The committee complied.
Residents told the committee that “great queues of traffic” fill the street, now that the city has removed one traffic lane in each direction for bicycles.
William Macdonald, who lives near the Pharmacy bike route, said the bike lane there creates congestion, particularly when cars use it to bypass the Don Valley Parkway. He also said that sometimes residents have to go several times around the block just to get into their driveways or to turn onto side streets. Macdonald told the group that TTC buses blocked the entire street, now that the bicycle lanes are there, especially whenever a bus stopped for passengers.
The city installed the lanes in 2008 to fulfill the goals of its bike plan and make cycling a viable alternative to cars throughout the city, not just downtown. City council already approved the plan and the lanes along the streets in 2001.
The fact that Pharmacy Ave. residents, in particular, seem to want more traffic near their homes is especially curious because they have a long history of advocating against heavy traffic in their area. In the late ’80s they fought aggressively against a proposal to turn an empty General Electric plant on Eglinton Ave. into a Knob Hill Farms supermarket because it would mean much more traffic along Pharmacy.
Further north, in 1982, residents of streets near Pharmacy booted buses out of their neighbourhood when the TTC wanted to run its vehicles along local streets to link both sides of Pharmacy across the 401.
Not everyone agrees with the residents who showed up at committee. I spoke to a resident of a side street off Pharmacy and he told me the committee’s decision to remove bike lanes astonished him.
“Having the road one lane in each direction forces drivers to maintain the 50 kilometre-an-hour speed limit. You don’t have cars cutting in and out of traffic,” he said. “[The new street design with bike lanes] provides a dedicated centre left turn lane, which allows for a better flow of traffic.”
He also reminded me that a daycare centre, two community centres, tennis courts and three elementary schools stand on Pharmacy between Eglinton and Danforth, and another two schools are on nearby streets. That means lots of kids use the sidewalks on Pharmacy. “The bike lanes are safer for everyone. They keep the traffic slow and away from the sidewalks, where the kids are.”
So, then: Are bike lanes really causing problems for residents, or do they actually make the streets safer? Expect a fierce debate next week, when city council ultimately decides whether lanes should stay or go. It may cost taxpayers as much as $210,000 to remove the lanes, while keeping them there costs nothing.
