The West Parkdale Cycling route is a west-end Toronto biking route planned for Parkdale, here below, a resident of the area represents the a view of changes that could be made to better integrate the plans to the community
The concern that residents have isn’t about the bike lane on Macdonell Avenue and most support it. The safety issue that we are trying to highlight is the impact of the traffic calming measure they’ve decided on.
Gord Perk’s office has stated that the current traffic volume on Macdonell Avenue is unsafe for bikes and cars sharing the street, and so they are changing one block on Macdonell Avenue between Fern Avenue and Garden Avenue one way in the opposite direction. The ripple effect is that it will force 100% of that traffic onto Fern Avenue, which is also used by cyclists, and to the intersection at Fern and Sorauren Avenues, a heavily used crossing point every day for children and families heading to Fern Avenue Public School and up Sorauren across Fern to the park. Fern Avenue itself already gets a large amount of traffic currently. Gord Perk’s office has stated that they expect diverted traffic to turn south from Fern onto Sorauren, so they are well aware that this traffic pattern will happen. What they are not addressing is how they intend to ensure safety for cyclists and pedestrians along Fern and along and at Fern/Sorauren.

Instead of changing the direction on one block of Macdonell, residents are suggesting that adding a bike lane to Macdonell, narrowing the street, will already naturally calm traffic. They are also suggesting that stop signs could be added all the way down Macdonell, there are currently zero between Rideau and Seaforth Avenues, and that more meaningful speed bumps could also be introduced. Some residents, me included, would like to see the bike lane extended all the way up Macdonell, not just to Galley as in the city’s proposal.
There is only one reported/documented incidence of a cyclist being hit on Macdonell, back in 2006. Cyclists have been riding up Macdonell the wrong way north for many years relatively safely. By adding a bike lane all the way up Macdonell to Fern or even Wabash, stop signs, and speed bumps, they could make Macdonell even safer without causing a dangerous situation on Fern and at the Fern/Sorauren intersection.
So far Gord Perk’s has not addressed this concern and instead is framing this as anti-bike and anti-change which couldn’t be further from the truth. This is polarizing and dangerous because it doesn’t allow any meaningful discussion about solutions. They also like to point to the survey which says that 57% of respondents agree with the change, a pretty narrow majority when you consider that most residents on Macdonell and Fern didn’t actually know about or understand the details of the proposed changes or the survey, until well after it was already completed. So that’s a meaningless argument.
The other concern is that the city staff in charge of this project weren’t even aware of certain things about the streets in question. They erroneously thought that there were already speed bumps on Fern, didn’t know about the Hindu Temple on Fern (which gets large amounts of traffic at certain times, though its undergoing renovation at the moment), didn’t know that the laneway parallel to the west of Macdonell between Fern and Garden is a major cut-through that drivers take and will increase with the change, plus weren’t aware that Fern/Soruaren is a major crossing for school children. This doesn’t instill confidence that they’ve looked at all of the issues before making this proposal.
The residents trying to highlight this concern and offer alternatives are cyclists themselves and are in no way anti-bike or anti-change, I can’t stress that enough.