As a cyclist in a city that’s building bike lanes (don’t know if it’s yours), there’s sometimes issues with cycle lanes that aren’t obvious to people who don’t use them. The most common is that they don’t connect to each other. So a driver may feel like there’s bike lanes here and there and everywhere but they don’t see people using them. But actually there’s a bike lane for 2 blocks over here, then nothing for 3 blocks, then that street over there has a bike lane, but it doesn’t make it all the way to the intersection with this street. So it ends up being less like a network and more like a loose bag, and if I’m going to have to be up and down off the sidewalk anyway, I may as well stay up there.

But! There’s a magic tipping point! At some point there’s enough lane that it actually connects to something. Then that connection becomes a path, and then soon that path becomes a route! And now suddenly you can actually get somewhere entirely in those bike lanes. I’ve seen the number of people biking, and using the bike lanes, shoot up after this inflection point, because now it’s a real option.

Either that or the “bike lane” is just a white line next to high speed traffic. Those don’t make anyone feel safe, and most people would prefer having the curb there for their safety, so they mount the sidewalk for protection.

I think Toronto’s bike network is continually getting better, but I do notice that more bicycles and scooters use sidewalks in Toronto than they do in Vancouver. Frankly it comes down to how safe the road feels (and judging by the deaths this year it’s not just a feeling), in Vancouver, bikes more or less own the bike lanes and streets with vehicle traffic secondary, whereas Toronto it seemed the other way with bikes viewed as nuisances more even on separated lanes.

Do you feel that a thin line of paint protects you from getting hit by a car?