Monday, April 06, 2009

Yo, dude...

have you seen my bike lane?

Bicycle lanes in Toronto tend to disappear for four months of every year, under the stress of snowfalls, the problems of driving and parking in winter, and the general reluctance of the police to come down hard on cars illegally parked during the winter. And on Annette Street, where the city council only recently voted to install a bike lane and the street repairs have barely finished, the lane scarcely exists at all.

But now spring has arrived, and the city has painted stripes in preparation for the hard-won bike lanes. But the old parking signs have stayed up all winter, and as of the first week in April, when I took these photographs, the city had not changed the parking signs to reflect the presence of the new lane.

I know that in the spring, the city's traffic engineers have to make good a lot of the damage done by frost and motor traffic over the winter. But it can't hurt to remind the city, in a gentle way, that some work remains on the bike lanes on Annette.