Councillor Michael Thompson
RE: Impact of Bike Lanes on Brimley Road
Dear Councillor Thompson:
We are truly disappointed that you and Mayor Tory did not pause to think about the impact of taking two lanes away from Brimley Road and handing them over to the bicycle lobby.
If you had paused to think about the impact on just one neighbourhood you would never have supported this disastrous proposal. Please take a look at the impact on just one neighbourhood on the west side of Brimley from Lawrence south to the creek just north of Ferndale Baptist Church.
It’s about 42 hectares [105 acres] in size. Your Planning Staff have all the numbers but I’m going to suggest there are about 400 homes in this neighbourhood.
Brimley Road is their only access out to the rest of the city. There are no streets connecting them to Lawrence nor to Midland. Brimley is it.
With all the best intentions of good city planning in the 1960’s the streets connecting this neighborhood to Brimley were deliberately NOT lined up with streets connecting to Brimley from the neighbourhood on the east side.
There are two traffic lights allowing people from this neighbourhood to get out safely onto Brimley road when it’s busy.
1. Shediac was realigned to line up with Fraserton on the east side a few years back and a signal installed.
2. Deerfield has a signal. But Seminole on the east side was too far south to bring it into the signal. People are encouraged by signs not to block Seminole when they are stopped at thelights.
None of the other streets connecting to Brimley are signalized. If you use Haileybury, Arnprior, Canzone, and Gully Drive you have to wait for a gap or depend on the courtesy of Brimley drivers.
55 homes in this one neighbourhood front onto the west side of Brimley: their driveways cross the sidewalk and connect right into the curb lane…. the lane you want to convert to a bikeway.
Same thing for the Scarborough Centre Alliance Church and the +\-25 recently built townhouses up close to Lawrence.
Your people have the traffic counts. The best one we have is from the Brimley Ellesmere development project. It counted 1,900 vehicles on Brimley in the busiest hour in the morning and another 2,100 vehicles on Brimley in the busiest hour in the afternoon. We know ‘rush hour’ is actually 3 hours long in the afternoon and maybe 2 hours in the morning.
You force all these vehicles into the one remaining lane, and throw away left and right hand turn lanes at intersections and there won’t be many ‘gaps’ for people to get out of their neighbourhood on Haileybury, Arnprior, Canzone, and Gully Drive.
TTC ‘route planner’ tell us they run 150 buses up and down Brimley Road every 24 hours. That’s how transit riders from this neighbourhood connect to Kennedy Subway Station gong south. That’s how they get to all the other bus routes that come together at Scarborough Centre Station. The Brimley bus carried over 9,500 passengers on a typical weekday as of 2014.
If you shut down one lane each direction and force all traffic into the centre lanes, a single vehicle stopped to make a left turn, or even a right hand turn across the bikeway, and a single bus stopped to take on/let off passengers, will block everyone else in the one remaining lane. How ‘courteous’ will they be about letting people get out to Brimley from the church, the townhouses or Haileybury, Arnprior, Canzone, and Gully Drive
You need to tell those 55 homeowners who front onto Brimley just exactly how you expect them to get in/out of their homes. First across the sidewalk, then across your bikeway, then backing into the one lane you have left for them which will be full of frustrated drivers.
Sorry Mike: you’ve been sold a bill of goods by the bicycle lobby.
This has nothing to do with helping people cooped up for the past 6 weeks to get out there and enjoy the sunshine, get some exercise. If there were truly pent up demand by thousands of folks just itching to get their bikes out for some exercise, we’d be seeing crowds on the bikeways we already have. Instead we continue to see practically no-one on the 4 kilometer bike path painted on Brimorton ten years ago.
Lastly just how safe will anybody enjoying this new bikeway be with thousands of disgruntled drivers queued up in the one remaining lane, bus passengers walking across their path and homeowners tying to get in/out of their driveways.
That’s just one neighbourhood. Identical issues are going to come at you from all along Brimley Road.
As we read the Council decision, it looks like the local Councillor has authority to think again and cancel this plan:
5. City Council direct the General Manager, Transportation Services to, as part of the design, installation, and monitoring process, work in consultation with the local Councillors and stakeholders to identify and implement changes to the ActiveTO cycling projects as may be necessary to address operational and safety issues as they may arise, including modification or removal of the ActiveTO cycling projects if deemed necessary.
We strongly suggest you use this authority to stop this before it gets started.
Lorne Ross
For the Glen Andrew Community Association
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