“Urban cyclists today face a roadway system that was not designed for them and which, in fact, is usually hostile to them. The reason can be traced back to the drawing boards of municipal planning engineers and the concern, for many decades, has been optimizing the flow of automobiles and trucks. The inappropriateness to cycling of many aspects of roadway design is becoming more obvious and more serious as the number of cyclists grows.” — City of Toronto report “Planning for Urban Cycling,” circa 1977
Premier Doug Ford’s announcement last week that his government intends to restrict bike-lane construction added a new chapter to a long and controversial Toronto story. Since politicians and cycling groups began making serious proposals for bicycle lanes in the ’70s, there’s been disagreement between those who see them as an integral part of modern, safe transportation systems and those who believe they are a blight on the landscape that hinders the movement of cars and trucks.
When the front page of a special Toronto Star section spotlighting outdoor summer activities declared 1972 to be “the year of the bike,” that may not have been an exaggeration. Books and pamphlets extolling the virtues of cycling hit the market, touting it as an environmentally friendly way to combat growing traffic gridlock. Over the previous year, municipal councils in places like Hamilton, Metro Toronto, Peel County, and Waterloo had discussed proposals for bikeway systems or struck committees to examine cycling infrastructure. The National Capital Commission was already installing its system in Ottawa; primarily off-road, it did have some short marked-out stretches on its parkways. In Metro Toronto, Parks Commissioner Tommy Thompson (the man who urged people to walk on the grass) kept a bike in his trunk during the summer so that he could check out the slowly growing system of bike paths within the region’s parks.
Metro Toronto Parks Commissioner Tommy Thompson with a group of cyclists. (Toronto Star, May 12, 1972)
In a September 1972 editorial, the Globe and Mail stated that Metro Toronto officials “should be giving serious thought to establishing bicycle lanes on some of the most heavily travelled thoroughfares.” It also suggested considering options like turning sewer grates so that slots didn’t trap wheels, installing more racks, and implementing licensing and registration.
“Who knows”? it concluded. “There might one day even be the need for a bicycle expressway into downtown Toronto.”
In June 1974, a report prepared by consultant Wojciech Strok for Metro Toronto recommended a 78-mile cycling network connecting many major attractions to existing off-road bike paths. The plan, which included on-road routes paved with a dark cherry-coloured asphalt, recommended that cyclists be banned from roads where the speed limit was above 40 miles/hour (64 kilometres/hour) or where streets had a history of cycling accidents. Any proposed routes would be on quieter streets. The first stage of Strok’s plan envisioned a winding north-south route through downtown from Exhibition Place to north of Bloor Street via the University of Toronto.
“By designing a system,” Strok told the Globe and Mail, “we hope to draw a large majority of cyclists off unsafe streets. Hopefully, most of them will choose to use the system.” Strok’s suggestion that sidewalks be used where pedestrian traffic wasn’t heavy drew criticism from cycling advocates such as Estherelke Kaplan, who said, “People forget that the bicycles people ride now go up to 50 mph.”
Photo from the July 23, 1977, edition of the Ottawa Citizen.
Strok believed that bicycles were “not expected to become a significant transportation mode” in Metro Toronto, due to weather (only 169 days each year were considered suitable for most riders) and the local mindset. “People here always seem to think they have to be somewhere by sometime,” bicycle retailer Peter Kent told the Globe and Mail. “Psychologically most people think the car is faster, even though numerous studies have shown this isn’t always the case.”
Strok’s report was among the higher-selling municipal reports of the period, with advocacy groups and governments from around the world acquiring copies. In Toronto, its popularity might have been boosted by circumstances that increased the use of bicycles, such as the 1973 energy crisis, rising parking rates for cars, and a 23-day TTC strike in the summer of 1974.
The following year, the Toronto City Cycling Committee was formed as an advisory group for future initiatives. One of its consultations led to city council’s November 1976 approval of the first exclusive on-road bicycle lanes. The committee had recommended a route stretching from St. Clair Avenue to the waterfront, but City Works Commissioner R.M. Bremner felt that the lanes “could have serious consequences on other modes of travel and access to abutting properties” by, for example, blocking curbside bus stops and driveways. As the Globe and Mail put it, Bremner believed that cars were “the legitimate users of the roads” and that “exclusive bike lanes are acceptable only if they do not cut available car space.” As for an east-west route, suggestions made in a 1977 study included Bloor Street, a combination of Harbord Street/Hoskin Avenue/Wellesley Street, and College Street/Carlton Street.
The Toronto Star didn’t approve of downtown cycling. “While the bicycle is a clean, silent, pollution-free way of getting around,” a June 1977 editorial observed, “it has no place on Toronto’s busy main streets.” The paper fretted about the growing number of accidents and worried that lanes would impede buses and delivery trucks: “Short of building overhead routes mounted on trestles, there is really no way to accommodate bicycles on busy main streets.” It preferred that cyclists stick to quiet streets, parks, and ravines.
Map of Ottawa bicycle infrastructure from the May 5, 1979, edition of the Ottawa Journal.
In August 1978, Ottawa-Carleton Region council approved a bikeway system that would follow some city streets. Work began early the following year on routes using Bay, Craig, Percy, Queen, Stewart, and Wilbrod Streets to take traffic off Bank Street and Bronson Avenue. In sections with designated bike lanes, traffic and parking would be prohibited during certain hours and violators subject to fines. Ottawa Journal cycling columnist Don Sutherland felt this was a sign that 1979 would be “the year of the great leap forward” for Ottawa cyclists. “Economically,” Sutherland had written the previous year, “cycle lanes make sense. The annual maintenance of road lane markings must be peanuts compared to the capital and maintenance of custom-built cycle paths.”
Around this time, provincial legislation was amended such that municipalities could build separated bike lines and pathways and enter into agreements with other communities to use their land as part of any cycling network — although they were required to hold hearings before plans could proceed.
The proposed exclusive bike lanes in Toronto faced delays. When in March 1979 the city revealed a plan to replace one lane of traffic along Poplar Plains Road — a one-way northbound uphill route through a residential neighbourhood that was favoured as an evening rush-hour shortcut for motorists — the Toronto Sun was incensed. “Toronto belongs to all of us; our taxes are shared,” an editorial observed. “The last thing any of us should want is a ghettoized city, as has been the tendency with the zanies waxing strong and putting in speed bumps, blocking off streets, preventing turns, putting up illogical stop signs, and generally harassing fellow citizens. The time to put a stop to nonsense is now. And Poplar Plains Road is as good a street as any to start returning to common sense.”
The local alderman, Susan Fish, defended the choice, saying that the main north-south routes nearby were unsafe for cyclists and that residents along Poplar Plains had complained about the volume of rush-hour traffic and expressed concerns that children might be injured by cars going too fast up the hill.
“We’ve had a few complaints,” Fish told the Toronto Star in July 1979, adding that they were far outweighed by the flood of support from area cyclists and residents. Alderman Michael Gee, who represented the ward to the north of the bike route, warned that constituents who drove along Poplar Plains were “going to be furious” and that the loss of a lane would worsen traffic on nearby roads. Gee concluded that it was “a wrongheaded thing to do.”
Editorial cartoon from the May 23, 1973, edition of the North York Mirror.
When the 600-metre Poplar Plains route, which ran between Cottingham Avenue and Clarendon Road, officially opened in September 1979, it reduced uphill car traffic from two lanes to one and had no physical barriers. (It would not be extended further north to St. Clair, because regular car backups meant both lanes were required.) Part of the Harbord/Hoskin/Wellesley route opened soon after but was subjected to further study and complaints from the works department, which feared it’d cause rush-hour backups. That route would not be fully completed until 2014.
The Star seemed determined to prove the Poplar Plains bike route served no useful purpose. Over a 35-minute period on a Tuesday night in early October 1979, it counted 847 motorists and three cyclists. It interviewed residents who felt the route had created more traffic hazards, noise, and pollution and noted that impatient drivers used it as a passing lane. At least one motorist blamed Mayor John Sewell and his allies for its existence, although the plan had been discussed for years. Cyclists weren’t fond of the occasional potholes but were overall pleased.
Photo of brief patch of on-road bike markings used by the NCC, from the July 24, 1972, edition of the Ottawa Journal.
The Star drew on all of these arguments in an October 14 editorial titled “There’s a limit to bicycle lanes.” The lane, it said, was the result of the city’s “suffering yet another devastating attack of the anti-car blues.” And while the idea was laudable, it was “ill-conceived” and would worsen traffic gridlock. Citing weather concerns and a 1977 study that showed that, out of 61,000 people entering downtown, only 127 biked in, the paper concluded that “it makes no sense to heighten the travails of rush hour driving in a misguided attempt to accommodate this minuscule minority.” The editorial provoked several angry letters; one person pointed out that many cyclists avoided riding during rush hour because they knew it was the worst time to do so. Over time, residents came to appreciate the lane for its traffic-calming abilities.
Despite the conflicts, the signs looked promising for bike-lane expansion as the 1980s began. Many expected cycling would become increasingly popular as car and fuel prices increased. More employers in urban areas offered bike racks and special washroom facilities. Law-enforcement officials touted the value of bike lanes as cyclist injuries continued to rise.
Proponents believed that bureaucracy was their biggest enemy. “Things don’t move very fast when it comes to cycling,” Joan Doiron, a member of the Toronto City Cycling Committee, told the Toronto Star. Indeed, the pace of building more lanes in Toronto would be glacial over the coming decades, as politicians representing the core were pitted against their suburban counterparts, with both sides using bike lanes as a wedge issue to appeal to their constituents.
Ottawa had been viewed as a leader in cycling infrastructure. But that reputation took a hit in March 1981, when a new bikeway plan that would have added 385 kilometres of lanes and paths was shelved during budget discussions. According to Ottawa mayor Marion Dewar, the split on regional council was between “people who see bicycling as a recreational form of activity and people who see it as an alternative form of transportation.”
“We have been prisoners of the automobile,” she said, “and have to look at valid alternatives.”
Sources: Bike Lanes on Bloor-Danforth: The First Forty Years (of Inaction) (Toronto: Bells on Bloor, 2015); the September 16, 1972, June 11, 1974, and December 1, 1976, editions of the Globe and Mail; the April 21, 1979, and March 18, 1981, editions of the Ottawa Citizen; the May 20, 1978, and May 5, 1979, editions of the Ottawa Journal; the May 12, 1972, June 1, 1977, July 31, 1979, October 11, 1979, October 14, 1979, October 29, 1979, and April 28, 1980, editions of the Toronto Star; the March 30, 1979, edition of the Toronto Sun; and the June 19, 1979, edition of the Windsor Star.
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