Complete The Streets

Here's a new phrase you may not have encountered before, "Complete The Streets". As with many good ideas, this one comes to us from our neighbours to the south, concerned that their streets are designed only for speeding cars, or worse, creeping traffic jams (think Markham, Morningside, Lawrence or Kingston Road at rush hour).

The Complete the Streets movement believes that our cities and towns ought to be for everyone, whether young or old, motorist or bicyclist, walker or wheelchair user, bus rider, homeowner or shopkeeper.

By an exclusive focus on cars, our streets are becoming unsafe for people on foot or bike and unpleasant for everybody. This is especially true for those who live on our major streets and have to endure the rush hour parade everyday. In communities across the United States, a movement is growing to "complete the streets".

States, cities, and towns are asking their planners engineers and designers to build road networks that welcome all citizens.

Members of the movement come from widely diverse groups, from America Bikes and AARP, Smart Growth America and the American Society of Landscape Architects to Paralyzed Veterans of America. The Institute of Transportation Engineers is even on board, amazing for a profession long known as the "throughput crowd" for its pushing of maximum numbers of vehicles at maximum feasible speed through cities and villages alike.

States and cities are getting the message. Illinois this fall passed a complete streets law requiring the state's transportation department to include bicycling and walking facilities in all its urban-area projects. Five other states (Massachusetts, Florida, Maryland, Oregon, Rhode Island) now have some form of complete streets law on the books. More than 50 metro regions, counties or cities -- Charlotte to Johnson County, Kan., Salt Lake City to Seattle -- have passed similar statutes. Many others are now considering them.

Chicago, for example, is moving to narrower traffic lanes, median "refuges" and curb extensions for pedestrians, as well as converting four-lane roadways into three lanes with marked bike lanes.

Here in Scarborough Guildwood, we are seeing the evolution of the of the Toronto Bike Plan, which is to make every Toronto street “bicycle friendly”. The bikeway network establishes priority routes with a formal bikeway facility to provide a higher level of comfort for cyclists. The proposed network routes, because they are very visible through their design, pavement markings and signage, have an important role in encouraging cycling.

The 1999 Cycling Survey highlighted the critical importance of bikeways for achieving the Toronto Bicycle Plan goal of doubling the number of trips by 2011. More than nine in ten Toronto cyclists (93%) are comfortable cycling on bike trails or paths, more than eight in ten
(87%) on residential streets, and more than five in ten (53%) on major roads with bike lanes. However less than two in ten cyclists (18%) are comfortable cycling on major roads without bike
lanes.

Current Bikeways with signs are #16 which runs the length of Coronation, #79 which follows Morningside from Coronation to Guildwood Parkway, #77 which runs from Lawrence to Guildwood along Galloway, #4 running along Guildwood Parkway and #12 which runs up Livingston, through the Guildwood GO station to Morningside Park.

Having had the unfortunate experience of witnessing a cyclist fall under the wheels of a cement truck last year, on Eglinton just past Leslie, I am aware that Toronto's major thoroughfares are not yet "complete". They still belong exclusively to the automobile. But I am encouraged by the appearance of Toronto Bikeway signs that are springing up. Now if we could just get the bike lanes painted on those same streets, we would be making a good and safer beginning.