Your City My City: ‘Bike boxes’ mean safer cycling
First-year U of T engineering students were dispatched to figure out ways to make cycling safer – and improvements included physically separated lanes and waiting areas.
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RICHARD CLEMENT / REUTERS
A cyclist waits in a bike box for the light to change in Portland, Oregon. University of Toronto engineering students proposed a similar idea for their study area on Bloor St.
While city hall looks at expanding the bike lane network, University of Toronto engineering students say installing bike boxes — a marked-off area at the front of an intersection — along with bike lanes would ensure greater safety.
As part of a first-year engineering science course, students were dispatched to find problems around the city and figure out solutions, ranging from preventing jaywalking to harnessing wind power. Cycling safety was identified as a key issue on many streets, but the class studied a stretch of Bloor St. between Yonge and Bathurst Sts.
Opal Densmore and teammates Nadine Soliman and Reem Helou decided the best way to protect cyclists was to eliminate parking on both sides of the street and install bike lanes, clearly marked in blue.
In addition, they want to install “bike boxes” at the forefront of intersections. An area marked off for bikes, forcing motorists to wait a little farther back, provides a place where cyclists can wait safely for the light to turn green and get a head start on the cars when it does — a move the students say would reduce bike-car collisions.
“We thought there had to be a sacrifice,” said Densmore, adding that the team believed, after conducting a survey, that eliminating street parking would not really have a huge impact on local businesses. Many shoppers in the area arrive by foot or transit. “With parking on Bloor, cyclists have to go out of the lane to avoid parked cars, raising the risk of getting doored.”
At intersections where there are signalized priority left-turns, cyclists waiting in the bike box would get a head start before cars. To prevent collisions between cyclists and cars turning right, the students would ban right turns at red lights.
The physical separation also helps motorists see where the cyclists are, Densmore added.
Another team — Ahil Ganesh, Jonathan Harris and Mark Sutherland — also recommended removing the parking on Bloor, arguing there are already parking lots available off the main street.
“There is no separation for cyclists, motorists and pedestrians on Bloor,” said Harris. “We saw a lot of cyclists riding on the sidewalk, and parking lanes forced cyclists to go into traffic.”
Their plan calls for reflective plastic posts with flow lights to mark off the bike lanes.
Ganesh said he hopes the focus on safety will have a side benefit. “The safety measures are designed to prevent accidents,” he said. “That shows we are respecting the cyclists, so they should obey the law.”.