Newsflash! Bike Lanes on Royal York saved!

From the Star this morning (p. B2): Go West, cyclists
Leafy Royal York Rd. will get bicycle lanes as part of reconstruction of the street from Mimico Creek to Usher Ave. in central Etobicoke. City Council spent most of the morning yesterday discussing the painting of lines to mark the bike lanes before approving them in a 37-1 vote.
What isn’t said is that they aren’t proper bike lanes – 1.25 m instead of 1.5 m, and the only reason they’re happening is that a few people pushed Council into a corner. Without the pressure (for which we were royally dumped on), nothing would have been done about delineating space for cyclists. The lanes would have remained "bicycle friendly," without any markings.

Comments from some people who were there at City Hall for the vote:
"As far as we're concerned, 1.25 m is the new standard width for bike lanes in Toronto. The next time a reconstruction project like this comes up in a suburban area, someone will be pushing for 1.0 m. By the time Glenn gets bike lanes in Scarborough (if he ever does), they'll be down to 0.5 m, and he'll be telling cyclists in Scarborough they should be happy, because that's the best compromise he could get.
There's a saying somewhere about those whose goal is compromise had better be ready for defeat.
It would all have been a bit more palatable if Giambrone, De Baeremaeker and Chow had defined the goal as 1.5 m bike lanes, and made it clear that they were conceding something. But they didn't. Their starting point was compromise. The dictionary definition of compromise, by the way, is: the settlement of a dispute by mutual concession. In this case, one side did all the conceding. Nobody, at any point, suggested narrowing the travel lanes for motor vehicles in order to accommodate full bike lanes.

In this world, there are givers and takers. In this city, cyclists and pedestrians are the givers. Bless us all for our generosity."

Personal note: Despite our 'bike-friendly' councillors almost ruining the whole plan ... west-end activists like Rhona and Janice and Martin Koob and many others fought the good fight to make it happen. ;-)