Toronto's Bike Plan Recycling Act

Yesterday, the City of Toronto released their 2025-27 Bike Plan which will go to the Infrastructure and Environment Committee next Tuesday. Despite extensive consultation and the fact four cyclists were killed in 2024 so far, this plan is one that road safety advocates need to slam as a big disappointment. Let’s go through the bike plan documents to see what it has and what’s missing.

Map of 2025-27 Bike Plan (via City of Toronto)

Existing Plan Progress

Per the 2025-27 Bike Plan’s final report, the City of Toronto expects to have 75 km of the 100 km proposed from the 2022-24 plan. However, that number includes sharrows which don’t count as infrastructure. After removing sharrows, you get 64 km of cycling infrastructure including 58 km on-street. Assuming the City’s projections for 2024 installations are accurate, this year would end up being roughly 30 km of on-street bike lanes which would match the record set in 2020.

2022-24 Completed Bikeways (via City of Toronto)

Among the projects expected to be completed this year, the Finch West LRT is the longest with nine new kilometres excluding the path under Highway 400 which was completed last fall. Other important additions include a one-kilometre extension of the Bloor bike lanes to Six Points, Sheppard (Bonnington Place to Bayview), Eglinton (Avenue to Yonge), and the East Don Trail. A couple of projects that weren’t part of the 2022-24 plan such as the Leaside Danforth and West Parkdale cycling connections could be installed this year and will be featured at the May 28 IEC meeting along with the bike plan. That motion containing Leaside Danforth and West Parkdale (IE14.4) has several other cycling projects including Avenue Road, Beltline, Centennial Park, Weston, and Steeprock Bathurst Manor Cycling Connections.

Recycled Bikeways

The 2025-27 Bike Plan again calls for 100 km of bike lanes over three years. With Mayor Olivia Chow – a cyclist – having been in office for a year now, this is a slap in the face when other cities such as Montréal and Paris have made bold moves with cycling. What’s worse is that 46 km of these installations – including 43 km on-street – were recycled from the 2022-24 plan per my bike lane tracker. The off-road portion consists of the West Toronto Railpath extension (2 km) which is under construction, as well as the Gatineau Hydro Corridor from Bermondsey to Eglinton which is expected to start construction later this year. Among the on-street routes, some of them such as Sheppard and Scarborough Golf Club were already approved while Eglinton from Keele to Mount Pleasant will be debated at City Council this week.

Danforth-Kingston is one of the recycled projects from Toronto's 2022-24 bike plan

Among the projects not approved, the biggest one is Danforth-Kingston (9.2 km) which still hasn’t had a public consultation date set. The Bathurst Complete Street (4.7 km) is also waiting for a consultation date, while the Trethewey Complete Street (2.5 km) will have a public consultation on Wednesday, June 12. The Ellesmere Complete Street already had one round of public consultation in February, though construction is not expected until 2026.

New Bikeways

As for the new bikeways, the biggest one for Toronto East York is Dupont (Lansdowne to Davenport) which was flagged as a major corridor study for the 2016 bike plan but was put on hold by then PWIC chair Jaye Robinson (RIP). Groups such as Safe Parkside, Avenue Road Safety Coalition, and Yonge4All got some good news with Parkside (Lake Shore to Bloor), Avenue (Bloor to Davenport), and Yonge (Davisville to Eglinton). The Yonge extension will be critical to boosting cycling volumes on Eglinton. Two other bikeways for downtown include Wellington (Blue Jays Way to York) and St. Clair East (O’Connor to Victoria Park).

Apart from a short extension of the Kipling bikeway from Finch to Albion, the only significant projects in Etobicoke are the Etobicoke Hydro Corridor from Bethridge to the West Humber Trail and the Etobicoke Greenway from Dundas to Highway 401. The Mid Humber Gap is also included which is undergoing detailed design, while Phases 2 and 3 of the Weston Cycling Connections are also included.

North York has very few projects aside from Bathurst, though the Finch Hydro Corridor will be extended east from the Don River Trail to Don Mills Road and the Overlea Bridge will finally get rebuilt to connect Thorncliffe Park and Flemingdon Park. Meanwhile, Keele will get a bikeway from Finch to Steeles.

Scarborough will get a few other major corridors such as Victoria Park (Danforth to St. Clair East) and Eglinton (McCowan to Kingston). The Warden Hydro Corridor is part of this plan, while the Malvern neighbourhood in northeast Scarborough could get several bikeways.

What’s Missing

Despite Community Bikeways’ three Road Safety Calls to Action – which 12 councillors plus Mayor Chow signed – the goal of extending the Yonge and Bloor-Danforth-Kingston bikeways to the city limits will not be met by 2026. Bloor from Six Points to Mississauga shows only a study will be done by 2027, as does Kingston from Scarborough Golf Club to Morningside (as part of the Eglinton East LRT) and parts of Yonge. It doesn’t help that Mississauga mayoral candidate Dipika Damerla has been calling for a stop to that city’s Bloor Street Redesign which is expected to start construction this fall.

It will be up to the residents to decide on who best represents the vision of the Mississauga they want.

I will not be silenced in my opposition to remove two lanes from Bloor Street and create more gridlock in #Mississauga pic.twitter.com/lI3XhR2I2W

— Dipika Damerla (@DipikaDamerla) May 10, 2024

Scarborough residents will be disappointed that the West Scarborough Rail Path didn’t make the cut despite local support including from the (now former) local councillor. In Etobicoke, The Queensway – which was already approved – was postponed beyond 2027 as was yongeTOmorrow from College to Queen and Transform Yonge from Avondale to Bishop. The bike plan is also bad news for several north-south routes such as Martin Grove, Kipling, Jane, Keele, and Brimley were all listed as “study planned” in both this plan and the 2022-24 one. A couple of new east-west corridors such as Lawrence (Don Mills to Port Union) and Steeles (Jane to Yonge) were added as “study planned” this time around.

How to Fight Back

Not only does the 2025-27 Bike Plan fail to meet Community Bikeways’ Road Safety Calls to Action; it also falls short of Cycle Toronto’s ask of 150 kilometres and 2022 mayoral candidate Gil Penalosa’s plan for 75 kilometres annually. Of course, we can’t forget TransformTO’s goal of having 75% of trips done by walking, biking, and transit by 2030.

Cycle Toronto's 2025-27 bike plan graphic which shows their 50 km per year ask

If you agree that Mayor Olivia Chow and City Council need to push city staff to pursue a bolder bike plan, please e-mail iec@toronto.ca, mayor_chow@toronto.ca, and your city councillor by Monday, May 27 at 4:30 PM and get your contacts to do the same. You can reference Motion IE14.3. If you wish to register to speak in person or virtually, you can also e-mail iec@toronto.ca for that purpose. Last, but not least, we need to demand a change in process in how bikeways are approved which Community Bikeways has called for.