Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Hope you were able to enjoy the long weekend with lots of food, as well as some riding. With today being sunny and 10’C, I rode 25 kilometres to check out the progress along the East Don Trail, new cycle tracks along Ferrand, and improvements to the Leaside Bridge.
Work on the Ontario Line could be seen from the Lower Don Trail.
The start of the East Don Trail.
Parts of the East Don Trail were very rough which makes using a road bike not ideal for now.
Even though I first saw it two years ago, I still love the Garfield graffiti under the bridge.
Nothing has changed for the rest of the East Don Trail up to the planned tunnel from when I last checked in March. The tunnel still hasn’t been completed despite the TRCA’s project website saying track closure dates were secured for Fall 2024 to allow for tunnel construction. Hope the track closure happens soon to get that tunnel built, or the East Don Trail will certainly get delayed again to 2025.
However, the trail between Bridge 5 and the double switchback is fully paved now which was dirt when I last visited in April.
A view from the top of the double switchback.
The bridge crossing the railway tracks has been completed!
The double switchback from the bridge.
A view of the railway tracks from the bridge.
The eastern approach to the bridge has been paved.
However, the remaining stretch to Bermondsey Road is still gravel. The project website claims final paving is expected to happen by the end of this year.
Heading back, I noticed a new traffic signal at Eglinton Avenue and the Ferrand Drive access road. Note the new cycle tracks connecting Ferrand and Eglinton.
The north part of Ferrand is one way westbound with cycle tracks on both sides. A left turn box was put in for cyclists to access Eglinton.
One thing I’m not a fan of with Ferrand is the use of sharrows for southbound cyclists in order to maintain parking next to the Latter Day Saints church.
However, I like the painted concrete walls used on Rochefort Drive.
One complaint I have is why does Deauville only have buffers while Ferrand (north of St. Dennis) have barriers? If you can fit in a buffer, just put in the barriers already!
And this is why paint is not enough for people who bike.
The Overlea bridge is not a pleasant place to bike. Can’t blame that person for riding on the sidewalk, though a plan has been approved to redo that bridge with space for people biking.
The Don Valley West (DVW) ward is covered with election signs for the November 4 by-election. DVW residents who support safe streets need to vote Rachel Chernos Lin in order to stop Anthony Furey who campaigned against bike lanes during last year’s mayoral by-election.
The Leaside Bridge used to be a six-lane car sewer with narrow painted bike lanes. Now it feels a heck of a lot safer with a bi-directional cycle track on the west side and a uni-directional one on the east side. Now if only the entirety of Overlea could get cycle tracks, it would complete the connection from Downtown to Thorncliffe Park and Flemingdon Park.
The Millwood-Pape-Donlands intersection has been reconfigured into a protected intersection!
However, the Pape bike lanes end at Hopedale where cyclists are directed onto sharrows to get to O’Connor. Personally, I would have preferred extending the bike lanes on Pape south to O’Connor and those on O’Connor east to Pape. Probably a constraint with the Ontario Line?
New cycle tracks were installed on O’Connor and Broadview from Hopedale to Cosburn.
The bike lanes on Broadview should have been extended further south to Chester Hill Road to not only complete the connection to Danforth Avenue given the presence of streetcar tracks on that part of Broadview, but also to the Evergreen Brickworks via Pottery Road.
Slowly, but surely, the City of Toronto is filling in key gaps in the trail and on-street bikeway networks. We need to keep going to ensure every part of Toronto can access safe cycling infrastructure and have options other than driving.
For those wondering which route I took, here is the map. Strava missed recording part of the ride, so I marked the actual routing in blue.
Brilliant! Thank you.
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