‘It sucks’: Cyclists say buses on Spadina are a pain in the seat

It’s the first week of buses replacing streetcars on Spadina Avenue as necessary track and overheard work began Monday, and already various annoying, albeit expected issues, have become apparent.

Drivers are dealing with more congestion. Commuters are seeing longer travel times and learning the frustrations of being stuck in traffic like drivers.

But for cyclists, the change means they have even less access to bike lanes that they already share with regular traffic, which could lead to a more treacherous ride down the already busy roadway.

“Streetcars have their own lane, they’re not in competition with the bikers,” says one cyclist CityNews spoke to on the corner of Queen Street and Spadina Avenue.

“But now that you have the buses on Spadina, that’s just another vehicle that we’re contending with and a massive vehicle that doesn’t give a lot of space.”

As buses on Spadina necessarily have to use the curb lane for pickups and drop offs, there’s more competition for space in the shared bike lanes. Some cyclists have been seen being forced into general traffic or resorting to using the sidewalk.

“It sucks! It’s really brutal,” says another cyclist who stopped to talk to CityNews.

Cycling advocates emphasize that they support public transit and promote using it over personal vehicles. But they say cyclists and pedestrians aren’t factored into the conversation enough when making decisions about traffic and transit.

“From personal experience, a lot of times cyclists’ safety and road safety for vulnerable users is kind of an afterthought. The first thought is always congestion, traffic,” says Jessie Ye, a coordinator with Toronto Community Bikeways Coalition (TCBC).

“We don’t want to be at war with the other users of the road. We really want to push that road safety is a right for everyone, including cyclists, including pedestrians, including motorists. And it would be great if the city just factored in more [vulnerable] users into who they consider when it comes to planning.”

Michael Longfield, the executive director of Cycle Toronto says Spadina is a popular route with cyclists, including delivery people making pickups from the numerous businesses in the area. He says the street should have separate, protected bike lanes at the very least temporarily, during track work that will be ongoing for an extended period of time.

“Maybe in the case of a project like this, it’d be worth considering in the short term, if the curb lane should be a dedicated bus/taxi/bike lane, to really make sure those buses can move. And then that starts giving more space for all road users,” he says.

The TTC says temporarily, cyclists, like everyone else, will have to adjust to the new reality on Spadina.

“Cyclists using Spadina typically don’t have to contend with transit because it’s in the dedicated right-of-way,” says TTC spokesperson Stuart Green.

“What we would ask is that cyclists just treat Spadina for the time being, like they would any other road that has curbside pickup.”

Green says they are aware of the frustrations caused by the switch to buses and are hearing it from all quarters including commuters, drivers and the local BIAs. But he says it’s early days yet and they are actively looking into various options to make travelling on Spadina less painful for the next six months.

“This is a real time exercise. We’ve got more than 30 buses out there replacing about a dozen street cars, so that’s where a lot of this congestion is happening, in particular south of King Street and south of Front. So one of the options we’re looking at and we’ve talked about before, is maybe short turning some buses. So, every other bus or every third bus might make a U-turn at King Street and start going back up so it doesn’t get caught in that traffic. Particularly on days where you have a Jay’s game or a large concert or some other event,” he says.

When asked why the streetcar lane cannot be used as a dedicated right-of-way for the buses, Green says there are a number of limiting factors with that option.

“We’re doing three pieces of work. One is inside Spadina Station, the other is between Bloor and College — that’s work that’s being done in the right-of-way. So we can’t use the right-of-way there. The other piece of work is being done south of King Street into Queens Quay,” he explains.

“The challenge we have with using the right-of-way for the bus is getting in and out of that. There’s a curb that runs along there.”

In addition he says the streetcar lane is very narrow and if there’s a pole in the way, the bus mirrors won’t have enough clearance to get by.

“We’re looking at it and maybe there are some modifications we can make on the right-of-way between say, College and King, where we’re not doing a lot of work right now, to get the buses into those lanes,” he says.

The City of Toronto is working with the TTC to come up with solutions to this specific problem.

“The City of Toronto and TTC are currently exploring options to improve traffic flows and enhance road safety on Spadina Avenue while buses are running in place of streetcars. These options could include curb cuts to streetcar platforms to widen the streetcar track allowance so southbound buses can operate in that space, as well as potentially installing bus lanes,” says the city’s senior communications advisor Laura McQuillan.

She adds that traffic management strategies are being implemented to help keep vehicles moving like making adjustments to signal timings and extending green light times to avoid bottlenecks.

“The City is also restricting non-essential construction work along Spadina Avenue and parallel corridors, as well as on Queens Quay, to accommodate the temporary bus service during the TTC’s construction timelines,” she says.

Ausma Malik, the councillor for Spadina-Fort York adds that she has “been pushing TTC to look at all options to speed up construction timelines and keep transit moving on this route.”

“As a start, at my request, the TTC has enhanced seasonal service for more reliability of parallel routes including the Bathurst streetcar,” she said in a statement to CityNews.

“We’ve got some enhanced service on Bathurst and we’ve also got Line One available. So if people need to get north-south, those are still options. And then perhaps use College, Queen or Dundas to get across if you’re going to Chinatown, for example,” adds Green.

Both Ye and Longfield say improving the bus operations on Spadina will have a twofold benefit: enticing people to take transit instead of their private vehicles and thereby making the roadway safer for cyclists.

“I think we need to find a way to make sure we are prioritizing transit movement. The main thing we need to look at doing is how do we make it easier for more people to choose not to drive along Spadina and part of that should be safe cycling,” says Longfield.

“If there’s just less cars on the road and more people taking the bus — if that becomes an option for people and it reduces the number of cars on the road — that could help increase cyclist safety as well,” says Ye.

She adds that the onus of keeping cyclists safe should not solely be on the cyclists themselves.

“We are on much smaller vehicles, we’re not going the same speeds. The onus really should be on city planners as well as people driving. So hoping to see that maybe there’s some training for bus drivers so they can understand what it’s like to ride a bike in the city,” she says.

Green says they’re asking for patience as they navigate this tricky situation, learn lessons and adjust operations in accordance with those learnings. He’s also asking for people to give themselves and all other road users time to adjust.

“We’re four days into this particular piece of work. We know from having done other large scale diversions and projects like this, sometimes it takes a bit of time for traffic to adjust. People will adjust to the patterns. We are continuing to work with the city now on other mitigating measures,” he says.

“We’ll continue to make these improvements and any adjustments that we can to improve the traffic flow and the safety for the cyclists down there.”