Checking the Road Closed construction detouring for Cyclists at Eastern & Mosley
The latest Leslie Street TTC street reconstruction configuration closes the intersection of Eastern and Leslie until September 7, 2014.
The Road Closed detouring for cyclists on Eastern Avenue at Mosley St was non-existent (as usual) when the new configuration was installed on July 28th.
After two independent walkabouts to study the way road users were using the spaces on July 28th1 and on August 6th2 - plus a @TTCLeslieBarns planned Safety Walk on the evening of August 6th, we now have a pretty good detour configuration for Cyclists.
Thanks go to Ward 30 Toronto-Danforth Councillor Paula Fletcher, who attended the Safety Walk on August 6th; to @TTCLeslieBarns who transmitted the idea concisely and quickly; and to Pomerleau Construction, who executed it perfectly.
Ward 30 Bikes was very disappointed that TTC ignored ideas that they asked us for at the last Community Liaison Group meeting on ways to implement cycling detour routes around the closed intersection on residential streets - detour route signage aimed specifically at cyclists that would have been separate routes from Transportation's suggested detour routes for cars (which are always on main arterial streets).
So - we invited Councillor Paula Fletcher to come to the Safety Walk that was supposed to review all the stuff TTC said they were going to do, but didn't (or couldn't) do.
As some background on this - the present road closure is at Moeley and at Leslie - this is resulting in road users using the Plaza Parking Lots as a detour route. This is mixing cars and trucks and cyclists and pedestrians in a narroew conjested and badly signed areas that are not edesigned to act as roadways - they are parking lots not streets.
The safe way to close this intersection is: - on the west side - Close Eastern at Pape with an egress point for local traffic. On the east side - the last arterial avenue is Coxwell - Eastern should have been closed there with an egress point for local access.
Much pressure from local businesses along this stretch has caused the TTC to do what they've done. The feedback their getting from business is that the businesses would rather have the egress through and by their stores in a congested and dangerous way - so that impulse consumerism will create shopping opportunities for people caught in tha chaos at their front doors.
As I put it to a TTC Leslie Barns representative during the Safety Walk - so your putting consumerism over road user safety?
That what is exactly what they've done.
So thinking on our feet we instead advocated for better detour infrastructure that would encourage cyclists to stay out of the Plaza Parking Lots:
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| Sketch submitted to TTC Leslie Barns - August 7, 2014 |
The FreshCo and Loblaws parking Lots are in fact the defacto detour route due to the road closure configuration that TTCLeslie Barns is facilitating by not blocking eastbound Eastern at Pape and westbound Eastern at Coxwell. If they had done that the added benifit would have been safe cyclists routes around Leslie Eastern on Queen and lessened motor vehicle impacts on residential streets north off of Eastern - like at Rushbrooke to West which is getting hammered and at Laing to the East which has been getting halmmer since trhis started in September of 2013 - for example.
So now Ward 30 Bikes suggests that you take the good Bike Lane detouring now open at Mosley and Eastern, and cycle through the Road Closed signage and continue through to LeslieStreet where you should dismount for the short pedestrian walkway that is open on the south side of the intersection there at this time (due to close at some point in the construction phase).
References:
1 Facebook Ward 30 Bikes Page - August 1, 2014 | Cycling Issues - Eastern Avenue Closure (July 28th walkabout) | https://www.facebook.com/ward30bikes/posts/627966513983953
2 Ward 30 Bikes - Wednesday, August 6, 2014 | Another Walkabout of the Eastern Avenue Closure at Leslie Street | http://ward30bikes.blogspot.ca/2014/08/another-walkabout-of-eastern-avenue.html
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