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CITYSCAPE

Mapping the City’s Bike Network Gaps

Toronto is slowly making progress on its bike network, but there's lots of room to grow.

BY SEAN MARSHALL

Toronto’s bikeway network is often a source of frustration for the city’s cyclists, and with the map above, it’s easy to see why. It illustrates the extent of Toronto’s bike infrastructure―or in some parts of the city the lack thereof―as of January 2015, and how there’s plenty of room for improvement to fill in the gaps. Toronto’s bikeway network includes off-road multi-use trails, separated cycle tracks like those on Sherbourne Street, bike lanes and contraflow lanes (like those on Shaw), and signed bicycle routes that otherwise have no facilities for cyclists (“sharrows” notwithstanding). With the recent addition of the Adelaide and Richmond bike lanepilot project west of University Avenue, and the new contraflow lane on Simcoe Street, the downtown network of bicycle routes is slowly improving; though cyclists await the completion of the oft-delayed Queen’s Quay project.