Council Votes: Midtown Yonge bike lanes in 2021?
We asked you to write to City Council about bringing bike lanes to midtown Yonge Street and hundreds responded. Today, City Council voted 19 to 3 for City staff to examine transforming midtown Yonge from Bloor to north of Lawrence as was done for Destination Danforth, with bike lanes, patios, greenery, and parking by spring 2021.
It has taken years of advocacy on Yonge and, more recently, months of hard work with the local community in Midtown to see our first successful vote for bikes on Yonge. Your support helped make that happen, though our work is not done. We need your voice as a Cycle Toronto member — please join today.
Today’s success is good news to the nearly 85% of Torontonians who support building protected bike lanes. But there are opponents who are already undermining our work on Yonge by asking for “parallel streets to be considered.” We will have to work hard in the coming weeks to ensure City Hall remains committed to delivering a bike lane on Yonge next spring by continuing to build a coalition of support with over a dozen residents associations and many business improvement areas (BIAs) along the stretch.
It will take hundreds more volunteer and staff hours to connect and organize local voices before we can ride a protected bike lane along midtown Yonge. We will not be able to ensure the success of this project over the coming months without your support. If we pull this off, within a one-year period, we will have extended Bloor Street West, piloted Destination Danforth, and landed a bike lane along midtown Yonge!
While today’s win is a big step forward on Yonge, it is a small step for all of Toronto. Much of Yonge and many other areas of Toronto are still without equitable access to transportation. We will have to continue building up the local advocacy community to push for projects in Etobicoke, Scarborough, and North York, where a cycling culture and active transportation infrastructure are sorely needed.
To keep updated on our progress with Yonge Street, be sure to sign and share our Yonge Loves Bikes pledge at yongelovesbikes.ca.
Pledge support for bike lanes on Yonge
We’re at the beginning of a new age for cycling across the entire city, but we’re not going to be able to keep up without your help. Our members keep Cycle Toronto’s work moving forward, and ensures the City of Toronto knows there is strong local support. Without your support and hard work we could not have gotten this far. Help us keep building a vibrant, cycling city for all.
Let’s keep working together,
Kevin Rupasinghe
Campaigns Manager