The removal of bike lanes on Jarvis St. will surely be among the many defining moments of Mayor Rob Ford (open Rob Ford's policard)’s administration.

Wiped off the road in 2012, only a year and a half after they appeared, the Jarvis lanes became a symbol of the tensions that stoked the divides between motorists and cyclists, downtown and the suburbs.

Monday’s civic election offers fresh hope for progress on cycling infrastructure, said Cycle Toronto executive director Jared Kolb.

Despite the anti-car/anti-bike rhetoric, Kolb said the Ford years actually helped consolidate support for a safe, citywide network of cycling infrastructure — the foundation for Cycle Toronto’s Minimum Grid campaign leading up to Monday’s election.

“There were a lot of people who rallied around the cause of cycling. For many people it was an egregious attack on a way they get around the city. It built consensus around the future of cycling in that we need to invest some political will, we need to invest some capital to make it happen,” he said.

Under Ford, Cycle Toronto tripled its paid memberships to about 3,000. The introduction of curb separations on the Sherbourne St. lanes nearly tripled bike traffic to 2,827 riders a day from only 955 in 2011.

The Minimum Grid campaign asks municipal candidates to commit to building 100 kilometres of physically protected bike lanes across Toronto, and 100 kilometres of bike boulevards — painted lanes on residential streets protected by lower traffic restrictions — by 2018.

Olivia Chow has said she would build a 200-kilometre bike network in four years, although she hasn’t specified the type of lanes. John Tory, who took a bike ride with Kolb in July, agrees with the need for protected lanes but hasn’t quantified that support in kilometres. Doug Ford (open Doug Ford's policard)’s campaign spokesman did not return a call from the Toronto Star.

“Regardless of how the mayoral election plays out on Monday, we have a great deal of support on a local ward by ward basis, which is pretty exciting,” said Kolb.

Twenty-five incumbents have said “yes” to supporting the Minimum Grid and in four of the six races where there is no incumbent running, the leading candidate has said they would build it, he said.

Ward 20 (Trinity-Spadina) candidate Albert Koehl, a lawyer and long-time cycling activist, is among those who said “yes” to the Minimum Grid but qualified his support.

He sees painted lanes on slow-moving downtown streets as a faster route to building a network and re-apportioning road space.

“Progress on bike lanes on higher speed roads (especially in the inner suburbs) will often require physical separation to effectively protect cyclists and encourage more cycling,” he told Cycle Toronto.

But he doesn’t see cycling as an issue that divides the city along urban/suburban lines.

“For all of us the transportation system is not working,” said Koehl.

He wants the city to finally install bike lanes on Bloor St. and to consider piloting a transit right-of-way on King St., prioritizing the 60,000 people who ride the King streetcar over the 20,000 who traverse the road by car each day.

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“There’s no point putting more streetcars on King St. because they won’t go anywhere. Give (transit) priority,” said Koehl.

Critically, he said, Toronto needs to think about how it wastes road space on parking on key arteries such as Bloor St., where bike lanes have been perennially resisted.