Standing beside two parked cars, two men in dark baseball hats wait for the signal.

It's broad daylight and nearly rush hour on Bloor. A woman in paint-stained jeans sprints ahead of the men, scanning the street. Another stations herself across the road, surveying the speeding cars for police. The thumbs-up sign is given.

The painting can begin.

Seconds later, a cardboard bike stencil is thrown on the road and the first of seven cans of hot pink paint is emptied on a stretch of Bloor St. W.

"Putting in a bike lane?" asks a teenage girl cycling by.

Putting in bike lanes is exactly what the Other Urban Repair Squad does. Last week, the group of vigilante cyclists hit a stretch of Bloor between Ossington Ave. and Dufferin St.

The two-hour effort it took to put down the lane is meant to protest how long it has taken the city to expand its bike lane program.

No one denies its $73 million plan to expand bike lanes around the GTA over the next decade is years behind schedule. For example, Bloor St. is supposed to get a bike lane, between University and Church, sometime within the next three years.

Thirty feet down the road, the team is about to paint again when the stained-jeans woman lets out a high-pitched "boo."

The men leap off the road, and stash the cardboard and paint beside a garbage bin. A TTC service car and special constable whiz past.

The two painters slip into casual conversation mode. Neither appears too concerned that the hot pink paint on the street – matching what's on their hands and feet – would immediately give them away should anyone investigate.

The first time the group struck was on May 30. The gang spray-painted an illegal bike lane in the Annex, between Spadina Ave. and Bathurst St., along Bloor. To make the paths appear legitimate, painters stencilled the city's bike lane logo – a bicycle and large diamond – along the road as well.

The lines may have been sloppy, but that didn't stop cyclists from using the lane for two weeks until the city cleaned it up last Monday.

"The shop owners on Bloor said they thought it was the city staff painting," said Rick Helary, manager of road operations in Toronto. He says the total cost of the clean up was $1973.74.

This is a small price to pay, says the Repair Squad's ringleader, a man in his late 30s(members of the group asked their names not be used). "The city is taking way too long. There is no need for this. Why don't they just paint the bike lanes? People are dying."

The most recent cyclist killed in the GTA died earlier this month when he collided with a garbage truck on Bayview Ave., near the 401.

The leader of the Repair Squad had his own close call 15 year ago, when he crashed into a car near the SkyDome. The driver had stopped in the centre lane to let a passenger out. The cyclist was "doored" as a result. "You can still see the scar across my chest and arm," he says.

The activist says he and others were inspired by a group that took action last summer. Cycling advocates, such as Take the Tooker, have been known to draw chalk bike lanes around the city. But that's not going far enough, this group says.

So two weeks after their original stunt, the Repair Squad headed toward another section of Bloor St. This time, they decided to use hot pink spray paint, both for novelty and so that people would know it wasn't done by the city.

It was all carefully planned in advance. A few members came to the area the night before to scout out the neighbourhood and test the line painter in a back alley. It would take roughly 30 minutes to paint stencils every 50 feet down the stretch of road, they realized.

They began their work at 3:15 p.m. with cars still parked along the curb. The group has to wait for rush hour, because that's the only time cars can't park where the bike lane would be.

"Cars are a good cover when we do the stencilling," says one of two female members in the group.

"Perfect," one says, as they notice a red Honda parked only feet away from a large Chevy. With lookouts at the ready, the pair crouch between the two bumpers. One holds down a large cardboard stencil, while the other traces the image with paint.

Once the diamonds and bike logos are done, the woman puts on an orange emergency-worker vest and walks straight into oncoming traffic. As she signals for cars to pass into the centre lane, another walks behind her, using a line painter.

Commuters instinctively take their positions, and bikes head right for the new lane, as drivers dutifully merge left.

"Are we finally getting a bike lane?" asked a passerby heading into a corner store.

"Yes ma'am," one of the Repair Squad replies.

"How exciting!"