Toronto’s bicycle policy is no policy at all; it’s a series of half-measures that add up to little.

The latest example, the much loathed bike lanes on Jarvis St., finally came to pass this week after years of rancorous debate. The new lanes begin at Charles St. in the north and end, as abruptly as they begin, on Queen St. to the south.

In other words, the new lanes are all but useless to anyone who happens to be travelling anywhere above or below that particular stretch of Jarvis. The new lanes do connect with others that run along Wellesley, Carlton and Gerrard; the failure, of course, is that they don’t connect with either Bloor St. or the waterfront.

Yet in their way, the Jarvis lanes tell the story of a city that pretends to be committed to the bicycle as an alternative means of urban transportation, but is anything but.

Instead, city officials have responded with rhetoric about the War on the Car. If only.

Rather than build a cycling network that would enable riders to reach all parts of the city, we have a hodge-podge of rules, regulations and lanes that probably make a bad situation worse.

And please, don’t trot out the old argument that the city is just too poor to install lanes. As civic expenses go, bike lanes rank among the cheapest but would provide the biggest bang for the buck. Compared to Montreal and New York, let alone cities in Holland and Sweden, Toronto has fallen well behind.

If our fear of bikes is any indication, Toronto has become a city terrified of change. Certainly our leaders are; politicians and bureaucrats treat two-wheelers as if they represented a threat to peace, order and good government. According to them, bikes — and pedestrians — are always in the way; they slow traffic, create congestion, make drivers nervous, and take up space in roads meant for cars.

The bike lobby, now comprised of consensus builders not road warriors, is willing to settle for crumbs the city offers. It’s a start, they argue, and something we can work with.

That may be true, but in the meantime it’s getting ever harder to maintain the illusion of Toronto as a progressive world city. Indeed, despite our relative youth, we have grown paunchy, middle-aged and set in our ways. The truth of that can be seen in the line-up for the current mayoral race.

And let’s be clear, real bike lanes aren’t lines painted on asphalt, but routes separated from vehicular traffic by concrete curbs.

Just as important, they must form a network that allows cyclists convenient access to all corners of the city.

The piecemeal system now in place leaves us with the worst of both worlds.

“We should finish it or shut it,” argues veteran cyclist and lawyer Alan Heisey. “These discontinuities are dangerous. Most bike lanes now are used as lay-bys for parking. There’s no enforcement on anti-parking laws. I understand why most Torontonians don’t ride bikes. Bikes don’t belong on the streets of Toronto and everyone knows it.”

And as Heisey also notes, “The world has changed. But Toronto still doesn’t address the needs of people who want to live a little more environmentally.”

Those who hope the whole cycling thing will disappear should know it’s here to stay. Twenty or 30 years from now, there will be as many bikes as cars on the streets of Toronto, if not more. It’s that simple.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Even if tomorrow never comes, the future has arrived.

Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca