Fall Newsletter 2025

Highlights

In this newsletter, we help you to catch up on a variety of our road safety and cycling advocacy initiatives. This includes our second annual Islington Bike Day, our work to hold City Hall to account for its road safety and climate goals, the ongoing law reform work of C.R.A.S.H. to rein in oversized, dangerous pickups, and our latest bike counts. We also celebrate two significant milestones, our own fifth birthday and our 100th Koffee on the Kingsway!

Back to School Bike Tune-up (August 30) and Islington Bike Day (September 21)

Our second annual Islington Bike Day at the recently-completed Mabelle Park built upon last year’s success. We appreciated the generous help and collaboration of MabelleArts and their staff. Local residents dropped by to have their bikes tuned up (a total of 40!), get a new bike bell, wash and decorate their bikes, and meet local councillor/Deputy Mayor, Amber Morley, and MPP Lee Fairclough. The day ended with a 4-kilometre ride/parade through neighbouring streets that highlighted the potential of modest investments by the city to improve connections for thousands of local residents who live in high-rise towers on Mabelle Avenue and Cordova Road. Most of these residents walk, cycle, push strollers, or use mobility devices to get to Bloor Street or to intermediate destinations: elementary and secondary schools, the community pool, the library, and Tom Riley Park. (See our recent letter to the city.)

Accountability – keeping bike lanes safe from incursions

How often have you cycled along a Toronto bike lane --- usually the product of years of road safety advocacy --- only to have the bike lane abruptly end with a sign that tells you to merge with “traffic”? In one recent case, on-site paid duty officers claimed (erroneously, as we later found out) that the city had issued a permit for the bike lane occupation. For most cyclists this is frustrating, but it can also be dangerous, as we know from the July 2024 tragedy in Yorkville involving a young woman. She appears to have left the bike lane to navigate around a construction bin. These problems persist despite many meetings with city transportation officials. Our Government Accountability Committee continues to press the city for better construction project management as well as effective measures to address illegal bike lane parking. (See our letters to the city of June 4, 2025 and September 17, 2025.)

C.R.A.S.H. - ongoing push for law reform

Our nation-wide initiative, Coalition to Reduce Auto Size Hazards (C.R.A.S.H.) continues to meet resistance to law reform proposals at every level of government. The most promising development, however, is the willingness of the City of Toronto to consider our recommendations directed at municipalities. These include imposing higher parking fees for large vehicles (as in other jurisdictions), reforming city vehicle fleet purchasing decisions, and restricting pickups and large SUVs in community safety zones. We have now also received responses for our petitions to the federal ministers of Health, Environment & Climate Change, and Transportation. These responses, including to our call for safety warnings in ads, now allow us to fine-tune our advocacy strategy.

Traffic counts on Bloor show bikes are a majority of all road vehicles during rush hour

During our 24-hour video-recorded count of bikes (and cars/trucks) on Bloor Street West in the Annex neighbourhood of Toronto on June 11, 2025, there were over 9,000 cyclists, averaging 36% of all road traffic during the 24-hour, single-day count. In fact, during the busy rush hour period between 5-7pm, the number of bikes actually outnumbered the number of cars and trucks. This finding reflects the ongoing increase of cycling along Bloor since the installation of bike lanes in 2016. 

We also carried out updated counts on Bloor West in Etobicoke. In July 2025 we confirmed the increase in cycling numbers at Royal York Road and at Islington Avenue relative to pre-installation counts. All of our bike lane data can be found on the “Resources” page of our website.

Scorching summer heat and wildfires: climate change is here

The fight against climate change motivates many cycling advocates to push for government action. In fact, there was a time not long ago when we called for the installation of bike lanes to prevent heat waves, wildfires, violent storms and flooding. Sadly, these warnings were not heeded. Today, we experience all these weather events in Toronto, yet the cycling network is as yet incomplete. During this summer, when wildfire smoke in the city --- from forest fires raging thousands of kilometres away --- dissipated, it was replaced by scorching heat with humidex readings sometimes exceeding 40C.

Velo Odds and Ends

Charter Challenge to protect bike lanes is going to Court of Appeal

We continue to closely monitor the Cycle Toronto section 7 Charter of Rights challenge against the Ford government’s spurious legislation to remove bike lanes on Bloor, University Avenue and Yonge Street. After losing at the Superior Court level, the Ford government appealed the decision. The matter will be heard by the Ontario Court of Appeal on January 28, 2026. After the initial case was heard, but before the Superior Court decision, the provincial government changed its legislation from “shall remove bike lanes …” to shall “restore motor lanes” by “reconfiguring” bike lanes. What exactly that would mean in practice is unclear, although the judge struck down the amended language as well, saying it was no different in substance.

Willowdale to the Waterfront ride – our marshals on the job again

There are good news stories coming out of North York. First is the emergence of the cycling group North York Cycles led by Jesse Han and Sukhee Hong. Second was Councillor Lily Cheng’s second annual Willowdale-to-the-Waterfront ride. This year’s ride had 100 participants, including some as young as seven years old on their own bicycles. Peter Low was again a lead organizer. Community Bikeways was happy to marshal the event for a second year to help ensure the safety of riders along the 25-km route on roads and off-road trails.

Ring your bells for two Community Bikeways founders: a steering committee update

Two long-time members and founders of Community Bikeways have stepped down from our Steering Committee to focus --- as you might guess --- on other initiatives to advance the cause of road safety and cycling in the city. Robert Zaichkowski (front left in photo) will be devoting himself to bringing Open Streets back to Toronto, while Janet Joy Wilson (back right, in black) will be putting more time into initiatives such as the Reading Line, and as a leader of our Events Committee, which includes the annual Cycling Good Cheer ride, scheduled for December 7. More details on this ride coming shortly.

We’re five years old! This calls for … a bike ride, of course.

There is much to celebrate in Toronto about cycling, including our own fifth birthday, which we celebrated in June 2025 with a ride from Access Alliance in Scarborough to the Brickworks via the Taylor Creek Trail.

Koffee on the Kingsway (an initiative of our We Belong on Bloor campaign) is also celebrating a milestone: our ONE HUNDREDTH get-together. For the past two years on every second Friday (from 7:30am to 9:15am) we have been meeting at a local venue in The Kingsway along the Bloor West bike lane in Etobicoke. Since our first event, we have confirmed that bikes mean business. Our informal get togethers allow us to enjoy a coffee (and treat), tell tales of cycling adventures, get to know local merchants and other patrons, and start the day in enjoyable company.  

Check our calendar! For the dates of upcoming cycling and road-safety related events please check our online calendar. You will find the time and place for regular events such as Koffee on the Kingsway, and special events such as our 6th annual Cycling Good Cheer.

Support Community Bikeways

We are a fiercely independent group that shuns government and corporate donations. This approach allows us to carry out, without restraint, our mission of holding City Hall and other levels of government to account for their road safety, climate, and cycling plans. 

We nonetheless gratefully accept individual donations that help us carry out our mission and to hold fun events that lift spirits. Since we are not a registered charity, we cannot provide income tax receipts. If you are in a position to donate you can do so by making a direct deposit (via electronic transfer) to Community.Bikeways.Toronto@gmail.com.

Wishing you safe rides!

The Community Bikeways Steering Committee: Jessie, Bilal, Ersan, Michael B, Michael H, Bob, Jennifer, Roger, Lance, Mark Fernando, and Albert.

Webmaster: Ian Mills