The City of Toronto installed the first roadway bike boxes at the Harbord Street and St. George Street intersection to increase safety to cyclists.
Bike boxes are square-shaped spaces marked in front of the stop bar at traffic intersections. Cyclists enter the box through a bike lane on the right, and stop in front of cars at a red light. At bike box locations, both cars and bikes are not allowed to turn right on a red light.
Once in the box, cyclists signal their direction if they are turning and drivers must wait until all cyclists clear out before moving on a green light.
The bike boxes, currently being piloted at only one intersection, are expected to be expanded to more locations this year. The boxes are meant to stop cyclists from being side-wiped on the curb by right-turning cars.
“I think bike boxes are a great idea, and when properly used, they are one more thing that cyclists in Toronto can utilize to increase safety,” said Alexandra Legum, the president of U of T Cycling Club.
“A lot of red-light-running stems from the internalized belief that as a cyclist, it is important to get out of the traffic as quickly as possible as method of self-preservation.”
Road users confused
Toby Bowers, the coordinator of Bikechain, said both cyclists and motorists are not observing the rules at the moment.
“The problem associated with the boxes that we have observed so far is that there has [been] little public education, with motor vehicles still stopping at [the] wrong line and cyclists still lining up along curb,” he said.
U of T student Eric Okawara is a driver and a cyclist. As a driver, he admits he is not fully aware of how to use bike boxes. And as a cyclist, he said he is not 100 per cent comfortable because “drivers are not sure how to approach these bike boxes.”
Okawara said a part of his concern is also that drivers from outside of town would not know what bike boxes are.
Bike lanes before bike boxes
U of T student Jia-Yun Karen Cao said she believes bike boxes make roads safer for everyone, but added that they have limitations.
“Bike boxes are only useful if there is a bike lane already,” she said.
“Everyone pays taxes that go towards road construction and maintenance, the fact there is an insufficient amount of designated lane space for bikes means that cyclists are directly subsidizing motorists.”
Cyclist activist Hamish Wilson agrees with Cao.
“Introducing bike boxes ahead of basic network continuity is another example of how unevenly we lurch to better biking,” he wrote in The Toronto Star, adding that bike lanes must first be continued to all stop bars and missing gaps between lanes need to be filled.
Early Thursday morning, The Varsity spotted a fake spray-painted bike lane on Harbord Street. The stencil used to make the lane was still on the ground.
Bowers said the Harbord Street and St. George Street intersection was selected for the first instalment of bike boxes because the area is famous for bike traffic. The boxes would be harder to implement at intersections like College and Spadina because there are more traffic lanes and streetcar tracks, he added.
“Multiple locations were approved by city council, and we’re just waiting for the paint to be put on the ground.”
Boxes could be improved
Bowers said the transportation subcommittee of the Sustainability Advisory Committee at U of T did an analysis of bike boxes and made suggestions to improve them:
1. There is no reason why bicycles cannot turn right on a red light, and therefore, there should be an exception for bikes indicated on the signage.
2. There should be a mark separating the left turning lane and the through lane inside bike boxes.
3. The inside of bike boxes should be filled with a different colour to “highlight the infrastructure as novel to road users.”
4. More public education is needed to ensure that both cyclists and motorists know how to use bike boxes properly.
