Thursday, September 7, 2017

Fractious Infractions

Each workday I ride about 3.5 km on some of Toronto's best cycling infrastructure. Lately I've been making mental notes of the typical traffic violations I see especially at the 12-14 intersections I go through twice a day. If you're paying attention you would note that my route has traffic signals every 250 metres. That is what downtown looks like. The stretches without traffic signals at that distance encourages dangerously fast traffic. Just saying. Here's what I saw last week.

Friday PM
9 - driving infractions: including 2 illegal lane changes, 1 illegally stopped, 6 going through red lights
8 - pedestrians who crossed mid-block
1 - cyclist riding westbound in eastbound lane without hands on handlebars also without shirt (if you’d seen this guy you would have known being shirtless was an infraction).

Monday PM
6 - driving infractions: people drove through red lights
1 - pedestrian crossed mid-block
1 - cyclist riding on sidewalk

Tuesday AM
4 - driving infractions: people drove through red lights including a large concrete truck that turned left on red.
0 - pedestrian infractions
6 - 5 cyclists went through red lights (all at Bay and Queens Quay), 1 rode on sidewalk

Tuesday PM
8 - driving infractions: 6 people drove through red lights, 2 blocked an intersection
3 - pedestrians stepped out into traffic mid-block
0 - cyclist infractions

Wednesday PM
8 - driving infractions: 6 people drove through red lights, 1 illegal stop, 1 turn without signalling
3 - 2 pedestrians crossed mid- block, 1 crossed against the light
1 - cyclist went through a red light

Thursday AM
9 - driving infractions: 7 people drove through red lights, 1 U-turn, 1 illegally parked on sidewalk
1 - pedestrian crossed mid-block
1 - cyclist rode south in northbound contraflow lane (Lower Sherbourne and Queens Quay)

Friday AM
5 - driving infractions: 4 people drove through red lights, 1 delivery van crossed a yellow line to pass a car on the left who was signalling and about to turn left (FedEx driver to be specific).
2 - 2 pedestrians crossed mid-block
1 - 1 cyclist went through a red light

Friday PM
6 - driving infractions: 5 people drove through red lights, 1 pulled a U-turn by turning north into a southbound 1-way street
3 - pedestrians crossed against the light
3 - 2 cyclists went through a red light, 1 rode on the sidewalk to ride around people getting on and off a bus at a bus stop.