The Fixer
Sherbourne St. bike lane turned into work zone
By Jack LakeyThe Fixer
Is it ever OK to park in a cycling lane, even for a good reason?
That's the question arising from the answer we got from DistinctTech, a fibre optic contractor for Rogers, when we asked why three of its trucks were parked end to end in the Sherbourne St. bike lane on Tuesday.
The uneasy and sometimes hostile relationship between cyclists, drivers and pedestrians is fuelled by the perception of a mutual lack of respect. Drivers think cyclists flout the rules of the road. Cyclists believe drivers refuse to give them the space and respect they deserve. Pedestrians resent it when bike riders whiz past them on the sidewalk to avoid vehicles.
Those are among the reasons the city created a network of bike lanes, to ratchet down the tensions by giving cyclists their own dedicated space.
But some people refuse to recognize the sanctity of cycling lanes and think they can park in them. Hey, I'll just be a few minutes. What's the big deal?
We were reminded of those considerations on Tuesday, when we spotted three DistinctTech trucks doing fibre optic work on Sherbourne, south of Front St.
We stopped to take photos and watched a steady stream of bike riders swing onto the sidewalk or veer into traffic to go around the trucks, including a man pulling a carrier behind his bike with a little girl in it.
The truck in the middle had wires running out of its back door and into a service well between the road and sidewalk. Other than a guy who briefly went into the cab of one of the trucks, we never saw a worker in the 15 or 20 minutes we were there.
It looked like an ideal example of why bike riders feel no love from the motoring public, and why some people refuse to respect cycling lanes and are not concerned about the $150 fine for parking in them.
STATUS: We asked DistinctTech why its trucks were parked in the bike lane and got the following reply from Steve Townson, senior project manager for its business with Rogers:
"I sincerely apologize for this," he said. "As a contractor to Rogers Cable, we are required to be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any service interruptions. As you are aware, city street parking is not a friend to anyone, including requiring to be close to manholes pedestals and in this case, a vault to access fibre optic cables. This was a Rogers outage that we responded to and do the best we can to get the customer's service up and running as well as try to be courteous to traffic, cyclists and pedestrians, but it is not always the easiest. The techs were actually in their splice vans, as that is where the work takes place, as they require to bring in the fibre to the van, where their tools and tables are set up, being that fibre is quite sensitive and certainly do not want to cause other outages. They could not park on the road, as they were required to bring the fibre into their truck from the vaults and there is only so much slack that can be worked with. In this case there were three splice vans, as one tech was leaving and another tech was to relieve them. Perhaps we can find a way that would work better in these situations, as this was a rare situation, but it does happen."
That's a reasonable explanation, but does it justify illegal parking on a bike lane? Let us know what you think and we'll write up your replies in another column.
What's broken in your neighbourhood? Wherever you are in Greater Toronto, we want to know. Email jlakey@thestar.ca or follow @TOStarFixer on Twitter