The city is moving closer to installing bike lanes along a stretch of Bloor Street West with a public information session planned for the pilot project tonight.

If approved by council, the bike lanes would be installed between Shaw Street and Avenue Road later this summer.

According to a presentation that will be made at tonight’s information session, the area was chosen for its high levels of existing cyclist traffic and the “demonstrated community interest” in the idea.

The report says that approximately 135 of 280 existing on-street parking spaces along the proposed route would be removed to make room for the bike lanes.

Speaking with CP24 on Wednesday afternoon, Bloor Annex Business Improvement Area Chair Brian Burchell said he is hoping the pilot project sheds light on whether installing a permanent bike lane would have a positive or negative affect on businesses in the neighbourhood.

“It is possible that bike lanes will bring us more customers in the form of cyclists and we are very open to that possibility but on the other hand it could have a negative impact,” he said, referring to the possibility that the removal of some parking spaces would discourage drivers from visiting the area. “This will give us hard data about the benefit or loss.”

Burchell said the BIA conducted a study in October in which it quizzed 500 pedestrians on how they arrive in the area and 100 merchants on where their customers come from.

The hope, Burchell said, is to do an identical study this October that would determine whether the installation of the bike lane has an impact on the type of customers that frequent Bloor Street businesses.

Though the BIA will not adopt a formal position on the bike lanes until that data is available, Burchell said he personally thinks that their arrival will not create havoc for drivers.

“There is a lot of yoga and yogurt,” he said of the area’s retail makeup “There is one hardware store that sells heavy bags of fertilizer that you would need a car to carry home but there is parking for that. We are also blessed with three green P lots in reasonably close proximity and that give us some more freedom.”

Bloor Street West currently has a total of four lanes of traffic, two of which are used for street parking. Under the proposal, one lane of parking would be removed in order to make room for the bike lanes. As a result, on-street parking would only be available on one side of the road at a time.

The information session is taking place at Trinity-St.Paul's Centre on Bloor Street between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Downtown councillors Mike Layton and Joe Cressy will be present at the session.