The number of so-called “dooring collisions,” where cyclists collide with the open door of a parked vehicle, are on the rise again with more than 200 such occurrences being reported to police last year alone.

According to Cycle Toronto, there were a total of 209 dooring collisions reported to Toronto police in 2016, which was a 19.4 per cent increase from the 175 reported to police in 2015 and a 58 per cent increase from the 132 reported in 2014.

Cycle Toronto says that the collisions were particularly common along roads with streetcar tracks and on-street parking that effectively reduce the road space allotted to cyclists. Meanwhile, the collisions were much less common along roads with bike lanes, Cycle Toronto said.

“When we install bike lanes, especially protected bicycle lanes, they are is life-saving infrastructure,” Executive Director of Cycle Toronto Jared Kolb told CP24 on Wednesday. “It gets cyclists out of the door zone and gives them a protected space to ride in but the problem in the City of Toronto is that we only have about 20 kilometres of protected bike lanes against more than 5000 kilometres of roadway.”

Although separated bike lanes were installed on Bloor Street last year, they are only part of a one-year pilot project and could disappear after that.

Speaking with CP24 near the site of the Bloor Street bike lanes, Kolb said that the city needs to “rapidly roll out” more separated bike lanes, especially along roads with streetcar tracks.

In recent years, the city has also installed separated bike lanes along Sherbourne Street, Richmond Street and Adelaide Street.

“As a cyclist you’ve really got to pay attention to drivers and make sure you are not riding in the door zone but on streets with streetcar tracks and on street parking it is really difficult not to ride in the door zone,” Kolb said.

Province had boosted fine for dooring collisions

In 2015 the province increased the fine for dooring a cyclist to $365 from $60 and tacked on three demerit points for drivers who are convicted of the offence.

Nonetheless, the number of dooring collisions continues to rise.

Cycle Toronto said that the 209 such collisions last year should be considered a “minimum” threshold since the number only accounts for the incidents that were reported to police.

The advocacy group said that in order to combat the collisions, the city should “consider banning taxi and ridesharing pickups and drop offs in hotspot locations” where dooring collisions are likely to happen and instead create alternative drop off and pickup zones. Cycle Toronto says that the city should also look at removing on-street parking along some thoroughfares with streetcar tracks.

“At the end of the day, people riding bicycles are just average Torontonians trying to get from A to B like everyone else,” Kolb said in a press release issued earlier on Wednesday. “They shouldn’t have to risk lasting physical trauma or death to do so.”

Dooring collisions are not considered reportable collisions under provincial legislation and Toronto police track them separately as a result.

The number of collisions between cyclists and motor vehicles in 2016 was 1,070, which was a 5.62 per cent increase from 2015.