City staff are recommending that the temporary bike lanes along a stretch of Yonge Street in midtown Toronto be made permanent, despite some minor traffic delays in the area.

The city first installed the bike lanes on Yonge Street between Bloor Street and Davisville Avenue in the summer of 2021 as part of a “complete street” pilot project that also brought expanded restaurant patios and other public realm improvements to the corridor.

The changes initially had a significant impact on traffic in the area, adding as much as three minutes to some commute times.

But in a report that will go before the city’s infrastructure and environment committee at the end of the month, staff say that changes to signal timing and the addition of new left-turn lanes have “succeeded in mitigating the impact to travel times.”

Automobile travel times are now generally 20 to 69 seconds slower than the pre-pandemic baseline in the northbound direction, staff say, and 30 seconds shorter to 55 seconds longer in the northbound direction.

“At this point, the motor vehicle impacts are within the scale of impacts of the other ActiveTO 2020 and permanent bikeway projects that removed motor vehicle travel lanes,” the report notes.

According to the report, there has been a “significant growth” in cycling along Yonge Street since the lanes were put into place, ranging from a 57 per cent increase at Bloor Street to a 250 per cent increase at Davenport Road, where nearly 1,500 cyclists pass by each day during the warmer summer and fall months. 

Staff say that pedestrian volumes have also risen by 59 to 145 per cent, though they say that changes in COVID-19 restrictions could account for “much of that change.”

City council as a whole will still have to sign off on making the temporary bike lanes permanent.

Staff say that if the pilot is ultimately made permanent the next step would be upgrading some of the infrastructure used as part of the redesign.

“It would provide the opportunity to transform temporary curb extensions and buffers into permanent planted and/or concrete islands, incorporate upgrades into redevelopment site streetscape frontages, and incorporate other upgrades as part of major road resurfacing planned in upcoming years,” the report notes.