Kings College Circle is a circular roadway that surrounds the front “lawn” of the St. George Campus of the University of Toronto.
Traffic circulates in a counterclockwise direction, and there are various roads that funnel traffic in and out. With the start of the fall term, the amount of foot and bike traffic increases. Apparently speed was thought to be a problem, so in mid September, these rumblestrips suddenly appeared.
They were cut fairly deep into the pavement with square edges, and in the City of Toronto Cycling group on facebook, there were suddenly a whole series of complaints, and some anecdotes about them causing flat tires. Here’s a lower angle shot showing just how nasty they are.
Similar strips were cut into Galbraith Rd, and the short connector to the underpass leading to Wellesley St.
Possibly in response to this type of complaint, the rumble strips were painted yellow to make them more visible.
Around the same time, it was announced that a narrow strip would be paved back for the use of cyclists. That happened this past weekend. Here is one such strip, which is about 50 cm wide.
If you look at these fill ins from the side, they are pretty flat on top, and are a vast improvement.
They even put two sets on sections of roadway with two way traffic, such as this section of Galbraith Rd.
The only other issue is that these strips for bikes are not very visible, and in fact, while I was taking these pictures, the majority of cyclists were riding over the rumble strips as per usual.
A nice enhancement would be to have a mini bike lane symbol by these filled in sections. You could even use them to suggest the correct flow of bike traffic:
Kudos to the City, or whoever it was for filling in the strips, but a raspberry for putting them in the first place without any public consultation that I was aware of.
Finally, there has been a radar gun installed on the circle. See how high you can score on a bike.
Forget that; I’m not going to encourage speeding, especially when you’re taking a picture while riding. You wouldn’t catch me doing it.
Update: note that U of T Transportation Services has a FB page, and they did post notices about the rumble strip issue over the last week or two.
Update #2: Transportation responded to the suggestion of additional markings on their FB group, and we shall see what happens. There is also a response from a driver who notes that the filled in bits make it much easier to drive over the rumblestrips at speed, and so questions their effectiveness.
Thanks for noting this, and the changes. I was wondering what the Ford?? – but it makes some sense, just it was abusive for bikes, like many of the roads etc.