Does a larger Toronto cycling network mean more bike-lane parking tickets?
We mapped every Toronto bike-lane parking infraction over time. Here’s what we found.
In March, journalist Matt Elliott wrote a column in the Toronto Star about parking violations in the city, noting how the number of tickets handed out (and resulting revenue) has fallen in recent years.
One particular line caught our attention: “Toronto’s growing network of bike lanes, for example, would seem to create all kinds of revenue potential from ticketing people who park in them.”
Parking in bike lanes is a serious issue in Toronto, and has been for years. It forces cyclists to swerve into vehicle traffic — creating increased risk of injury — and carries a $150 fine if a driver gets caught for it.
#GoByBikeToronto
— Bicycle Mayor of Toronto (@BicycleMayorTO) August 23, 2022
Dear @TheBeerStoreON can I ask that you not endanger vulnerable road users like you have the morning parking your truck in a clearly marked bike lane.
You’re not @TorontoMedics @Toronto_Fire so can you commit to finding alternative parking in the future? https://t.co/cj6zOUHGxy pic.twitter.com/vKO7ccBFzb
Of course, as Elliott pointed out, there hasn’t been a sustained increase in bike-lane parking tickets despite the fact that Toronto has added several kilometres of bike lanes.
According to city data, 8,312 tickets were issued for bike-lane parking infractions in 2022. That’s a whopping 51 per cent drop from the 16,941 issued in 2021. (In terms of fines, the drop was from $2,536,110 in 2021 to $1,239,510 in 2022.)
This got us wondering: Just how much has the bike-lane network grown, and how — if at all — has that growth affected the number of related parking tickets? So we looked at both ends of that question over the past five years.
Read on and check out the map accompanying this article for what we found. The default view shows 2022 data, but you can tap the legend icon — an eye with sparkles around it — to shift between years.
How common are bike-lane parking tickets?
Considering the fact that the City issued 1,821,887 parking tickets last year, bike-lane infractions make up just a tiny portion (0.4 per cent in 2022) of the overall picture.
Here’s a chart showing the number of bike-lane tickets handed out in each of the past five years.
Clearly, 2021 was a bit of an aberration. No other year tops the 9,000 mark for tickets issued.
After 2021 ticket data became available last year, police told Global News that its parking enforcement unit had focused more on bike lane safety, which had resulted in more tickets.
But 2022 — a year with far fewer pandemic restrictions than either of the two before it — saw a marked drop despite no stated shift in strategy from police.
One potential contributing factor: According to a report presented to the Toronto Police Services Board in March, rush-hour routes were not enforced until late June 2022 due to the City’s CafeT.O. and CurbT.O. programs.
Of the tickets that were handed out, the vast majority stem from the area in and around downtown. There was also a healthy amount handed out along Bloor St. W. and Danforth Ave.
How much has the cycling network grown?
As part of its Cycling Network Plan, the City of Toronto added over 83 km of cycling routes to its overall network over the last five years. The vast majority of these — almost 73 km — were for bike lanes (as opposed to multi-use and park trails).
Here’s a breakdown of that bike-lane growth by year:
As you can see, the biggest year for growth was 2020, in which over 33 km of bike lanes were added to the network. This potentially played into the rise in tickets for 2021. However, the city added almost 23 more km in 2021, and 2022 tickets still dropped.
How does the number of bike-lane parking tickets relate to the overall amount of bike lanes?
It’s muddy.
If we chart the number of parking tickets handed out per kilometre of bike lane over the past 10 years, we get a graph that looks like this:
The two outlier years of 2020 and 2021 stand out as easily the lowest and highest, respectively, in terms of tickets/km. But outside of those, all years sit between 22 and 28 tickets/km.
However, minus 2020 and 2021, there is a noticeable slight downward trend here. The 22.5 tickets/km figure from 2022 is the third lowest in the database, and the second lowest if you discount 2020.
So, in short: As more bike lanes have been added, fewer bike-lane parking tickets are being issued per kilometre.
One possible reason for this is the areas in which bike lanes are being added. A major intention of the Cycling Network Plan is to grow the network in new areas of the city — and, in many of these, one is simply less likely to receive a parking ticket.
That said, the downward trend still feels a little strange, especially as anecdotal evidence suggests there’s no shortage of violations — both the ones parking enforcement catches, and the ones it doesn’t.
Remember when @canadapostcorp vowed to stay out of #Toronto bike lanes? #bikeTO …. Those vows have been broken for a while now. $150 served, and then I come across a family that I saved $450 ticket. Education can go along way with positive interactions ! pic.twitter.com/a6QU3GeEoG
— PEO Erin Urquhart (@TPS_BikeHart) May 10, 2023
As Matt Elliott noted in the piece that inspired this one: “Officers — or an automated camera system — could be handing out hundreds of these kinds of tickets a day.”
But, as the data shows, that has been far from the case.
Code and markup by Kyle Duncan. ©Torontoverse, 2023