The survey responses for the wards that make up the Toronto East Community council have been posted. These wards are in the pre-amalgamation City of Scarborough. They are wards 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 and 44. Scarborough probably had had the least cycling infrastructure of all the pre-amalgamation cities. There was not even a route, on street or off, identified for the Lake Ontario Waterfront Trail to follow. Waterfront Trail: Scarborough Section. On the Lake Ontario Waterfront Map the green line outlining the waterfront trail stops at the Toronto, Scarbourough boundry line and picks up again at the Scarbourough, Pickering boundry. Scarborough was the one gap in the 325km trail from Trenton, ON to Burlington, ON.

There has been some progress in the first two years of the Toronto Bike Plan. There are some existing ravine trails in this area and a new bike lane has been constructed Sheppard from Kingston Road to Meadowvale Avenue. That lane is being extended and should go to Morningside this fall. (See previous article) Scarbourough has some ravine paths. One of the best in Toronto in my opinion is the Highland Creek Trail which starts just north of the Guildwood GO Train station and follows the creek to Lake Ontario. There is alot of potential for bike lanes, hydro corridor trails and rail corridor trails in Scarborough. To get started on them we need councillors who will champion these routes. You can see the proposed routes for this part of the City on the Bike Plan map for this area Bikeway Network Map - District 4.

The good news is that cycling infrastructure is on the agenda in some of the ward races. In Ward 44 some of the local issues are Bike Lanes on Port Union Road, a paved beach trail along the shore of Lake Ontario and a link from the Lake to the Toronto Zoo as reported in the Insidetoronto.ca community paper, Scarborough edition (See article). One project that was supposed to be constructed in 2003 but has been postponed to 2004 is the bike lanes on Pharmacy Ave. from Ellesmere to Gatineau Hydro Corridor just north of Eglinton Ave. East. (See Map) The Councillor elected in Ward 37 will have an impact on the progress on this. There is also a proposed project for 2004 to continue this lane south on Pharmacy Ave. south to Denton. (See Map) It will need support from the Ward 36 Councillor.

We have not received all surveys from all candidates in the wards in the East Toronto Community Council. You can see the list of all candidates for all wards at the following link: All Candidates List. We have included e-mail addresses for all the candidates we could find addresses for. You can contact those who didn't fill out the survey. You can ask them to outline their views on the Bike Plan. Ask them the questions on our survey.(Ward Candidate Survey-PDF) Better yet encourage them to return their survey to vote2003@biketoronto.ca.

If they did not receive a copy they can send an e-mail to the same address and we will send one for them to fill out. If there is not an e-mail address listed we were not able to find one for them. If you see one of these missing e-mail addresses on a piece of campaign literature, a lawn sign or a newspaper add send it in to us and we will send a survey to them.