OpenFile

I recently returned from a whirlwind two-week trip to Belgium, Jordan and Syria. First was bicycle-friendly Gent, and then came Amman, a fast-growing city experiencing the negative effects of sprawl not unlike those found in the GTA. Finally, I spent two marvelous days wandering through the souks of Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.

As a cycling advocate steeped in the problems and perspectives of my home city of Toronto, whenever I travel I find myself compulsively watching and documenting how transportation functions in other cities. This trip was no exception.

At first glance there is very little in common between Toronto and the pedestrian-priority streets, tree-lined bicycle paths and multi-lane arterial roundabouts found in northern Europe; or with the frenetic jumble of pedestrians, cars and the occasional bicycle in Middle Eastern cities. But in both places I observed an admirable quality that I wanted to bottle and bring back home with me — the ability to chill amidst the mixing of traffic modes.

Multiple lanes of cars honk and jostle in Damascus, regularly missing each other by a hair’s breadth. Yet the drivers offer nothing more than a shrug. I couldn’t help but laugh to myself when thinking about the outrage these interactions would have induced in Toronto.

In Gent, only the North American tourists tut-tut with annoyance at the fast-approaching bicycles in the pedestrian-priority street. The Belgian pedestrians don’t miss a step as cyclists weave around and between them. Nobody scowls, swears or loses their tempers.

It made me wonder: are all of our attempts to impose order making us cranky? Maybe we could use a bit more traffic chaos in our lives.

We do have our own Toronto example of this. Visit Kensington Market on any given day and you'll find cars, delivery trucks, pedestrians and cyclists all negotiating the narrow streets and sidewalks in amicable fashion.

I’m a bit of an old-timer cycling advocate. I’ve been at this since 1993. I’m in favour of just about any new bike lane or park trail that can provide cyclists with badly needed protected space. But I’d also like to see more of our streets function in the good-natured chaotic way of Baldwin or Augusta.

This is one of the reasons I’m a big proponent of a relatively new concept called complete streets. To date over 100 jurisdictions across the United States have adopted complete streets policies that ensure transportation agencies enable safe access for all users, including cyclists. The beauty of these policies is that they aren’t prescriptive. Each complete street is unique, depending upon the context. But what ties complete streets together is that they are all designed to balance safety and convenience for everyone using the road.

A complete streets policy is a simple yet missing piece of our transportation puzzle. Cyclists have a legitimate right to use every single street, including arterials. When it comes to downtown, cyclists happen to be the best customers. The Clean Air Partnership has released two research studies showing that on Bloor Street, one of Toronto’s most important arterials, cyclists and pedestrians visit businesses more often and spend more money per month than drivers and public transit users. Yet despite these facts, some mayoral candidates say cyclists should not be accommodated on arterial roads. We’re a young city, so perhaps it’s not surprising to hear proposals like this, which would be unimaginable in older cities.

To find solutions, we’ve got to get beyond the divisive debates about how to allocate road use. Adopting a complete streets policy is a good place to start.

In the meantime, let’s find a way to let those unpredictable moments of traffic chaos slide by with a smile.

Nancy Smith Lea is the director of the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation at the Clean Air Partnership.