Harsh Winter In Southern Ontario Affects Cycling Observations
The winter season of 2024-2025 was particularly harsh in Southern Ontario. Almost reminiscent of those years in the 1970s where major storms shut down many Ontario cities for several days at a time. In contrast the winter of 2023-2024 was essentially non-existent with no snow rarely making an appearance. These extremes may indicate the upcoming climate change with may bring unpredictable and extreme contrasts. This is the reason for making adjustments to our transportation systems by using less fossil fuels. Active transportation, including cycling, has been identified as an important component of transportation change to fight climate change. This article will review what happened in this past winter in this important battle in London, Ontario.
View of This Year’s Winter Conditions in London Ontario
In late November, 2024 it looked like winter was going to be another non-existent season in London. But then on the evening of December a winter storm came in and the snowfall began, one of many throughout this season.
Cycling In The Winter Season
One factor that became prominent in London is how a harsh winter affects cyclists. This information is not collected or known in the region except through the articles published on the Gorski Consulting website.
The problem is displayed in the following two photos showing how snow accumulation limits cycling.
Cycling is difficult in London every winter. But the current winter season has been exceptionally difficult. And this has affected what could be observed during studies of cyclists by Gorski Consulting. Because of the lack of observed cyclists Gorski Consulting had to focus harder on finding them. Thus, even though a similar number of cyclists have been documented during this winter season as in previous years this is only because there was greater effort put forward to finding them.
For cyclist documentation purposes the winter season has been arbitrarily selected by Gorski Consulting to comprise the four months of December, January, February and March. When looking at a full year of cyclist observations the following data has been observed in London:
Year 2021 % Female = 12.54
Year 2022 % Female = 13.11
Year 2023 % Female = 14.60
Year 2024 % Female = 12.54
In contrast winter observations show a substantially lower percentage of female cyclists in London, as shown in the table below.
For the three winter seasons combined (2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24) the average female observations were only 8.50%. However female observations for the current season (2024-25) were only 3.46%. The present data should suggest that the harsh winter conditions of the current season have sharply reduced the number of female cyclists riding on London’s roads. And, overall, female cyclists have already been noted to be a small percentage compared to male cyclists.
Winter remains a difficult time to identify cyclist characteristics such as gender and helmet use. It has been observed that cyclist are less likely to wear helmets in winter conditions. However many cyclists were big hoods over their heads and in some cases it is difficult to know if a helmet is being worn under the hood. Similarly, the quantity of winter clothing makes it more difficult to identify the cyclist’s gender.
Summary
Cycling in London and throughout the Province of Ontario Canada has recently seen some head winds. The Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, recently announced that he will legislate the removal of cycling lanes along certain arterial roadways in Toronto. He also introduced legislation that will require provincial approval for the installation of any future cycling lanes that take away lanes from motor vehicle traffic. Yet it has been a recent understanding throughout the western world that we need more cyclist to combat carbon emissions and slow down climate change.
In London, Ontario there are a number of arterial roadways where cycling is dangerous because there is no infrastructure to accommodate cyclists. An example of this is the older portion of Hamilton Road in east London that runs between Maitland Street and Highbury Ave. The City of London had already made plans to remove a lane in each direction of travel to install cycling lanes but that decision may now be in jeopardy if Doug Ford’s government prevents this. Meanwhile the City’s and the Province’s official stance is that cyclists must not ride on sidewalks but must ride within the lanes shared with motor vehicle traffic. These official mandates place cyclists in serious danger.
The lack of safety for cyclists on London’s streets can often be estimated by the number of female cyclists observed on them. The less female cyclists the less likely that the road is safe for all cyclists. The current cycling season has shown that harsh winter conditions also play a role in reduction of female cyclists.
Gorski Consulting continues to provide observations of cyclists in London for the important reason that, with the expected increase in cyclist volumes, cyclist safety will become a greater issue. Up to now Gorski Consulting in the only entity in the region of London, Ontario that provides free distribution of cyclist observations and the dangers that exist to cycling.
City of London Ontario Continues to Produce Confusion and Dangerous Roadway Markings in Construction Zones
The City of London Ontario appears to have abandoned it responsibility to drivers to create a safe environment in construction zones. This is a recent trend whereby confusing roadway markings are leaving driver’s in confusion. Another example is examined here at the north end of the construction zone of Highbury Ave as it approaches Dundas Street in east London.
Highbury Ave has been under construction for the Bus Rapid Transit system. The portion of Highbury containing construction is between Oxford Street to the north and Dundas Street to the south. For those southbound drivers leaving the construction zone they must travel down the slope from the railway overpass toward Dundas Street, as shown in the photo below.
In the photo above a sign indicates to southbound drivers that the roadway ahead continues a single lane where travel can either travel straight through or make a right turn. But there is no guidance to drivers who intend to make a left turn onto Dundas. Certainly there is no signage prohibiting left turn at Dundas.
As we progress further southward the photo below shows that the southbound lane develops a yellow centre-line, the southbound lane also has a marking indicating that it is a left-turn lane. So the newly-developed lane to the left of the centre-line should be a lane designated for northbound travel – but is it?
In the photo below we see that southbound traffic is using the “left-turn” lane to travel through the intersection. But what about the additional lane that seems to have been created to the left of the left-turn lane? Is it now a lane for northbound traffic? This makes for a confusing and dangerous situation.
The incidence of collisions resulting from this confusion is unknown. London City Police will not provide details about how many collisions occur as a result of such confusion. And the City of London has a substantial Risk Management Department whose purpose is to protect the City of London from liability. In a sense the City is using taxpayer money to pay for City lawyers that will fight civil claims against its own citizens: civil claims created by the City of London through its failure to produce safe driving conditions that the City is obligated to properly maintain.
Homeless & Mentally Ill Persons Are Road Safety Problems
The creation of homeless persons is a societal decision not a choice that homeless persons make of their own free will. Governments in Canada have continually reduced social services to the lower classes resulting in many persons being unable to be housed. When the Ontario provincial government also decided to close mental hospitals this sent many mentally ill persons onto its streets – to fend for themselves. In the Province of Ontario it was the Conservative government of Mike Harris that convinced the voting public in the 1990s it was “common sense” to create these disadvantaged persons. The “Common Sense Revolution” was the Harris platform and most voters swallowed it because it would cost the province less money. Harris also dumped many Provincial costs onto the backs of municipal governments who had no choice but to transfer those costs onto ordinary property owners. With the increase in the population of the poor, the homeless and the unsupported mentally ill the popular sentiment is the blame those underclasses for the destruction visible in local neighborhoods.
Road safety is not immune to these societal trends. While safer vehicles are built and roadways include modern design, these creations are reliant on persons using them in the intended manner. Designers have difficulty understanding that their enhancements are of little use when persons are incapable of using them properly.
As many persons fall to being uneducated they also fail to understand the benefits of a modern transportation system. At times persons may fall to drug addiction making it very difficult to protect them when roaming urban roadways. And the same applies to those with mental illnesses.
The choice that Canadians have made is to model our cities and society around that of the United States. In the past 100 years the U.S. has continued to ignore the presence of uncounted poor and homeless persons living on their urban streets. That ignorance has been difficult to ignore as vast portions of large cities in the U.S. contain “war zones” within their city centres and outskirts. Over the years similar “progress” has taken place in Canadian cities. Many mentally ill persons cannot function in urban traffic and neither can those addicted to various drugs. By providing a minimum support that houses these persons many road safety problems can be reduced. The cost of hospitalization of an injured person is high and society must pay that price. And when a person becomes permanently disabled through injury society must pay a high price, over many years, to maintain that disabled person. Injury prevention by supporting the homeless, addicted and mentally may appear to be expensive in the minds of many, yet it is an overall benefit to society.
Review of Video Frames from Oxford & McNay Collision In London Ontario
Those not accustomed to analysing the results of serious collisions were impressed with watching the video from a surveillance camera showing a collision that occurred at the intersection of Oxford Street and McNay Street in London, Ontario that occurred on the morning of March 24, 2025. Such videos are commonplace now as more roadways are covered by various video installations. The unusual aspect of this collision is that the offending driver was approaching a T-intersection at high speed and the traffic signal for his direction of travel was red. Even if the collision had not occurred the offending vehicle would have travelled through a chain-link fence and onto the grounds of the Blessed Sacrament Catholic School located on the south side of the intersection.
The four frames below were pulled from the video of a surveillance camera showing how the vehicles came together at impact.
This was a relatively severe collision as evidenced by the crush to the front end of the offending southbound pick-up truck and similar crush to the driver’s side of the other, eastbound pick-up.
At this early point-in-time no mention has been made why the southbound pick-up truck was travelling at high speed toward an intersection where his roadway came to an end. One viewer commented that the driver was known to travel at high speeds in the neighbourhood but it does not explain why the speeding would occur at a point where there was no where to go.
Modern motor vehicles are equipped with event data recorders, cameras and a variety of other on-board modules which can provide detailed information about how a collision occurred. Even so, defects in the complex “computerizations” of vehicular electronics can be hidden. As much as more details are available there are also more complex systems which can hide other details.
The view of many is that police should be allowed the time to complete an investigation before providing any further comment. But that is not the case. In almost every collision that occurs in the vicinity police never reveal the details of what occurred and why it occurred. This is particularly important when innocent citizens are involved, some of whom are injured or killed, with any closure to family and friends.
Gorski Consulting Sets Up Account On Bluesky
Elon Musk’s X (Twitter) may be the only bully on the block but there are alternatives to those who want to communicate in a world with some sanity. As a protest against the Musk/Trump insanity Gorski Consulting has opened a new account with Bluesky. There may also be other alternatives out there but for now the sky is blue. So come and join us at Bluesky (we have no relationship with them) as we will be posting there while we consider our options of exiting X altogether.
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