I'll be traveling to Toronto this week in couple of days. I will spend most of my sightseeing time near the Harbourfront area and such, but I live in Scarborough.

I just wonder if anyone has any general advice about commuting in Toronto. Also, is it practical to take bikes onto TTC bus/subway? What to watch for if I do take bikes onto public transits.

Also, if there are any rides that are great for sightseeing please let me know as well.

Thanks

Ridden round Toronto on several holidays. Apart from everyone driving on the wrong side of the road, found it just like riding on city roads everywhere else.

Don Valley Trail is/was pleasant, but much easier North - South than t'other way round.

I don;t think you can bring your bicycle into TTC during rush-hour. Do you plan to ride from Scarborough into TO?
You really need to fence off a day to visit Toronto Island. No cars! Just paths everywhere. There's a small community that lives there. Very quaint.

If you have a few days, you ought to consider taking a side trip to Niagara On The Lake. Then bike the scenic route all the way into Niagara Falls. You will not regret it. US tried to invade Canada because of that stretch of jewel.

Nearly every bus now has a rack on the front to put your bike when you ride the bus. No time blackouts to use the rack but on the subway you can't get on from 7:00 to 9:30 am and from 3:30 to 6:30 pm Monday to Friday. All other times are fine to bring your bike on the train.

I don't know what part of Scarberia you are riding from but go to the City of Toronto site and they have PDF maps of the city showing all the different bike routes. I'm familiar with the bike lane on Birchmount as well as the trail through part of the hydro fields near Lawrence and Kennedy. There is a beaut of a route near Victoria Park Station that'll take you west towards the Don River trail. The Don River will take you all the way to Lakeshore Blvd, and then head over to Queens Quay's bike lane to Harbourfront.

But this'll take awhile. Luckily there are a lot of street routes you can take. If you can get youself to the Beaches, it's an easy and
fast ride in the lovely Lakeshore Blvd bike path all the way to Cherry Street. Then the Martin Goodman trail to
Queen's Quay. Great ride! Very flat and you'll get to ride a little bit in the Don River trail.

Thanks for the info everyone.

I'll live at the corner of Finch and Birchmont. I'll probably take the bus to the Finch/Yonge station and get onto the subway to get near downtown area and ride to where ever.

I rode on Centre Island before, and long story short, that was the place I "rediscovered" the joy of cycling 3 years ago. I bought my first bike since childhood soon after that trip and the rest is history...

I worked at Finch and Warden and rode there from Pape and Danforth. Don Mills is good as it has a bike/bus lane that is usually left alone by cars. Also 3 lanes. Overlea has abike/bus lane and bike lane over the DVP and Millwood bridge has a bike lane as well. From there all the streets south, Pape, Donlands, Greenwood are pretty good. Its a quick right onto Queen then south to the lakeshore path off Greenwood. I believe Greenwood athe bike lane as well. Coxwell is the best to come north on back up to Danforth. Another decent route is Birchmount south to Kingston Rd. Not alot of traffic.

Another option is Birchmount to Ellsmere then west to Pharmacy. It has a bike lane part of the way and goes to Danforth. Victoria Parck south is nice and comes out at qQueen just east of the waterfront path.

I don't get it.

As I've recounted before, I find that lane to have the most confrontational motorists in the city. I get honked+buzzed or death-threat+ mirror-slapped every time. It makes Bayview look like a pleasant ride in the park.

I don't disbelieve you, as I see all kinds of guys riding down Don Mills throughout the day (although they usually insanely close to the curb).

But back to the OP, Birchmount itself is an *alright* road (as arterial roads in Toronto go). Usually when traversing Scarborough and outer North York diagonally, I find it's easier and faster to link up diagonal-running sidestreets, bike paths, etc. Of course this requires some preplanning in google maps, and is probably only worthwhile if you plan to do the same route repeatedly.

I don't get it either. For some reason I never had any issues on it even riding far from the curb. It might be that I was riding against traffic so it wasn`t as bad.

Oh boy. You salmon are a real problem for those of us who sometimes ride with traffic. Do you do it on purpose?

Sorry. I meant riding against rush hour traffic. I was heading north at 7:30 am when most people are coming south into the downtown core.

I can heartily recommend https://www.ridethecity.com/toronto

You enter your starting and ending addresses, and select whether you want a Direct, Safe or Safer route, and it plots it accordingly. If you pick Safer, you may end up biking a little farther, but it takes you down as many available bike paths and calm residential areas as possible. And then less so with Safe, and Direct is what it sounds like.

Another good resource is the aforementioned Toronto Cycling map:

https://www.toronto.ca/cycling/map/index.htm

That site has the PDF maps, but if you hit up any public library (and most bike shops) you can pick up a large paper version for free. If you do take the bus to Yonge/Finch, it may be worth biking down to Yonge/Park Home as there's a library branch right there, as well as a subway station. It's only about a 1K ride from Yonge/Finch.

That ride would also take you past the Cyclepath at Yonge/Churchill. Pretty sure they too have the cycling map.

This thread makes me miss Toronto. It is a wonderful city. Used to blast along Gardiner up to DVP at night with my WRX when I was young. Real fun.

Hahaha, if I ever see someone running counter-current on Don Mills, you guys will be the first to know.

Still doesn't work in north Scarborough.

A pity. In my experience it works well in North York as well as Toronto proper. Have you suggested a better route?

I have to extend my trip for one more day to fit this trip together.

First, I drove straight down from Scarborough and parked at Woodbine Beach Park. Then, I got onto the world-class bike path parallels to Lake Shore blvd. and rode along that. Then I went up on Spadina Ave. and rode all the way up to Chinatown in search of some food that I wanted, but can't find . But the ride was lots of fun.



After the search, I rode up Spadina on College and rode to Kensington Market. Since I (foolishly) forget my lock I have to find a restaurant that has more open space so I can pull my bike into it. Finally, Big Fat Burrito fits the bill.





I enjoyed the truly big Burrito and gave me enough energy to ride back. The Coke was a nice addition



But by this time, I have to fight the clock literally (aka parking meter) but the traffic wasn't cooperating and I have to glance at my map. I rode as fast as I can (I am VERY out of shape) and it took me from about 12:15 to 12:55pm (=40mins) to go from Kensington Market and back to Woodbine Beach. Also, I didn't do anything like filtering or hopping to and from sidewalks and rode by the book.

Final result, my meter expires at 12:44 and I got there about 12:55. However, I didn't get a ticket

Not too bad for a country dude from TN riding all over one of the coolest city on earth . Overall quite proud of myself for my "achievement" and it wasn't scary at all riding even in city traffic. I rode in Florida couple years ago and it was far more scary than this ride.

Wish I could take more pictures, but as you all know, I was fighting the clock.

Big Fat Burrito makes awesome burritos! I love the sweet potato ones the best. I'm glad you had fun and your ride sounded like lots of fun.

I got the pulled pork instead (I'm from Southern US). I only ate half of it and took the rest home due to interest of time.

Did you ride along Lake Shore or Queens Quay? If you rode along QQ, you could've continued on the bike path west of Bathurst and ridden along the lake to Etobicoke. There's a couple outdoor restaurants so you wouldn't have to lock up.

I was really short on time on this trip and I intend to travel west of Spadina but that never happened. I'll be back to Canada soon enough however, and thanks for the tip

Both actually. Lake Shore for the first leg and then Queens Quay. Then turned left onto Spadina...