Bloor Street rang with the chime and tinkle of bike bells as more than a thousand cyclists filled the eastbound lane this afternoon as part of the Bells on Bloor bicycle parade to push for bike lanes along Bloor Street.

This is the third year of the event, which started in 2007 and saw 500 cyclists take part. That number doubled the next year, and continues to remain strong.

The group met up at noon at High Park and proceeded to Queen’s Park accompanied by a police escort, who helped halt traffic so the parade - nearly a dozen
blocks long - could ride safely together. Pedestrians and those in oncoming traffic looked on in awe and with some confusion at the mass of paraders.

“I see some of the people in cars are angry, or bewildered,” said one of the cyclists. “But some are smiling.”

“This might be the tipping point for vehicles to finally recognize that cyclists are a part of the road,” said another.

But Anthony Humphreys, a long time cycling advocate, doesn’t think so. He says that the media frenzy surrounding the recent Jarvis Street bike lanes has caused politicians to seek delays for other controversial bike lanes. This includes Bloor Street, which is not designated to have a bike lane under the Bikeway Network Program.

The issue will come up this Wednesday at the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee meeting, where Humphreys expects the committee to recommend that studies be done of Bloor Street before any bike lanes be put in.

“That will take two years,” he said. “We’ve waited 20 years for those bike lanes. There’s a lot of political will and capital to build the bike lanes. There’s very few rational arguments against it. How much longer will they delay?

For Humphreys, it’s a question of when, not if. “We’ll get [the bike lanes] eventually,” he said. “[But] right now it’s a clusterfuck.”