Lloyd Alter was running on a Toronto sidewalk recently when he stepped into a busy street without thinking to avoid a woman pushing a baby stroller.
Realizing later how easily he could have been struck by a car, Alter has started running on the city’s streetcar tracks, saying the wide expanse of the tracks that stretch about three metres across are “quite a lifesaver right now.” Alter, a professor of interior design at Ryerson University and a design editor at TreeHugger.com, doesn’t advise the practice for others.
But like so many Canadians, Alter is frustrated by the lack of space to move amid the COVID-19 lockdown. “This whole issue in Toronto where they won’t give any extra space for people who walk, run or bike is, I think, completely