I am providing a comment to…

I am providing a comment to say it is worrying that Bill 212 seems to be punitive towards bike lanes, without addressing issues of bike safety. Bike lanes are not Provincial jurisdiction. I respectfully suggest the Province should work to incentivize good planning, not simply provide municipal restrictions imposed by Bill 212's Section 195.2.

195.2(4-7) exempts certain roads from having bike lanes. This by itself is not a faulty notion. The fault lies in that it mainly allows the Province to determine when bike lanes may be built. Make a provision that forces cities to instead analyze the statistical usage of bike lanes. If it is inadequate, then allow the city's citizens to democratically decide.

Secondly, preventing major roads from having bike lanes will mean the most busiest streets in Ontario- such as downtown Toronto- will become more dangerous. This surely will apply to other municipalities, such as Waterloo or Hamilton, too. Bikes will have no choice but to either risk being hit in traffic, or intermingling with pedestrian traffic which further endangers pedestrians around them. 195.2(7) seems poised to prevent major roads from having bike lanes. I respectfully encourage the Province to rethink this process as it endangers not just cyclists, but the millions of pedestrians in Ontario city centers.

In city centres like Toronto, cars are not the best mode of travel. It is faulty to pretend that city centres should encourage car traffic everywhere. Bikes, walking, and transit should be prioritized, to allow a multi-modal split which reduces demands on overburdened downtown roads. The busiest places in downtown are sidewalks, bikes weaving within them only make them more dangerous.

Thank you in advance for your time.