Hello. I am a young adult…

Hello. I am a young adult resident of a small town in the Durham Brock region, Beaverton. I regularly cycle to work in my home town, but also commute weekly to Oshawa for my university education. I favor public transportation where possible, and don’t agree with car dependent transportation on a fundamental level. To put it briefly, the cost in lives and health both for those who are obliged to drive and those who can refrain has never been acceptable; legislation to further reinforce automobile dependance and impair the use of public transit and micro mobility like bicycles, goes against my hopes for the future of Canada as a whole.

It is my opinion that Bill 212 is a step in the wrong direction; Bill 212 will ultimately worsen the efficiency of the transportation system and increase the risk of morbidity and mortality associated with it. Additionally, the inclusion of highway development in a bill primarily about bike paths on roads is not relevant and appears to be in bad faith.

I don’t like the inter-meshing of Bicycle infrastructure legislation with highway development legislation: they are separate topics, and Bill 212 appears to be using any negative outlooks on the former to quietly push rushed expansion of the latter. They should be kept separate in legislation and in discussion. Bill 212 includes changes to overwrite protections and safeguards built into highway development. Rushing highway development, especially without long term input from the communities directly disrupted and affected by that development should not be permitted to pass… regardless of the biking infrastructure effects the bill primarily pushes.

Bill 212 pushes for the removal of existing bike lanes and heavy suppression of establishing bike infrastructure going forward. The Bill originates from the city of Toronto, but disconcertingly applies these restrictions to the entirety of Ontario. I am not a resident of the dense city centre, so I cannot provide first hand opinions of the existing bike infrastructure, or how this bill impacts the city. However, by trying to apply these restrictions universally and overwrite the agency of other areas to choose for themselves, Bill 212 acts as an overreach beyond the areas of contention it came from. Why should the opinions and perspectives of a dense urban area, determine if my rural hometown and suburban place of study are allowed to develop safe biking infrastructure? These are different, unique places that should be shaped and developed according to the people who live there. I as someone who has a great many years of time in the workforce left, and want a subrural future where safe biking and public transit options are widely available… I want the agency and freedom to shape the places where I live, not have it controlled or interfered with by strangers who live radically different lives in the city.

Addressing Bill 212 directly, it is my opinion that destroying existing and preventing the establishment of safe bike lanes will have the inverse effect that the “Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act” is claiming to provide. I actively choose to bike to work for personal reasons, such as getting additional exercise, minimizing my carbon footprint, and saving money to one day own a home. Regardless of these reasons however, is that each commute, shopping trip, or visit to friends and family done via bike is another vehicle not on the road [or lining its sides]. A person choosing to bike = one less car contributing to congestion, pollution, wear and tear on infrastructure, or at risk of accident involvements. By removing/restricting the infrastructure that enables safe travel by bike across the entirety of Ontario, people who want to bike for any reason are denied that choice [or risk becoming part of a growing statistic by travelling beside automobiles https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/opp-says-cyclist-deaths-up-300-p…]. When travel by car left as the best available option, then those trips end up being made in a car. Adding more lanes, especially by removing safe alternatives to driving between destinations, will directly cause more congestion… not alleviate it.
I want to be able to bike to safely and comfortably where I need to go, without worrying about dying because someone is not paying attention behind the wheel. Bike lanes, paths, and especially separated bike paths are the best way to do that. But Bill 212 comes from a city I don’t live in, to actively remove and deny that option in a short sighted to rush development of road infrastructure at a steep cost in funds and lives: which itself will put more vehicles on the road in a time where we need less.

If we as Ontarians want to be rid of congestion, the only real option is to enable viable alternatives to driving. Please don’t erase the real progress made to give people the freedom to choose. Stop Bill 212.