As a driver who commutes in…

As a driver who commutes in and out of downtown Toronto every weekday, I find the proposal to remove bike lanes on Bloor, University and Yonge to be an unacceptable and utterly wasteful use of government resources. We have already dealt with enough disruptive, poorly managed construction projects on our crucial arteries. There might be a chance it will slightly improve traffic flow, but there is a guarantee there will be more slowdowns, detours and frustration for the foreseeable future.

I am also skeptical that these promised traffic improvements will ever materialize. Unprotected turns onto side streets will remain a problem thanks to Toronto's broken street grid. Look at Dundas and Queen, or Bathurst and Dufferin. No bike lanes, yet still horrible traffic because of lanes taken up by drivers waiting to make left turns. And if anything should be looked at, it's street parking permissions on every arterial, as a parking lane takes up more space and creates more conflict points than most bike lanes. (This also wouldn't require ANY construction spending.)

Filling in the Eglinton subway tunnel in 1995 set this province back years and cost taxpayers untold sums of money. It remains one of the biggest stains on Mike Harris's legacy. Tearing up the bike lanes on these corridors promises to echo that infamous decision. Worse yet, it is such a clearly controversial plan that protests will undoubtedly erupt in the downtown core. Cyclists who are legally permitted to share the lane with cars will do everything in their power to prove their point. I know I'm not looking forward to it, and neither are my fellow commuters just trying to drive home. We've dealt with enough protests and construction this year already.

Does the Ford government want to be remembered for putting exciting new infrastructure plans forward, or does it want to waste time and money sloppily undoing completed projects? Regardless of the intent behind these plans, there is only one path I see coming from them. It is a path of frivolous spending, frustrating construction and public unpopularity.