I live in downtown Toronto,…

I live in downtown Toronto, and bike lanes are one of the best things to happen to this city in a very long time. I take my bike all the time because it is significantly faster than driving and public transport. I deserve just as much as a driver to have a safe way to get around and get to work. It is not my fault that drivers are stuck in traffic - it is the province's fault for not providing other, more varied transit options. Owning a car has become so incredibly expensive, that I moved downtown Toronto so that I didn't have to have one. I struggle with the cost of living just like everybody else these days, and it's unfair for the province to make owning a car an essential feature of getting around. It is unfair and undemocratic. The City knows this and worked with the community to make these lanes happen after years of consultation and planning. The province does not know better than the communities who live here and travel around the city every day. If the province wants to get involved, it should be working with city hall instead of discounting its legislature. Democracy is not the Ontario Premier losing every riding in downtown Toronto and then coming in and demanding his policy to rip up the bike lanes built through community-led initiatives, which he didn't even run on, goes through.

The province claims these lanes cause congestion, but cites no evidence. Studies all over the world prove bike lanes help with traffic congestion, the environment, and the economy, and make people safer & healthier. There are no legitimate studies that show bike lanes cause congestion, but there are plenty that show adding another lane of traffic does. There is no positive to getting rid of these bike lanes because study after study shows the short-term gains from removal end up making traffic worse. It is called induced demand. If we build the proper infrastructure, people (like myself!) will choose to bike instead of drive and this will in turn take more cars off the road. They do it in cities all over the world, like Montreal, New York, or Paris, and it works. Toronto has the opportunity to become a major global city and this careless, political decision is jeopardizing Toronto's attractiveness to talent in the future. Adding bike lanes to only side streets would make travelling by bike take significantly longer. This will not make anyone more safe or improve traffic. Arterial roads have bike lanes for a good reason: It's where people are trying to go. Cars transport way fewer people for the amount of space they take up and I don't hear anyone complaining about that. They are terrible for the environment. Why should private cars get better access to public spaces than public transit, or active transit? it makes no sense.

The premier is using this as a wedge issue and as a way to package the other terrible things in Bill 212, like skirting environmental regulations for the newly planned highway I disagree with these but nothing impacts me more than these bike lanes. I take the Bloor bike lane almost every day. There isn't congestion in the bike lanes because they get people where they want to go fast. I am a young person in this province, and I believe in Toronto and Ontario's potential for future success. We won't get there by implementing an emotion-based infrastructure policy because the premier wants to base major urban planning decisions on archaic 20th-century urban planning ideas around cars. We need innovative, forward-thinking people who are involved in their communities directly. Doug Ford lost the 2014 mayoral election. Olivia Chow was elected with the promise of implementing bike lanes. The province needs to get out of our local jurisdiction and do the things they were elected to do, like finish the Crosstown LRT and fix congestion on the highways. There are no bike lanes on the 401, and yet it is the busiest highway in North America. The province should be looking at facts, long-term impacts, and comprehensive studies from around the world to base its decision.

I implore the province to at least listen to reason and the data, and plan WITH the city to improve traffic. They want to get rid of the bike lanes? At least consult with the community. It is unfair to the hardworking people of this city to have our infrastructure in tatters because of a hasty political decision.