Regarding the new provincial…

Regarding the new provincial approval process for the installation of new bike lanes:

As a licensed professional engineer specializing in transportation, I think this is a very poor item for the provincial government to deem a priority. The province should let municipalities make these local decisions, and stick with delivering transit projects on time. If you care to read the City of Toronto's website for information on bike lanes and travel times, you will see that they have a negligible effect. But they do encourage people to use bikes as means of transportation, meaning fewer motor vehicles on the road and less congestion overall. Sometimes this process take a couple years, but it does happen. It's called modal shift.

If this ill-conceived process does come to pass, who will review municipal applications and make the decisions about whether bike lanes should go in? The MTO? They specialize in maximizing efficiency for motor vehicle traffic, and do have have the expertise to make balanced local decisions about transportation. And how long will each process take? Does the MTO even have the resources for this?

I think Doug Ford should stop trying to be mayor of Toronto and try riding a bike sometime.