As an Ontario physician and…

As an Ontario physician and citizen, I am writing here to emphasise several concerns raised by Bill 212.

I recently witnessed an ambulance picking up an injured individual at the scene of a bicycle versus car collision on the southeastern corner of College and Bay streets in Toronto, right after the College St cycling lane ends abruptly. Unfortunately, we all know that there are many such cases of cyclists injured or dying in recent years.

While this left me with a personal attachment to the subject, I would also hope that policy decisions be driven by data. Fortunately, in the case of Toronto, homegrown data exist. A 2012 report by Toronto Public Health estimated that 49 yearly deaths were prevented by the 80,000 Ontarians who travelled by bicycle in the city in 2012. Indeed, despite the tragedies of lives lost in road collisions and the absence of safe cycling infrastructure in 2012, cycling saved lives. I would assume that the number of deaths prevented by cycling has only increased in the 12 years since then, given the increased number of cyclists (notably through Bike Share) and dedicated cycling infrastructure built since 2016 enhancing cycling safety.

It is notable that Toronto road user fatalities hit a peak in 2016 and have since trended down in absolute numbers. The Bloor St bike lane pilot started in 2016, highlighting that safer cycling infrastructure is at least part of a safer transport system.

The 2012 study conducted in Toronto also found that the total economic benefits of active transportation in Toronto range from $130 million to $478 million. This includes reduced health care spending of $110 to $160 million for the province due to use of active transport, as well as preventing costs associated with cyclist-vehicle collisions. As a physician, I would also highlight the priceless wellbeing and physical health benefits of improved mental health and increased longevity, among others, afforded by active transport.

Moreover, I contend that Bill 212 is counter-intuitive. While it is not my field of expertise, I am familiar with scientific evidence in urban design from many countries that increasing the number of car lanes on a given thoroughfare does not effectively reduce travel times between given destinations due to induced demand. Conversely, the fact that the proportion of road users that are cyclists is up to 15% in Toronto neighbourhoods where cycling infrastructure has seen recent modest upgrades, compared to the 2% average of people cycling for transit city-wide, demonstrates that induced demand also exists for cycling. However, unlike with our current car lanes, cycling infrastructure can handle the additional demand without leading to significant delays, because small bike lanes are sufficient to carry a large number of road users. Putting these two facts together naturally leads to the conclusion that building more and safer cycling infrastructure would actually reduce travel times for all road users - one only needs to imagine what would happen if there were suddenly 15% fewer cars on the road across the whole city. The economic and wellbeing benefits from the resulting increase in transport efficiency could not be under-stated.

In terms of the specific bike lanes on Bloor, Yonge, and University, I note that these are streets serviced by existing subway lines. Providing safe cycling options where there are existing transit lines is essential when designing multimodal transport that will increase transit ridership by offering convenient connections between destinations and transit stations, further contributing to reducing car traffic for those who need or want to use cars.

With all this being said, it is also important to remember that investments in public infrastructure are a matter of public trust and safety. Some road users cannot use automobiles, notably most school-aged children. Another City of Toronto report from 2019, "Improving Road Safety of School-Age Children," states that addressing barriers to walking and cycling to school and could improve safety by reducing traffic around schools. Addressing these barriers includes providing families with safe routes that link neighbourhoods to schools and other community services. Indeed, I was astonished to learn from this report that among incidents of school-aged children killed or seriously injured on roadways, 64% occur on major arterials. We have a duty to protect children from fatal collisions not only on local residential streets but on all roads, and this report highlights that bike lanes are an important part of public safety.

On a similar note, why should these children grow up in a world where they do not have freedom of mobility until they get a driver's licence? What about kids who want to focus on school or career instead of studying for driving school, or those whose families don't have enough money for the financial liability of an additional motor vehicle? I believe we deserve freedom of choice when it comes to our means of transportation. In my case, I don't want the provincial government to decide for me when it comes to choosing my car, biking, or taking transit depending on what's appropriate to get around my city one a particular day. If a municipality decides to improve infrastructure to give its citizens more options, that should be their prerogative, because citizens get to vote on that in municipal elections. The idea of creating a provincial program to manage bike lanes across Ontario is totally counter to reducing provincial government waste and bureaucracy, because these relatively modest infrastructure upgrades are already being extensively studied and managed by municipalities.

I would like to conclude my comment with some final personal insights. As both an automobile and bicycle user, I have experienced how road use is made more orderly by having a dedicated place for cyclists to go. When I am driving, I prefer when cyclists are out of my way and, when I'm cycling, I don't want to have to directly negotiate with car users. It's as simple as that - and I genuinely believe that road congestion is bad for car users, public transit, cyclists, pedestrians, and the surrounding communities and therefore worth addressing with government intervention. But not this one.