Hello, I am a grade 10…

Hello, I am a grade 10 student in the City of Toronto, and I believe that bike lanes are not slowing traffic whatsoever, but they are helping protect myself and other cyclists' lives. In addition to this I strongly disagree with the proposition of another highway (Highway 413) in the GTA as there are better solutions to traffic than paving over the supposedly protected Greenbelt, and ripping out the very infastructure that is in fact helping to reduce gridlock.
As a young cyclist myself, in the near 50 trips I have made to commute to and from my school, I have been run off the road once, wrongly yelled at well over 20 for "not being allowed to be on the road" [see first link], and nearly hit by aggressive drivers (especially on left turns) 7 times on my school commute alone. This didn't used to be such a problem because the road I mostly cycle on, Pharmacy Ave, had designated bike lanes that were ripped out under the Rob Ford municipal government. Since then, with wider lanes and faster and more aggressive drivers, the safety of pedestrians and cyclists has greatly declined. This is just my reasoning for personally wanting more and better bike lanes, but when researching this topic I came up on an article from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law [see second link] that explains that the removal of bike lanes will in fact increase gridlock in the City of Toronto, as it will encourage using cars as the main method of transportation which not only causes more low-occupancy vehicles on the streets, but it also causes more greenhouse-gas emissions from the extra cars on our streets which, I assume, is not what our Premier wants for the City. As I hope I have shown, this proposition in bill 212 does not help resolve gridlock whatsoever, and instead creates more unsafe conditions for the citizens of our city.
To help solve this issue of gridlock and safety, I propose that bike lanes are more encouraged, with more maintained trails off the road, and safer bike lanes on the road. Including these bike lanes in many City roads will not be a problem because the standard lane in the City of Toronto is approximately 10.5 feet wide, and the average Canadian car is only 5.75 feet wide. This means that cars have over 2 feet of clearance on each side, so if lane size was reduced it would leave plenty enough room for bike lanes, and it would encourage safer driving as drivers would be more cautious of clearance, causing naturally lowered speeds. The second part of my proposition is to enhance public transit in the City, because even though the current transit system is impressive compared to most Canadian cities, many other countries have much more advanced transit systems that don't have all the issues of the TTC. By fixing transit in Toronto, more people will be willing to take public transportation that efficiently moves people to their destination, causing even less cars to take up space on our roads. The final part of my solution to gridlock is creating a more coordinated construction, helping with better notice of road construction, and reasonable detours, to provide a simpler, and less chaotic driving experience for the citizens of Toronto.
My final issue with Bill 212 is the proposition of creating another highway to supposedly help reduce traffic on the 401. This issue should not even be a problem as we already have 2 400-series highways going through the city, and many other main arteries to increase what is supposed to be high-speed transportation. However one of our 2 biggest highways was for some reason privatized like Doug Ford wants to do with healthcare. This was arguably the biggest transportation mistake in the history of the City of Toronto because it caused a very large and useful road to become practically unused as drivers try to avoid the tolls going to a private company. This is the first main reason why traffic is so bad on the 401, but if the government manages to reclaim the highway or we wait until 2097, then traffic will be lessened by drivers who can now bypass the City instead of adding to traffic going through it. Unfortunately this can't be undone, but by building another highway in the greenbelt outside of the City, it provides more opportunity for urban sprawl to continue, just like it did with the 407, as developers create more large, expensive, single-family housing that is ruining farmland, and creating a higher market for housing. Overall I think the 407 will be another useless waste of taxpayer money, and instead that large amount of money could be used for actually helpful solutions to not only solve gridlock, but also other major issues not only in the City, but also province wide.
I hope you have understood the point I am trying to make, and hopefully this helps change your mind on the unnecessary bill that Doug Ford wants to pass as the unofficial mayor of the City of Toronto.
Thanks!