Ontario has been a leader in…

Ontario has been a leader in road designs that include bicycle infrastructure and safer pedestrian infrastructure. Municipalities should be allowed to redesign the roads under their authority in accordance with the manuals the Province has published. They are already required to assess the impacts and follow a prescribed process. A blanket prohibition on redesigning roads to repurpose a car lane for a bicycle lane or for any other purpose will not achieve any of the stated goals of the government. It is already in Municipality's best interests not to remove lanes that would cause significant congestion, and nobody has done that. It is already illegal to redesign roads without following the Environmental Assessment process. The proposed amendment to prohibit redesigning roads to accommodate bike lanes is arbitrary, unfair, and an insult to the professional engineers who take great effort to ensure these redesigns do not cause significant upstream problems.

Any delay to the installation of bike lanes where they are needed results in more injuries and deaths on our roads. Bike lanes are a public health issue. They save the province millions in healthcare dollars and help Ontarians get where they need to go affordably and safely.

Please remove this provision from Bill 60.