I cycle every single day to…

I cycle every single day to work and back in Toronto. I cycle with my kids and spouse to get around the city, North-South and East-West. I do this through the year, including winter.

When I ask colleagues if they would consider doing the same, many say they would like to but simply don't feel safe. And I understand this. Even with our current set of bike lanes, some protected and some not, I have an incident at least once a week where I'm almost hit by a turning or a car entering and stopping in the bike lane.

Removing bike lanes or rerouting them off direct routes will not help this -- it will make it worse, push more people away from biking as their primary form of transportation, or even what they may choose with their kids on the weekends. I appreciate that traffic congestion is an issue, but most of the problems I see are related to construction, not bike lanes.

Moreover, this proposal just adds red tape to city planning. For a government laudably committed to removing red tape, this seems bizarre. The city is much better placed to address these issues than the province.