Bicycle Lane Removal is Not…

Bicycle Lane Removal is Not a Provincial Issue & Will Not Solve Traffic Woes:

We should not allow the province to meddle in affairs pertaining to bicycle lanes, as it is an inherently local issue. If the municipality where a bicycle lane is installed is negatively affected by a bicycle lane then it will be in its own best interest to remove said bicycle lane. This bill only serves to take power away from residents from affecting their direct community, and give it to out-of-towners who will treat their neighbourhood as a pass-through. Residents have elected municipal leaders answer the question whether or not a bicycle lane should be built, why give this power to the province.

Furthermore, if the question is whether removing bicycle lanes will solve congestion in our province, there is no evidence that it will. We must wake up to the fact that you cannot fit millions of Ontarians in their own personal vehicles, if we want to build dense, world-class cities. They are simply not space efficient. The only way to improve commute times and congestion is to give viable alternatives to driving.

I hope that we do not waste any more time squabbling about the removal of bike lanes to fix congestion when we really need to be investing in building a stronger public transit network. Bike lanes, when built in a complete network (which they are not at the moment, even in Toronto) will reduce the load on roads coming from local travel.

Cheers!