This legislation will Kill…

This legislation will Kill People. People need to get places, be that by car, or bike, or transit or walking. But just one of these travel options is killing hundreds and injuring tens of thousands of people in Ontario every year.

Motor vehicles make our streets dangerous to people walking and cycling. If people are to be able to use the public streets, as is their right, something needs to be done about this danger. Bike lanes provide that protection to allow people to bike places. That means fewer cars on the road and fewer deaths caused by drivers.

You can't simply push cyclists onto side streets and expect that they won't still need to use the main roads. The main roads are main roads for a reason. They are often the only way to travel longer distances, as side streets are meandering, or dead ends, or don't have bridges to cross rivers, highways, train tracks etc. They need to be used to go places. And speaking of places, many main roads are where the places (shops, restaurants, etc) that people want to go to are located. They're also where new zoning by-laws are pushing the most density. So you've got the highest concentration of people living without cars, and all the destinations they would like to go to on these streets, but they cannot safely use them unless they use a car?

People will still bike on these main roads even without bike lanes (albeit far fewer people than if there were bike lanes), and many of them will be killed because they were not given a safe way to do so. And in addition to that, even more people will decide not to bike, because it is not safe, and they will instead drive. More cars on the road will not "solve traffic" - you need to get people out of their cars - you need to give them ways to do that. It's the only way to actually reduce traffic congestion, not more lanes, not more cars.