As a professional planner in…

As a professional planner in the province of Ontario, it is my professional opinion that Bill 212 and the subsequent effects are poor planning, are the exact opposite of what study after study finds are effective, efficient, and sustainable transportation policies, and will negatively impact the ability of Ontarians to travel for years to come.

The Province of Ontario should be supportive of cycling infrastructure and avoid enacting restrictions whenever possible, as Bill 212 would do. Cycling infrastructure and truly multi-modal corridors provide many benefits over car centric and car dedicated corridors. They are as follows.

Cycling is a significantly more space efficient mode of transportation than automobiles. As space is the most valuable and restrictive resource in urban environments, this is a very important consideration. Additionally, cycling infrastructure requires significantly less maintenance than automotive or public transit infrastructure resulting in higher availability of infrastructure.

The viability of cycling within a given jurisdiction has also found to have measurable public health impacts in two distinct ways. Firstly, while widespread cycling has not been found to have a measureable impact on life expectancy, it has been found to have a measurable impact on cardiovascular and respiratory health and on obesity rates. Secondly, cycle paths built to an appropriate specification have to been to be incredibly beneficial for first responders. It is often significantly easier for cyclists to make space for first responders than it is for drivers resulting in faster response times that can be the difference between life and death during certain medical emergencies. In many urban areas, building cycle paths of an adequate specification WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE without removing a lane for automobiles.

Additionally, high quality cycling infrastructure has benefits for environmental sustainability, affordability, senior and youth mobility, and many others. The adoption of Bill 212 by the province of Ontario would remove the ability of municipalities to exercise their local knowledge and expertise to implement a high quality cycling network, and allow for the province to unnesssaisly add barriers to transportation projects that are to the benefit of Ontarians. As a result of the above, it is my professional opinion that Bill 212 represents poor planning and should not be adopted by the Province of Ontario.