This bill is just a sneaky…

This bill is just a sneaky way for highway 413 to get rushed in without any environmental research into impact. We are at a time where we need to be protecting the environment that we have, not adding to the sprawl. The vast majority of Ontario drivers will never need that highway, and they will never need to worry about bike lanes in the City of Toronto.

As a province, we need to encourage environmentally-friendly modes of transportation, like public transit, walking, and biking. Adding more cars to the road is bad for all of us. But increasing other ways of transit reduces the number of cars on the road - which actually helps with traffic. The government of Ontario should focus on completing existing projects that actually cause gridlock - like the Eglinton crosstown project, or large-scale building projects. The Province should look at improving alternative forms of transportation that get more cars off the main roads, rather than adding lanes which will only encourage more traffic.

Look at any other major city that has increased their bike lanes - all of them have seen shorter travel times for cars. Toronto businesses near bike lanes have seen an increase of business. Bike Share has increased exponentially because more people feel safe enough to get around in another way.

And, for the record, it's embarrassing to have a Premier be so solely focused on only one city in our Province. Those of us that live outside of the City of Toronto feel that the Province has more pressing issues than Toronto's so-called gridlock.