The proposal to remove bike…

The proposal to remove bike lane infrastructure from the major downtown Toronto arteries of Bloor, Yonge and University is a step backwards that is totally nonsensical. The great cities of Europe where transportation is leaps and bounds ahead of ours, all utilize bike lanes and dedicated right-of-ways on their busiest streets for public transport to "Reduce Gridlock" and "Save people time". Only these modes of transport can effectively move hundreds of thousands of people throughout the city - prioritizing cars on downtown streets is extremely backwards-thinking. See the attached photo of the great Ring Road of Vienna (Ringstraße), a street around as wide as University Ave with dedicated right-of-ways for trams, substantial and wide bike lanes, and cars. Why can our city not do as well as this, and instead move backwards to reinstate 1 car lane each direction? The increased capacity would be so minimal as cars can only move a fraction of the number of people down a road, per minute compared to bicycles and public transit.

I suggest to truly "reduce gridlock" in the city of Toronto, the province ought to propose solutions such as drastically speeding up the existing streetcar network by giving them dedicated right-of-way something that has been common place in truly world-class cities like Vienna, Amsterdam, Zurich, Berlin etc. The fact that streetcars must wait in a line of cars on streets like College St or King St makes them move at snails pace, discouraging people from even using them. If getting around the city was easier, fewer people would drive anyways, as the flexibility of driving is something that cannot be achieved with extremely slow public transit.

Many drivers also need to commute in from far distances if public transit is not serving them reliably and quickly - another reason to put money and scrutiny on Metrolinx and its inability to deliver a single new public transit expansion in the city that would at least contribute to serving the suburbs (Eglinton LRT, Finch LRT). Where is the progress on all-day 15 minute GO train service on the multiple promised rail lines? This would be the correct use of time and resources from the Ontario government's jurisdiction...

The Bill 212 being presented here is not addressing the fundamental root causes of the congestion in the City of Toronto, and is a waste of parliamentary time, resources and energy that could be better spent on more aggressive provincial policy on people-moving-efficiency. Cars simply are not efficient, and only provide users comfort, luxury and flexibility in travel. Better public transit that is frequent, fast, and has priority on the road is all it takes to move a step towards reducing gridlock, by moving people by the hundreds per vehicle instead of 1 or 2 per vehicle, a ~10000% improved efficiency.