Removing and / or…

Removing and / or restricting bike lanes in Toronto is a horrendous idea. There are countless research papers that prove that increasing lanes, increases traffic. 2 examples:
- https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/research-innovation-syste…
- https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5c0e5848e5274a0bf3cbe124…

Even if you logically think through, each bike takes up ~1 square metre of space, each car takes up ~5 square metres of space. Bikeshare Toronto cited that in 2023 there were over 5.7 million bike trips, and that only accounts for rides using their bikes meaning the total number of bike trips is likely millions higher. If we took all those bike trips (say 7 million) it would take up 34,000,000 more square feet of roadways. If the argument for this is legitimately to reduce traffic, clearly 34M more square feet of vehicles on the road is not going to help traffic issues.

Then, let's move on to the other benefits of biking:
1) It's cheap. Someone can buy a bicycle for <$500. If they ride that bike to work every day, say 250 days of the year for 10 years the cost per ride is $0.20 per ride. An annual membership to the bikeshare program costs $100, which would be $0.25 per ride. This is drastically cheaper than public transportation. If we compare this to a vehicle, costing $40,000 (lower than the cost for an average new car today), assume it also lasts for 10 years, and is taken to work for 250 days a year, that costs $16 a day excluding any parking costs. We all know that the cost of living in Toronto is high. Forcing someone who bikes to work every day to instead use a car would make the city significantly less livable.

2) It's healthy. While Doug Ford may not appreciate exercise, it's a well established fact that exercise is beneficial to health, longevity, happiness, etc. By removing bike lanes, you would be limiting the options for safe, cheap exercise within the city. Additional an increase in car traffic is also unhealthy. Not only does it lead to more sedentary lifestyles, it also pollutes. Pollution clearly is not healthy, so double whammy by removing the bike lanes!

If Doug Ford and his provincial government is going to get involved in Toronto's infrastructure and roads, they should instead be increasing the number of bike lanes. We all know this is a political ploy, but stop messing with Toronto's policies. This is a horrible proposal that will damage both Toronto's reputation on the global stage, while simultaneously making a mockery of Doug Ford's 'leadership'.