The proposal to assess…

The proposal to assess existing bike lines is non-objectionable, assuming that a fair assessment is used. It takes time from the creation of bike lanes until they become fully utilized, so an appropriate time horizon should be used, say starting at least one year and better two years after completion of the bike lane.

However the premier's public comments that he plans to remove bike lanes on Bloor St. and other streets in Toronto suggest that he has already decided what he wants to do and this assessment is planned to be only symbolic, and that the assessors will be pressured to confirm to the premier's biases, and/or the results of the study will be ignored. This is not acceptable. The premier is not the mayor of Toronto and imposing his private will on the city is an overreach and abuse of his powers and profoundly anti-democratic.

It is true that there has been significant congestion on Bloor Street related recently, in part coinciding with the introduction of bike lanes. However, a large amount of this congestion is related to various construction projects which are happening throughout Toronto, including the bike lane construction (a one time impact), but also subway reconstruction, condo construction, Metrolinx projects, water main replacement, etc. Any assessment of a bike lane's impacts on traffic should not be done if there is any on-going construction in the study area, as it becomes impossible to determine what is causing the impacts. Similarly, studies should be done at times when the TTC is operating normally. As a frequent driver on Bloor street I can clearly state that congestion is highly correlated to construction activity.

As shown in many studies, bike lanes typically reduce traffic congestion in the long run, as more traffic moves to bikes, which take up much less space than cars. The Bloor bike lanes are heavily used and remove significant traffic from the roads. An example of a study that discusses this is below:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/bike-lanes-impacts-1.7358319

Also, the users of the bike lanes are typically the residents of the affected area or nearby, and benefit the most from the bike lanes, in terms of safety, speed, and convenience. The car drivers are typically coming from farther away, so are visitors to the area. Preference should be given the actual residents of an area.

Finally, as described below, bike lanes are good for local businesses, as there is more traffic by people who can stop frequently to shop at local stores. Car drivers are more likely to shop at big box chain stores with large parking areas, which once again occupy valuable real estate. So bike lanes support vibrant main commercial streets, while streets with many lanes of car traffic tend to kill local businesses.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/video/2024/10/24/annex-businesses-tell-ford…

To summarize, this assessment feels like it will be rigged to justify the premier's bias, not a true study on the merits of a highly valuable initiative by the city.