I'm a citizen of…

I'm a citizen of southwestern Ontario, a region largely forgotten about by provincial governments time and time again. We only get thought of when it comes to manufacturing or transportation, never peoples daily lives. I've recently been studying mechanical engineering with an automotive focus in Windsor and one of the things this city is doing extremely well is their cycling infrastructure. As someone who owns 3 cars, it's nice to have protected space to be able to bike when I choose to. I've had multiple instances of uneducated drivers attempting to run me off the road while cycling in areas that don't have bike lanes, because they genuinely believe bicycles aren't supposed to be on the road despite the highway traffic act outlining it. While I understand some drivers complaints about cyclists not following the laws of the road, such as stopping at stop signs, and think police need to be more active in enforcing those laws with cyclists, bike lanes have never negatively affected my driving and have almost always affected it positively. City planning is a city affair. Local governments exist specifically to deal with local issues like these, where blanket policy across the province or country doesn't work. The provincial government lays out the rules in the highway traffic act, and it's up to cities to decide what works best for them. Having the provincial government review every single bike lane installed in the future as well as the past 5 years is not only a waste of time and money, it's an overreach of the provincial government into municipal affairs. Under the Municipal Act of 2001, public transit, public health, and parks and recreation are all responsibilities of municipal governments, not the province. The claim that removing bike lanes will "reduce gridlock" has not only been disproven, the months of construction will only serve to increase congestion only to have the exact same amount of traffic after that construction is complete.

As a short summary, this is a complete overreach from the provincial government into municipal affairs that will not have the claimed effect and will only waste even more taxpayer money.