Bike lanes are installed…

Bike lanes are installed with rigorous assessments from city staff. Street widths, traffic volumes, demand, density, and many other factors are considered in this process. Public consultations are made and designs are adjusted to fit stakeholders' needs. The installation of a bike lane is a highly researched, community-involved, and democratic process. After all, many of us vote for our mayors and councillors with the expectation that they uphold their promises to promote alternative methods of transportation. To take such a process and bring it under the jurisdiction of an entity that involves itself in none of this research and project specific community-involvement, so that entity can, with no data and no consultation, veto all that work to please a specific base of voters is appalling. Ontario needs evidence backed legislation crafted with data, not desperate attempts to appeal to voters of certain ridings as we approach an election. The number of cyclists is only growing. Six people have been killed in the city of Toronto alone just this year. This is higher than any other year within the past decade. To refuse to provide safe infrastructure to the growing number of cyclists in this province is to accept that this death toll will continue to climb in the upcoming years.