Bike lanes can decrease…

Bike lanes can decrease traffic: it's that simple. Cars move a tiny fraction of the number of people bikes, transit, and walking move on major streets, especially in more central areas. However, this requires a biking network: just one bus line won't have many users, but a transit network often can get very crowded, especially the ultra-high capacity subway lines. Worse yet, every single one of the streets targeted in this plan has a subway running under it, which moves as much traffic as a 25-lane highway! Maybe fix that before spending money on the tiny portion of Torontonians who drive to work. There's a reason Annex BIA is up in arms over this decision: bikes are also good for business! The bike lanes also provide a barrier between fast-moving cars and pedestrians, allowing for a safer and more pleasant walking experience.

Doug Ford doesn't care about that though: his commute by car got a minute longer, so instead of looking for real solutions he decides to find something else, even if that costs lives. This conservative government will always look for somebody to blame, instead of taking accountability for their lack of vision, failure to execute anything useful (can't even open the Eglinton and Finch west LRTs), and blatant corruption around Therme and the Greenbelt.

Instead of spending millions to rip out our bike lanes that the city spent millions building and designing, we should look for real solutions to gridlock like rapid expansion of GO transit, bus lanes, more biking infrastructure, and providing other viable alternatives to driving. We know from so many other places in the world that solving traffic is not done by prioritizing cars, it's solved by taking people out of their cars and having them use a different mode. This has worked around the world: why is Ontario so special?