What keeps us all safe is…

What keeps us all safe is staying in our own lanes.

I drive, I walk, and I ride a bike, alone and with my kids. I share a car with other drivers in my family, but I can always depend on having a bike. Even when I have a car, there may be no place reasonable to park it. We can all agree that driving in large cities is frustrating, and the reason why is that cars and car infrastructure don't fit -- they are not dense enough. Walking and cycling allow movement without requiring parking spaces or many kilometres of road use. When people drive, they usually drive a long way. When they cycle or walk, they accomplish the same tasks -- eg, shopping -- with dramatically less infrastructure use. They are able to do this by patronizing local businesses. If cities can connect residents to local businesses through walkways and bike lanes rather than force them onto highways and to box stores, they dramatically save on infrastructure. Removing local infrastructure decisions from local government will make it much more difficult to develop infrastructure that serves residents. It will force a failed sprawl model on cities that have already run out of space.

Yes, we build a lot of cars in Ontario. No, there is no room for more of them in our cities. And it's not the sidewalks or bike lanes that are to blame for that.

Ontario's $200 rebate buys a bike. It does not buy a parking space for a car. When you see business after business with no parking lot beside a Bloor Street bike lane, don't try to count the drivers stuck in traffic against the cyclists whizzing by who they are jealously eyeing. Instead appreciate how much of the city's vital business is getting done with a very modest infrastructure footprint. A lot of good can happen when everyone has their space. Let's leave the cities their space to make efficient decisions.