Could anything be more…

Could anything be more idiotic than this proposal? Aside from the fact that the provincial government has no jurisdiction over city roads, all planning research has shown for decades that THE ONLY WAY to stop car traffic gridlock is to get people out of cars. Several strategies can be deployed to do this, but the best is rebalancing road access to promote more effective modes of transportation. One expected outcome from this is that car travel becomes less desirable relative to other travel modes, which nudges the shift to increased use of other modes. If gridlock is slightly worse now, this means the plan is WORKING - so let it work! Over time, public transit, bike, and other modes of travel will be increasingly used, car gridlock will ease slightly (but never much - which is the point; you are trying to discourage this exceptionally inefficient mode of moving people through a city).

Assuming all this makes no sense to the provincial government, the obvious question is: what’s next when killing bike lanes doesn’t help with gridlock (it won’t): remove sidewalks? Maybe after that, the buildings lining the street? Why not just go straight to that solution, and convert Bloor into a six lane expressway. Sound dumb? Exactly.

Idiots.