Bike lanes are essential…

Bike lanes are essential infrastructure for large and growing cities.
1. Safety. They provide safety for people who ride bicycle, whether they are commuting or going to school or exercising or running errands or making deliveries or conducting their businesses. All people benefit from bike lanes - it separates bikes from cars, meaning that cars are able to have their own space as well and can travel at the speed limit, rather than being forced to slow down and move around bikes.
2. Environment. Encouraging people to choose modes of transportation other than cars is an important way of reducing Ontario's carbon footprint and meeting environmental goals. Bike lanes regulate the speed of traffic and encourage not only bike use but walking as well. Additionally, bike lanes can be used be delivery vehicles to reduce the environmental cost of last-mile deliveries.
3. Accessibility. Many people cannot use cars, whether due to cost, age, medical condition, or legal reasons. Having bike lanes means creating a space for those people to exist safely and get where they need to go without fear.
4. Cost. The targeted bike lanes are new and well-used. Removing them now just means pouring bad money after good. Bike lanes have been proven in multiple studies to actually increase the revenue of stores along those routes, when compared to car lanes or parking lanes.
Adding this bill as an addendum, at such short notice, and targeting those streets is simply the vindictive act of a premier who doesn't know about or care about his constituents. All evidence points towards bike lanes adding positively to a city where car lanes detract. Having one more car lane isn't going to make commutes shorter, but it will materially and negatively impact the lives of everyone who relies on them.