Hi, Our family has lived in…

Hi,
Our family has lived in Mississauga for 29 years at the same address. We own a home on Bloor Street, (Applewood/Ward 3). We are 4 working adults with three vehicles in the driveway as most other families in this Mississauga community do too. In June 2023, the Mississauga City Council approved the Bloor Street integrated road project. Much of this public engagement and consultation was done during the Covid times( 2021, 2022) which bypassed normal channels for public consultation. In three of our public meetings did not produce any amicable resolution to moving the project elsewhere. This project removes a total of 4 lanes of traffic down to effectively 2 lanes for regular vehicle traffic. There are 102 Bloor homeowners and many businesses negatively impacted by this traffic reduction which also leads to additional devaluation of our properties. The cost of this project has been estimated to be $27 million.
Our community had organized a resident's association to educate and inform all Mississauga residents of this impending change to Bloor traffic. In our physical meetings with the city staff, we were promised a compromise only to find out this meant nothing and the project would continue as is. During our two canvassing and surveys with the Bloor residents, we found that 94 residents did not want this project to be implemented and built. We also had raised a petition list of 3400+ signatures asking the city to reconsider building this project. Unfortunately, dealing with the municipal government that does not listen to the wishes of the people seems very undemocratic and unprincipled. Many municipal governments seem to act with impunity and some hidden agenda.

As a homeowner who has lived on Bloor Street, I can tell you the amount of bicycle traffic is negligible. During the warmer months, you would be lucky to see 10-12 riders per week and none after cold weather moves in. With an ever-growing population in Mississauga, the amount of car/truck/public transportation has increased exponentially and Bloor Street has seen a huge increase also in the last decade. Exiting onto the Bloor from our driveway can take several minutes due to the large amount of current vehicle traffic. Furthermore, additional condo buildings are being built on Bloor Street which will introduce several thousands of additional residents and thousands of additional vehicles. Adding bike lanes to Bloor Street would completely halt any reasonable traffic throughput. This would also negatively impact the response time of all emergency vehicles.
This also adds to an argument about the impact on those Bloor businesses that depend on regular traffic and a cut to their revenues due to increased inconvenience in easy access to and from their lots.
Applewood community also has a high school at the corner of Bloor and Tomken Road (Applewood Collegiate) and during school hours Bloor is overburdened with standing traffic. Removing two lanes of traffic would lead to a nightmare for any homeowner exiting onto Bloor Street.

Bloor Street is a major roadway for many Mississauga residents who traverse to and from work every day and reducing the amount of traffic would undeniably lead to a huge increase in other main road arteries. Our city depends on prompt supply chain deliveries and implementing this severe traffic reduction on Bloor (to appease 0.3% of the population) who do not even live on Bloor is wrong!!

I applaud Premier Ford and his government for having the courage and strength to reverse a decision (with Bill 212) that a majority of people who live in large urban centres do not support in adding bike lanes from a financial and economic standpoint as it adds more pollution to idling traffic and disturbs the natural traffic flow. I agree there are city streets where adding bike lanes may be the right thing, but adding these lanes on Bloor Street (from Etobicoke Creek to Central Parkway, East) is wrong.

Thank you for giving us this chance to voice our opinion on something that will negatively affect the lives of tens of thousands of Mississauga residents and those in other large urban centres. I also welcome any request for additional information regarding this post.