Please vote no for this, as…

Please vote no for this, as removing the 3 bike lanes in downtown Toronto looks ineffective, wasteful of our taxpayer money, and counter-productive for Toronto’s economy and neighbourhood safety.

No one likes traffic. But there are far better ways to remove congestion in Toronto. Consider New York City, which also has hundreds of miles of bike lanes. Its system of one way streets adds a lane and removes the gridlock from left & right turners. Toronto’s street parking on major roads like Bathurst also blocks car lanes downtown and adds congestion — for even fewer to benefit. Please do a thoughtful review of what will help the city’s neighbourhoods thrive and drivers’ commutes before jumping to knee-jerk reversals for systems that weren’t working well before either.

There is also a safety concerns with removing lanes on these busy streets. We spent years teaching the local communities to bike these streets for their weekly routines. I’ve seen cargo bikes with kids become a common sighting on Bloor. The bikes will not disappear when these lanes are removed. Commuters and community members will get hurt. There were good reasons these lanes were installed.

Let’s address the traffic congestion in a manner that is productive and farsighted.