City planners have long…

City planners have long known (and there is a plethora of academic literature to support this) that you can't build your way out of congestion. The way to reduce congestion is to increase viable choices for transportation. Separated bike lanes are a proven way to increase the number of people using bicycles for commuting and errand trips. While this may not be 'common sense,' it is well researched and there is little to no debate about it among city and regional planners (and I have a masters in community and regional planning, so this is within my area of expertise).

In addition, this is horrific overreach. The provincial government has more than enough of it's own problems to solve and given the pace of addressing many of them, not enough capacity to effectively address them. There is no way the provincial government has the bandwidth to take on issues that can and should be addressed by municipal governments. Stay in your lane!