There is so much wrong with…

There is so much wrong with this bill so I'll try to go through as much as I can.

First of all, I live in Ottawa. It feels like major government overreach for Queen's Park to make these types of decisions for my city. Where to add or remove bike lanes should be up to the city, not the province. Many of the proposed removals are in Toronto so far as well. That feels like a complete waste to me that my tax dollars are going to rip up the city of Toronto's biking infrastructure as well. That should be up to them.

It has been proven many times over that adding more car lanes only reduces congestion for around 6 months at best. This is a term called "induced demand" The gist of it is that initially, the regular users of the roadway get more space but as more people start using the roadway due to reduced traffic, it ends up getting congested again. Look no further than the 401. It's somewhere near 18 lanes at its widest point yet it still has a traffic problem. This also happens in many American cities like Houston and Los Angeles.

Another point I would like to make is that bike lanes actually help traffic by taking more cars off the road. It gives people who may not even want to drive more options to get around. I live in a suburb with really poor cycling infrastructure and a lack of anything close unless you drive a car. To get to my nearest grocery store by bike, it takes me near 30 minutes. If there were any stores within 10-15 minutes by bike, I would choose the bike every single time over my car. Cars take up more room on the road than bikes too. The best way to reduce traffic is to get people out of cars and give them viable alternatives like better public transport and cycling. Look at European cities like Amsterdam or Copenhagen or even all the way in Tokyo. Less people drive in those places because their alternatives are so much better than ours here in Ontario. Even look at how quickly Montreal has embraced bikes.

Removing the lanes will make it more dangerous for cyclists. Without protected lanes especially, many cyclists will still be on the road. Moving them to side streets won’t always be an alternative like the bill proposes. Now their chances of getting hit my a car will be significantly increased. If you follow hockey, you have heard of the death of Johnny Gaudreau. He was hit and killed by a drunk driver while riding his bike on the side of the road. Had there been a protected lane, he would not have been in that situation in the first place. Now, all those cyclist who currently use protected lanes across Ontario will be more at risk of a similar fate.

For a government that prides itself on removing red tape and "getting things moving", this sure adds a lot more red tape and slows decision making down. You have lost my support and confidence. I'll leave a few links and videos below that support my claims and i strongly urge to look at them and scrap this bill.