Ever since getting an e-bike…

Ever since getting an e-bike, I now spend 90% of my time traveling in the city by bike. The other 10% is on TTC when it's poor conditions to ride. I may take a car once or twice a year if I take an Uber.

This act makes me think that I HAVE to buy a car to solve congestion issues. Think about that for a second, because it makes absolutely no sense.

When I hear that the city wants to remove bike Lanes, I'm literally getting the impression that Doug Ford wants me to buy a car and stop biking because it will be safer and faster.

How will buying a car and using that as my main form of transportation solve congestion? If I'm already commuting and getting around the city by bike, convincing more people to do what I'm doing will get less cars off the road and improve the flow of traffic in the city.

I'm also not taking TTC, which eases pressure on that system as well.

Drivers in Toronto absolutely terrify me, because nobody looks when they're turning corners, they don't give me space, and I am constantly at threat about getting run over and killed. The reason this happens? It's because of poor bike infrastructure.

I implore anyone thinking of this act as a good idea to look into actual research about long-term benefits for bike infrastructure and making a city accessible by many different transportation means. All the evidence points to more accessibility creating safer and better flowing cities. And there's also research to backup the fact that if you add another lne of traffic, more people will travel that route and make it just as backed up if not worse than before.

To recap, traffic is bad in the city is because too many people drive. TTC is too overburden and unreliable to be a good form of transportation for a lot of people, and bike infrastructure isn't good enough to have people willing to bike around. Instead everybody takes a car. If you want to ease congestion, you need to make it easier for people to get around by more efficient means.

If traveling by car is the most efficient way of getting around, that's what people are going to use, and the city can't sustain that.

I've cited a few sources, but I implore you to do your own research. Cycling around the city is healthy, efficient, doesn't take up space, puts less burden on public transit, and has many benefits over driving. Bikes can easily get out of the way of emergency vehicles. I want to keep riding and enjoying riding, And I want to see the city get safer and more accessible. Adding biking infrastructure will do that, taking it away won't.