The proposal seeks to remove…

The proposal seeks to remove bike lanes from Bloor, Yonge, and University and redesignate them to vehicles. The purported justification for this is that “Recognizes that accidents and lane closures can worsen traffic congestion and impact the quality of life of Ontarians.” Note that the justification says that lane closures (to vehicles) can worsen traffic congestion. This is a conceptual possibility. But the fact that worsening traffic congestion is a conceptual possibility does not show that bike lanes on Bloor, Yonge, and University do in fact worsen traffic congestion.

The main reason to doubt this is that opening bike lanes gives an incentive for people to not use cars. All else being equal, this would improve traffic conditions, not worsen them. So, just because lane closures to vehicles can worsen traffic congestion does not mean that they will worsen traffic congestion. This is because bike lanes can improve traffic conditions by providing an incentive for people to bike rather than drive.

Of course, this does not mean that we must have bike lanes (we must look carefully at the actual data). However, this does mean that this proposal’s reasons are not good, and should thus be rejected.