This bill tries to make…

This bill tries to make riding bikes within cities into a culture war to distract from some of the very shady acts buried within. The OCP is well aware that their acts set out in schedules 1, 2, 3, and 5 would be wildly unpopular with the majority of Ontarians so they appear to have hidden it behind this attack on bikes and urban mobility.

I am strongly opposed to all of the acts mentioned above.

Here are my comments surrounding the act from schedule 4:

This act conveniently ignores the fact that there isn't enough space in the city of Toronto for everyone to drive their own car everywhere they want to go. You could remove bike lanes and sidewalks, pave over parks and front lawns to add more lanes and we would still have crippling traffic and gridlock. This is not a political argument, it's a physics one. We have traffic and gridlock because cars and car parking take up too much of the limited space within a highly populated city.

The only proven way to reduce traffic is to provide viable alternatives to driving. When you give people other ways of of getting from point A to point B, you take cars off the road and reduce traffic for those who need to drive. Cars should not be the only way to around the city and should instead be one of several transportation options that includes public transit, bikes, and walking. When I'm driving, I love to see cyclists because it means one less car in my lane. And it's great to have them in their own lane so I don't get stuck behind them and I don't need to be as worried about anyone getting hurt.

The statements from the Premier about bike lane usage is extremely deceitful. Much of the city does not have bike lanes so people living in or travelling to those areas do not have the option to bike. Bike usage in the city will continue to grow as more and more parts of the city become accessible with safe bike lanes. And each time someone chooses to bike instead of drive, it will remove a car from the road. I used to drive or Uber every time I visited friends in the Kensington area because biking down Bathurst was so unsafe. Now that College St has bike lanes, I take my bike instead. It's a circular logic - there are not bike lanes so nobody bikes - then the Premier says 'nobody bikes so we don't need bike lanes'. Imagine if we applied that same logic to car lanes: if we close every cross-street that connects to Bloor we'd have zero cars on Bloor. Then we could conclude that nobody drives on Bloor and we could remove the car lanes!

If you get rid of bike lanes (especially the main arteries of Yonge, Bloor, and University) most people are going to switch back to driving leading to more cars on the road and the same old traffic and gridlock. Some people will continue biking but will be forced to share the road which will further slow down traffic and lead to more conflicts between drivers/riders and many more injuries/deaths.

The OCP should focus on their provincial duties instead of pretending to be the mayor of Toronto. Stay in your lane.