Although I am not a bike…

Although I am not a bike commuter and use my car to drive around the city - removing the bike lanes from the proposed streets will turn Toronto into a faceless and an even more polluted city. Unlike most North American cities, Toronto has been on a right path to create a safe and extended infrastructure for bikes akin to what world class cities like Amsterdam or Copenhagen have. In my opinion, the heavy focus put on increasing the car ridership through the downtown is wrong, especially by removing bike lanes. A wider road is just a band-aid to a bigger issue with the traffic in the city. As the city expands and as more and more residences are being built, the number of cars grows exponentially . If more public transportation and bike infrastructure were in place - perhaps less people would resort to cars and would instead opt for alternatives. The city of Toronto could become a clean, sustainable, easy-to-breathe city but this bill undermines that path and will bring our city’s growth back to the 2000s. We need less cars to have cleaner, safer, and quieter roads, not more lanes for the cars. Walking down the Bloor and Younge street is easy and enjoyable, and in part it is thanks to the bike lanes that keep the cars further from the sidewalks and slow down the traffic. Lastly, it is personally frustrating to see how the premier I voted for uses bike lanes as a means to improve their polls. This bill is outright populist and more information should be made available to the public on how the bike lanes removal will affect the air quality in the city core, how will it decrease the congestion, and what the long-term prospects for the city will be when the car ridership increases. Without all this - removing bike lanes in a madman hurry is unacceptable!