Good day, I am writing…

Good day,

I am writing regarding removing of bike lanes which my wife and I do not support.

We live very close to Bloor and Yonge street and visit both quite often. Recently we have been on Bloor and I was standing outside and was watching traffic, both cars and bikes. Quite often on a bike lane there were 8-10 or sometimes even more people riding a bike at any given 5 minutes time period. Now imagine, all those people going back to the cars if those bike lanes are removed. I would like to emphasis the number of people: 8 to 10 people in 5 minutes! It's around 100+ people in an hour! Please try to visualize the sheer number of cars on a road instead of a single bike lane. I do - it will be a nightmare.

Of course, you could say, not everyone will get back to the cars: some will still ride bikes (I am sure not a lot because it's not going to be safe anymore), some will choose to walk or take public transit. Public transit is another painful topic here, but to simplify it, it's not going to be viable for many who ride the bike. They are choosing cycling not without a purpose behind it: it is quick, it is (or has become recently) safe, relatively cheap and very reliable (that you cannot say about the public transportation). Thus, why removing this option?

This mode of transportation is crucial, especially in the downtown and other areas with high population density, mainly because there is not much space (ta-da!). Where less cars will benefit the areas much more in the long run than the vice versa: less noise, dust and more space. The bike lanes, in my opinion, also make streets look much more pleasing to the eye in comparison to what it was before.

My wife and I lived in the Netherlands for 10 months before moving to Canada in 2015 and we, to this day, do not own a car but don't cycle either. We don't do the latter because it is still not safe, in our opinion. We live near Avenue Rd and St. Clair, where the bike lanes haven't unfortunately reach us yet, therefore we feel that way. Whereas, during the 10 months being in the Netherlands, we loved renting the bikes (we would buy a permanent bike if we knew we would stay there permanently) and enjoying cycling in the country side or the city. If you ask any Dutch person if they would like to remove the bike lanes - they would say "No". Because it is now a part of their culture. Even though, it was a painful process of removing car and installing bike lanes at some point in 70s or 80s (I don't remember exactly) - everyone now agree that it was a correct decision. And we here in Ontario are trying to destroy this important step forward and move back the decade? We are already 40-50 years late! It just does not sound right.

Let's go back to 2015. Bloor and Yonge at that point in time both had 2 car lanes, correct? But were all those car lanes used for traffic? No. The nearest lane to the side walk had always been a place for parking. Essentially, making the 2 lanes road into 1 lane anyway. Ok, not exactly 1 lanes but 1.5. But would the car be able to shrink into that 0.5 lane? No it would not. Therefore, we cannot talk about those roads as full 2 lane roads. And back in 2015 both Yonge and Bloor were un-drivable. There were always issues with traffic. Even though, we are pedestrians, we still notice it. We noticed how bad the traffic was on those streets, it does not look any different now with bike lanes (in regards to traffic). Not even a little (with an exception, that the cyclists are now protected and can move almost without any restrictions in the direction where they want to go instead of being stuck in traffic; and the street looks much nicer and it is pleasant to walk on it).

I would also like to pay attention to a very smart planning of the bike lanes in those streets. Even though, the lane on those roads were removed, parking spaces were not! Maybe, there is less parking... maybe... but not by much. And those parking spaces do not block the traffic lanes anymore how it was in 2015! I would just like to congratulate the city planners with this achievement, it is truly remarkable. And now you want to remove this achievement? That is unthinkable.

There are many other comments that I would like to make which would oppose this bill in its entirety, but I do not have much time, unfortunately, at this time. I have decided to make this comment when I learnt that I can do it.

The only additional thought that I would like to make that in my opinion, the deterioration of the road condition is mostly related to the boom of construction projects (University Ave. especially) in the city that it has not seen in the decades and many people are still reluctant of abandoning their vehicles as the mode of transportation. Mainly, because of a current situation with a public transportation. It is in a bad state (even though it is questionably better that anywhere in NA, it is still far behind Europe). Yes, the introduction of Presto was a crucial achievement, but since then not much is done. The subway is unreliable, every time I go down there I don't know when I will get to the point of my trip (and if I get there in time). It has become unsafe and in some cases dirty and unpleasant to use - it is much nicer to be in your own vehicle than riding in the subway, even if you are stuck in traffic. Streetcars, at least on St Clair line (512), are very unreliable as well: a lot of bunching and not sticking to the schedule. Quite often the wait time there is 15 or more minutes. Thus, my wife and I often take Uber/Taxi (which is expensive but not as much as owning the car) or simply walk home/to work because it is faster to do so than waiting for the next street car. Then I ask it again, why do we spend time, attention, energy and tax money on removing something that is so beneficial to the society as the bike lanes and not spend all of it on fixing the public transportation? That's just beyond me. A good and reliable public transportation will ease the traffic pressure in the city in addition to the bike lanes - removing the bike lanes will never fix issues with subway/streetcars/buses and therefore traffic issues.

Thank you for taking your time to read this through. I hope I described my point of view sufficiently to plant the doubts into this plan. And I apologize for my grammar and some inconsistent writing style because I don't have time to make it better.

Best Regards
Your Canadian citizens