A comment about the proposed…

A comment about the proposed removal of bike lanes in the city of Toronto.

I believe that the removal on the any bike lane, but in particular the Bloor bike lane would be detrimental to the city of Toronto for the following reasons.

1. It would hurt businesses.

Local businesses rely on local customers as their base, this means it is important for people that live near-by to have easy access to these businesses. For busy streets like Bloor or Yonge in downtown Toronto, easy access is rarely by car, it is often much easier to take a bike to a local store than a car.
By definition this bill is meant to reduce traffic but in removing bike lanes it will make more people drive locally and increase traffic.

Another issue the removal of bike lanes will create is that since more car will be required to be on the road, they will require parking spots. If those spots end up being on-street parking, any proposed traffic speed up will be non-existing as the lanes will be blocked anyway. If the parking is not on the main street, it will not be useful for going to a local store and will create issues for any local resident that may have their spots taken.
At the moment the Bloor bike lanes allow for there to be both a bike lane and on-street parking. Their removal would mean either the parking would need to be removed along side them, or remain and bring no difference to throughput of traffic as parking would continue to occupy a lane.

These two things, a lack of easy bike access, and a lack of easy car access (from a lack of parking) would mean that local business would suffer a loss of customers who would opt for now more convenient options like amazon or other types of delivery services (I know I would). This again would only add to traffic.

We have seen that businesses along long existing bike lanes support them and want to keep them, for example the Bloor-Annex BIA has come out in support for them.

It seems strange to me that a government as pro-business as the current one would force a decision on businesses that would harm them.

2. It reduces the mobility of people who do not own cars

The city of Toronto is a divers place, and I don't only mean ethnically. There are people from all walks of life, students, kids, professionals, construction workers, lawyers, delivery drivers, etc.
For some of these people cars may be the easier mode of transportation, but for many it is not.
Kids cannot drive until they are 16, and then need to be able to afford a car to use one. Students are also often not able to afford a motor vehicle. Are these groups of people not important? Should they not be given a way to travel around the city?

Bike lanes help bikers travel safely through the city, and they are doubly useful for kids. Kids are short and hard to see from a car, and they are learning to navigating travel in a city.

Kids have places to be, school, the library, piano class, soccer practice, etc. If kids old enough to go to these alone had the ability to commute using bike lanes, parents would not be required to drive them there, again reducing cars on the road (and thus traffic).

Beyond kids, there are a lot of people in the city that do not own cars. Sometimes it is a preference, sometimes it is because of cost. In a increasingly expensive city, why would we remove infrastructure that helps people save money? Why should only those who can afford a car be prioritised over other inhabitants of the city?

3. Removing bike lanes will not improve the roads.

I've mentioned it above, bike lanes help create roads that more usable. They allow for parking to exist along side them. They also mean that bikes and cars are separated. This is great for bikes as it is much safer for them, but it is also great for drivers that don't need to deal with a bike being in front of them biking slowly, or a bike they do not expect coming up along side them.
Reducing the amount of bike on the road proper is in the interest of everyone. Less interactions between bikes and cars means less accidents, less dead bikers and less traffic causing incidents.

4. Red tape

The city should be building infrastructure. Bike lanes, streets, parks, libraries, public transit, parking lots. Adding red tape for this will mean this infrastructure will be delayed and more expensive than needed. Using tax payer money to remove something tax payers money was used to build is expensive and wasteful.

Personal experience:
I can tell you from personal experience that since living in an area with more bike lanes my live has been made much easier and much nicer. I use my bike nearly every day to commute, to go grocery shopping, to go see friends, to go to the gym, etc.
I don't bike because I'm a bike nut, I bike because it is the fastest, cheapest, most reliable way for me to get around; and bike lanes help make that a reality.
Removing bike lanes on Bloor, Yonge and University would make my trips longer (the most direct driving routes currently do not include bike lanes and are still slower than biking), more dangerous or more expensive.
I spend much less time commuting now, in an area with bike lanes, than I did living in other areas of the city with none. This is in part BECAUSE of bike lanes, not in spite of them.

I think the removal of any important part of the Bloor bike lane will be seen in the future as one of the worst mistakes in Toronto's history. Let's avoid it now.