I am a student at the…

I am a student at the University of Toronto, and I use the Bloor bike lanes every day to get to school. I am appalled that the government of Ontario is considering ripping out these vital pieces of infrastructure. The province has justified their decisions using citywide data on bike ridership, but the reason so few people ride bikes in Toronto is simply because the bike lane network is not extensive enough, with few lanes outside the downtown core. The specific bike lanes the province is targeting for removal actually have quite heavy bike traffic, making up up to 15% of total traffic in some areas. If the bike lane network were more fully developed, with more parts of the city accessible by bike, this number would increase, taking polluting cars off the road and giving more people a healthy and enjoyable option to commute. On the flip side, as bike lanes are removed, accidents and cyclist fatalities will increase, and people will be forced to take another mode of transportation or put their lives at risk. Furthermore, historical data shows that reducing bike lanes does not reduce congestion, as former cyclists become drivers who take up much more space on the roads. The city of Toronto has been building towards a world-class bike network over the past few years, and Bill 212 would be a huge step back based on misguided intentions and distorted data. Instead of spending millions of dollars on destroying infrastructure, the province spending it on building transit, which will actually improve congestion, and on healthcare and education, which will actually improve the lives of Ontarians.