To whom this may concern,…

To whom this may concern,

With all due respect, this proposal makes no sense. You're wasting taxpayer dollars and should stay out of the municipality's lane, pun intended.

1) This proposal makes no sense:
The proposal assumes that converting bike lanes back to motor vehicle lanes will reduce gridlock, yet data from various cities, including Toronto, suggests the opposite. Studies have shown that bike lanes can ease congestion by offering an alternative to driving, reducing the number of vehicles on the road (1,2,&3). Even Toronto's own data shows that travel time got longer and traffic moved slower in the years following the removal of bike lanes on Jarvis Street in 2011 (1). In Toronto, bike lanes on Bloor Street, for example, have resulted in more efficient traffic flow and increased safety for all road users. In New York City, the authors shared figures from the city's transportation department that showed in 2010, before bike lanes were installed on a major midtown thoroughfare, it took the average car 4.5 minutes to travel from 96th Street to 77th Street. After the bike lanes were installed, it took just three minutes — a 35 percent decrease. One of the reasons they cited for the change was the installation of a left-turn lane, which not only kept cyclists moving but also stopped cars from holding up traffic. In some Canadian cities, particularly Montreal, Vancouver and Edmonton, bike lanes are widely used. Montreal has a whopping 1,065 kilometres of bike lanes, and Edmonton has more than 800 kilometres, with more planned.

Even on a simple logical level, if adding "one more lane" fixed traffic congestion issues, why does the 401 still have traffic when passing through Toronto even though new lanes keep getting added? Perhaps giving people an alternative to driving, say a train, would reduce the number of people driving on the 401 to get to their destination. With this same logic, if people had no other way to get around other than by car since you removed the bike lanes, wouldn't that force more people to drive, adding more cars onto the road, and thus making traffic worse? Plenty of evidence seems to back up this thinking (2&3).

Regardless of whether the bike lanes are there or not, people will still bike. Bike lanes make the streets safer for those who choose to bike, without resulting in car traffic congestion. It is common sense that the government's job is to protect citizens. Why not make positive decisions, instead of wasteful decisions, for the people that you represent?

2) You're wasting taxpayer money:
The proposal contradicts the government’s claim of fiscal responsibility. Removing bike lanes wastes the original investment to build them and adds new removal costs. Additionally, the government has spent hundreds of millions on questionable projects, diverting funds from priorities like healthcare and education. Estimates suggest taxpayers could have saved $6-7 billion with more responsible spending from the Ontario Liberal Party's spending.

Your government claims to be against wasting taxpayer money (despite wasting it on getting alcohol in corner stores, 30 million to fight the federal price on carbon, 4 million in ads to fight the feds, 231 million to cancel green renewables to only then start putting them back in again, 30 million failed gas pump stickers, 35 million for an environmental study for 413 highway, 20.8 million wasted on "Building a Better Health System" ads, 13.5 million wasted on "it's happening here" ads, 13.5 million on "Ontario is getting stronger" ads (which for both those ads, didn't you promise to reverse the changes to advertising rules in 2018, but that would be asking you to follow through on campaign promises) I could go on but I think you get the point that your government is terrible at spending ($377.8 MILLION DOLLARS WASTED) on actual priorities like healthcare and education), and ripping up bike lanes wastes the money put in to build them and the money to remove them. Talk about wasteful spending. There is a study by the Fraser Institute that suggests if your government would have spent the same as the Ontario Liberal government, relative to GDP, Ontario taxpayers would have saved between $6 and 7 BILLION DOLLARS. Please stop wasting our money.

3) Stay out of the municipality's lane:
This move directly contradicts the provincial stance against federal interference in provincial matters, as voiced by Doug Ford at the Council of Federation meeting in July 2024. For a government that advocates respecting jurisdiction, this intervention in municipal decisions is inconsistent and overreaching. One might even say hypocritical...

4) Health and safety benefits of biking:
Bike lanes help separate cyclists from car traffic, reducing their exposure to vehicle exhaust and improving respiratory health. In areas where bike lanes are prominent, the decrease in car use also benefits pedestrians and residents by reducing overall air pollution levels.

Removing bike lanes would reduce safe cycling infrastructure, potentially increasing the risk of accidents for cyclists. Cities worldwide have implemented bike lanes as part of “Vision Zero” policies, aiming to reduce traffic fatalities. Reducing bike infrastructure could compromise cyclist safety and increase fatality risks, which contradicts global best practices in urban safety. After the installation of the bike lane, the proportion of visitors who perceived Bloor Street as safe for cycling more than tripled (from 17% to 61%) and doubled among merchants (from 13% to 27%), while perceptions of safety on Danforth, a similar street without bike lanes, dropped (from 22% to 10%). Source (4). Cities with dedicated bike lanes tend to have lower rates of traffic accidents involving cyclists. Fewer injuries mean reduced healthcare costs and less strain on emergency medical services. The cumulative health benefits of increased cycling (i.e., cardiovascular health, stress and anxiety reduction, weight management, musculoskeletal health, development of type 2 diabetes, stroke, and some cancers) can lead to a significant reduction in public healthcare costs. When more people cycle regularly, the community benefits from a healthier population and less demand for medical resources.

5) Benefits to local businesses:
For a government that (falsely) claims it helps local businesses, it has been proven that bike lanes have a positive impact on local businesses (4). Both before and after the bike lane, customers who arrived by foot or on bike reported higher levels of spending on Bloor Street than those arriving by car or transit. The number of businesses that reported 100 customers or more per day increased in the study area on both streets. The percentage of customers cycling to Bloor nearly tripled (from 7% to 20%), a substantially higher increase than on Danforth Avenue, which has no bike lane. The majority of merchants believed that at least 25% of their customers are driving to Bloor; however FEWER THAN 10% of customers reported arriving by car.

To summarize, this proposal is to rip out bike lanes: ineffective at reducing traffic congestion as having alternatives to driving reduces gridlock, a waste of taxpayer money, municipal overreach, will cause serious health and safety risks to bikers and society at large, and will reduce the economic benefits for local businesses. Please stop playing partisan politics and do what is right for the people of Ontario.

Respectfully,
A concerned citizen