Re: Bill 212, ERO number 019…

Re: Bill 212, ERO number 019-9266, Posted by the Ministry of Transportation

Dear Doug Ford and Prabmeet Sarkaria,

I live on the western side of Toronto, not too far from Christie subway and I cycle a lot, all year. It is my preferred method of travel in the city of Toronto. I also use the TTC extensively, walk quite a bit and from time to time, I might use my motorcycle to get around.

Please leave the bike lanes alone. I use the University Ave., Yonge street, and parts (Old Mill to Danforth) of the Bloor St bike lanes extensively and am so much safer because of them. It’s also quick, easy and convenient to not have to zip between different side streets to get from point A to point B to point C.

This removal of existing bike lanes idea in the city of Toronto seems like an extremely knee jerk and misguided response by a provincial government to appease a small section of the Ontario electorate who screamed the loudest.

For your government this seems to be a fait accompli, no matter what comments are submitted or what studies would show, no matter the potential health and lives of Torontonians affected by this. It seems your government has already decided that the possible decrease of a few minutes off of a 40-90 minute car trip to suburbia by people who don’t even live in Toronto and of course would never use a bike lane here is more important than the people who actually live in this city! You’re going to make our lives worse by having more cars - so more pollution and more risk - less bike lanes on easy to navigate and direct routes like Bloor, University and Yonge. Where will the replacement bike lanes be built? How easy, seamless and safe will it be compared to what currently exists? Why not show us the replacement plan? Have any other cities in the world done this? If so, please reference them and show how and why your bike replacement plan is viable.

Whether one voted for Olivia Chow or not, she won the election by promising, among other things, to at least continue the mandate that had begun in earnest by her predecessor of building more safe bike lanes, certainly not removing them. And you certainly didn't campaign on doing this, so to have you decide, without even attempting to come up with any sort of compromise on any section of the three aforementioned bike lanes, strikes me as fundamentally unfair and undemocratic to the people of Toronto.

Great cities around the world lead in public transportation and bike lanes. They don’t remove them or shuffle them off to side streets.

Please do the right thing and leave cycling infrastructure planning and implementation to the municipalities and their constituents. It’s our right!

Thank you,

Michel