This legislation is…

This legislation is ridiculous. It is blatantly targeting the city if Toronto. It gives decision making powers about municipal affairs to the province. And there is no evidence it will reduce gridlock in our city.

The legislation specifically mentions 3 sections of bike lanes within the city of Toronto that will be replaced with car lanes if this legislation is approved. Bike lanes in other cities aren't mentioned, only vaguely mentioning that bike lane previously or planned to be installed will need to be approved by the provincial government where that bike lane replaced or will replace a car lane.

Traffic infrastructure within each city should be the decision of municipal governments not the provincial government, unless that infrastructure connects multiple cities. The province has countless other responsibilities it should be focused on rather than add one more thing to their plate: healthcare worker retention and turnover, lack of health care service availability, the backlog of medically necessary surguries, long wait times in emergency rooms and doctors offices, large classroom sizes, teacher retention, updating curriculums, gridlock on provincial highways. It just does not make sense to add more red tape requiring the attention of an already strapped provincial government for a decision that should be the sole discretion of municipal governments.

The provincial government has failed to produce any relevant data to support their claim that replacing bike lanes with car lanes will reduce gridlock. Evidence from around the world shows that installing more car lanes may improve vehicular congestion temporarily, but eventually leads to the same or worse conditions that before the installation of more car lanes as more people are incentivized to drive. The only logical way to reduce car traffic is by giving people options and incentive to travel by different modes. Modes that are more efficient at moving more people: trains, buses, light rail, bikes, walking. By getting people out of cars and into these other modes of transportation, there will be less cars on the road, reducing traffic and removing gridlock.

I've lived in Toronto most of my life, but I have been fortunate enough to have travelled around the world. I have seen first hand how government investment in public and alternative modes of transportation positively impact the people who live in those places. Investment in alternative modes of transportation improves people's health by allowing them to use active modes of transportation. It saves lives by protecting those not in a large motorized vehicle from those large motorized vehicles. It allows people to see people in the place they live, not just cars whizzing by. It increasing business to smaller businesses by increasing foot traffic to their front door.

We should be building our cities for people, not for cars. And that means we should be providing people with a means to get around other than by car. This bill is focused only on cars and reduces access to infrastructure supporting an alternative mode of transportation. It is the direct opposite of what we need to reduce gridlock. It is a terrible plan and I absolutely do not support it.