I am incredibly unhappy…

I am incredibly unhappy about this plan. Our city and province should be focusing on creating bike lanes to better connect our current network, not destroy them. Yes, we need better ways to get people moving and congestion is an issue in the GTA. However, all over the world studies CONSISTENTLY show that bike lanes ease congestion and have many other benefits such as improving health (through exercise and air quality improvements). Conversely - research also consistently shows that adding capacity to roads does not ease congestion but instead often invites more cars and makes congestion worse.

The argument that this will improve congestion just isn't based in fact. Yes some people need to drive. However, we need to be focusing on providing alternate opportunities for people to move through the city that are not car based - this includes bikes lanes but more importantly a focus on transit. Only through providing people with good alternatives to driving will behaviours change and people use these alternatives. It won't happen overnight. I'm happy that this government is creating the Ontario line - we need more of this kind of forward thinking and planning. The taxpayer dollars that will be spent ripping up the bikes lanes should be allocated to transit improvements, not something that falsely promises to ease congestion but will ultimately invite more. This is such short term, costly thinking.

If usage of Toronto's bike lanes is a concern/argument against their existence (they are used though - I see it all the time), consider this. Is there the right network connecting them all so that people can safely traverse the city? In some places there isn't, and looking to fix this problem would help improve usage and assist with easing congestion. Also, looking at clearing them properly during the winter like Montreal does would improve winter usage and ease issues after winter storms

Let's keep Toronto a world-class, forward thinking city by keeping the bikes lanes and focusing on diversity in our transportation network instead of only thinking of cars.