I'm a young medical…

I'm a young medical professional living in Toronto, and I commute by biking to work all year round. My parents live in the GTA and I have a car parked at their place. If you accept this bill, then I will not feel safe cycling anymore and will move my car downtown. Is that helping gridlock? Adding another car to the congestion downtown instead of just letting me bike?

When I go onto the busy bike lanes targeted by this bill (e.g., college, university, bloor), I count hundreds of cyclists every hour. We take up very little space when we wait at red lights, but imagine if all of us were in cars instead. How much worse would you make congestion?

Every bike on the road is one less car. I know MANY individuals who only bike commute in Toronto because of bike lanes. I am one of these people—I like how bikes reduce the number of cars, help me keep fit, and save the environment. Keep bike lanes and help me get to the Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto General Hospital, Mt. Sinai safely, and make it so that I don't need to bring another car downtown and add to the congestion.

You might argue every bike isn't one less car, because lots of people don't own cars downtown (unlike how I own a car and choose not to use it). That's true, but remember that people will use ubers or taxis too. Think about all the congestion near union station. Every time I take bikeshare to union station and take the go train to visit my partner or parents outside of DT, I prevent one more taxi/uber from blocking the way on Front St. I wouldn't bike down without the university avenues bike lanes.

Please incentivize biking, build the infrastructure for it, people LOVE it (hint: bikeshare grew 24% in 2023, to 5.7 million riders). You'll remove so many cars/traffic. Nobody has ever asked the government to remove bike lanes, you are ignoring your people. Most drivers would rather there be 100 bikes instead of 100 extra personal cars/ubers/taxis in front of them + one more car lane.