I strongly oppose this bill…

I strongly oppose this bill as its premise is flawed. Bike lanes form the basis of efficient, reliable, equitable, and ecological transportation in Toronto. They are critical not just for cyclists, but for wheelchair and assisted mobility vehicle users with diverse needs. Given its rapidly increasing population and its high population density, it is a basic geometric fact that there is insufficient space for a majority of its citizens to drive and store their personal cars in the city.

The installation of bike lanes is already done after substantial transportation planning and modelling, and study results after their installation almost never supports the idea that they worsen adjacent car traffic. The phenomenon of induced demand has been well-studied over decades, and the idea that bike lanes cause gridlock has been disproved in dozens of studies worldwide. Instead, there is substantial evidence that bike lanes in urban areas either do not affect or can slightly alleviate vehicle traffic due to their efficiency and the reduced potential for conflicts with other road users.

This bill is not only ignorant of these facts, but fails to grasp the irony that its framework is likely to result in the opposite effect - increased congestion, longer travel times, and greater traffic injuries.

On top of this is the concerning overreach of provincial oversight into city planning and development. Cities in Ontario have the most informed data on their local infrastructure and the most active and vested interest in acting on that data to the benefit of their citizens. Every planning problem is complex and nuanced, and each municipality should have the freedom to build the transportation infrastructure that fits their unique needs the best. The blanket one-size-fits-all framework proposed in Bill 212 robs cities of their ability to make and apply informed infrastructure decisions that fit their needs best.