I am opposed to this…

I am opposed to this proposed Bill for the following reasons:

Reality of Geography

"The Toronto ravine system is a distinctive feature of the city's geography, consisting of a network of deep ravines, which forms a large urban forest that runs through most of Toronto. The ravine system is the largest in any city in the world," [Wikipedia]

Toronto is blessed to have many ravines to enjoy. However, ravines create natural barriers to the flow of all traffic, requiring bridges for transportation to cross (roads, rial and subway). For example, East-West travel crossing the Humber River must funnel over only three bridge corridors: Lakeshore/Queensway, Bloor Street, or Dundas. There are no alternatives. This essentially repeats at Mimico Creek, a kilometer or so further along. The result, of course, is that all traffic is forced on to these busy crossings.

A similar situation occurs with the west end rail corridor from the Junction to Union Station. The only East-West routes across are at King, Queen, Dundas, Bloor and Dupont.

It has been suggested that cyclists should use secondary streets instead of main arterial roads. The fact is there are no East-West routes in the west end that cross these barriers without funneling onto the main arterials. We have no choice, there are no alternatives.

Conflicts with the Charter of Rights

"The Charter protects everyone against unreasonable laws that could lead to…. harm their physical safety……laws should not have a severe impact on people’s rights to life,….or security of the person." [Government of Canada www.justice.gc.ca]

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms specifically protects Canadians from unreasonable laws that could lead to harm or threats to physical safety. It is indisputable that separated bike lanes provide better protection from vehicular traffic than shared lanes. Thus, it follows then that the removal of existing bike lanes to force cyclists to use roadways unprotected from vehicles would be a contravention of the Charter. Removal of existing bike lanes would constitute an unreasonable law.

Subways

It must be pointed out that the routes in question, Bloor, Yonge and University also coincide with our subway system. We have invested tremendous amounts of taxpayer money in this system. We should be encouraging drivers to use this means of transportation instead of expecting free flowing vehicular traffic. Removing bike lanes to theoretically allow better flow of vehicles would act against this.