Thank you for asking for…

Thank you for asking for feedback regarding bike lanes on Bloor and Yonge elsewhere in Ontario. Main corridor streets like Bloor are exactly where we need bike lanes, to support the many vulnerable road users in our city, and their creation has come after years of advocacy by community members, as well as planning, consultation, evidence-based policymaking. These lanes make it safer and easier for cyclists to cross the city, while having a minimal impact on drivers, according to all the research. These lanes keep me and my children safe when we are cycling, and make me feel better when I am driving to know that I don't have to dangerously squeeze past cyclists who don't have space of their own.

Congestion is frustrating in Toronto. Our highways are full, our main streets crammed with cars. Although I cycle to work year-round and bike my small children to school, I am also a driver, so I get the frustration and anger with traffic in the city. Study after study show that bike lanes help small businesses that thrive on local customers and have minimal detrimental effect on traffic congestion. There are many causes of traffic: the increased population density, poor mass transit, massive increase in ride sharing (as shown in multiple studies) and food and other delivery as a new constant presence on our roads, and large ongoing construction projects closing major intersections and rerouting mass transit, not to mention parked cars and poor driving clogging intersections.

We need real solutions, not attacks on positive new infrastructure. Please advocate for vulnerable road users. There is real anger and frustration at the slow traffic in Toronto, but the bike lanes did not cause this traffic, and removing them will cause real harm to Torontonians. Any death or injury that comes to cyclists because they don't have this space provided to them on Toronto's major roads is too many.

Sincerely,