While Bill 212 tackles…

While Bill 212 tackles gridlock, which is an important issue to tackle, removing & making it harder to implement bike lanes is not the way to go about it as bike lanes have a lot of important benefits & often aren't the cause of gridlock. While gridlock is an important thing to consider as it causes a reduction in people's free time, increase of pollution, & general frustration, it is important to note that cycle tracks don't cause much traffic. In a simulation study done by Nanayakkara et al. (2022) it was shown that the inclusion of a cycle track only caused an increase of 7% in travel time (a simulation allows us to remove any factors affecting traffic which aren't just the inclusion of cycle tracks). Gridlock is more likely based upon a growing population (both within the city and suburbs) and little to no expansion of transit options within the past 20 years.

Bike lanes also have a lot of benefits which include economic, health, & equity within our communities. Separated cycle tracks, like the ones which are looking to be removed, drop cyclist-motorist collisions by nearly 20% in Toronto & it should be noted that this effect is only seen with separated cycle lanes and not painted bicycle lanes (Bhatia et al., 2016). The inclusion of separated cycle tracks also helps intersections, the places where most accidents occur, to become safer for all road users (not just cyclists) (Marshall & Ferenchak, 2019). By removing cycle lanes, we may be decreasing the health (e.g. physical activity & pollution) of everybody within our communities. In another meta-analysis done by Pan et al. (2021), it was shown that bike lane accessibility was very positively correlated with physical activity among children & adolescents. This isn't just among children, there are also widespread affects across many health aspects for all age groups (Oja et al., 2011). Another study showed that when you implement cycle lanes vs cycling in the road, it reduces the amount of pollution that cyclists experience by 22% (Schmitz et al., 2021). Also increasing cycling within cities helps to reduce emissions, which helps to fight climate change, which our legislation should be encouraging & not discouraging (Brand et al., 2021). Bike lanes encourage economic activity within communities, based on the findings of a study done in Toronto on Bloor St., which is one of the bike lanes slated to be taken out (Aranciba et al., 2019). In a study done on Toronto, Faghih Imani et al. (2019) show that to increase cycling numbers, we need low-stress cycling options, which are most facilitated by the upgrading of bike lanes into cycle tracks or the decrease of motor vehicle traffic speeds. It is important to note that cycling access is also a gendered issue and if we pass bill 212, Women & other gendered minorities will be most affected by it. In a meta-analysis of cycling information, it was shown that the greatest barriers to women's cycling are the dangers of cars (Nixon & DeLuca, 2012), which can all be mitigated by low-stress cycling options such as separated cycle tracks. By removing & making it harder to implement cycling lanes, we will be decreasing the equity of our transportation options.

Due to bike lanes likely not being the cause of traffic within our cities, we should not be deprioritizing cycling as a transit option by removing them. Bike lanes have a plethora of benefits (not all were listed in this comment as an effort to not make it more longwinded than it already is) & should not be ripped out & made harder to implement. We would be doing our cities & communities a disservice by doing so.

(I recognize that many of these links aren't publicly available & require a paywall to view so please contact me for more information if you cannot view them.)