I am fully supportive of the…

I am fully supportive of the proposed legislation that will mandate the removal of "hard" bike lanes on major arteries such as Bloor Street West in Etobicoke and University Avenue in Toronto. Those lanes endanger public safety, cause environmental harm, economic harm and add to the gridlock choking Toronto.

The simple, painted bike lanes present in many cities including Toronto make perfect sense but the unique, unsightly 'hard', dedicated bike lanes, protected by vertical posts and cement barriers which were recently installed along Bloor West and other major arteries are a disaster.

Proponents of these hardened bike lanes claim, incredibly, that their installation is not responsible for any of their obvious negative impacts including worsened gridlock. But "the science is settled", to coin a phrase: The removal of 50% of anything usually has observable impacts. In this case, the dramatic narrowing of Bloor Street West from South Kingsway to Kipling from four lanes to two in order to permit the installation of little-used hardened bike lanes has easily observable negative impacts.

First, and most seriously, they harm public safety: fire, police and emergency services vehicles' response times have increased as a direct result of the bike lane installations on Bloor. These vehicles, sirens blaring, lights flashing, are trapped in the gridlock caused by the hardened bike lanes, unable to move. They cannot get through because on lengthy stretches of the route there is nowhere for vehicles in front of them to pull over: traffic can no longer pull far enough to the right to allow fire trucks, police and ambulances to get through: They are blocked by the cement bike lane barriers.

Longer emergency response times that endanger lives and property on a daily basis are not a reasonable price to pay for bike lanes.

The restrictive design of the hardened bike lanes also endangers those trying to park in the bizarrely-relocated parking lane on Bloor: it is now in the middle of what used to be a lane of traffic. Instead of being next to the sidewalk, the parking lane is now a narrow space sandwiched between the remaining lane of traffic on the left and a hardened bike lane on the right. Ironically, these parking lanes are also dangerous to the few cyclists who use the lanes. People attempting to exit a parked car on the left, (drivers' side) are much greater risk of being struck by a passing car and those exiting on the right hand side of the car are now at risk of being struck by a cyclist.

Or, they could be struck by an electric skateboard or scooter user in the bike lane, and there are actually more people on those devices using the 'bike lanes' on Bloor than pedal-powered cyclists. These electric vehicles travel about 40 kms an hour in the bike lane, usually faster than car and truck traffic on the adjacent roadway.

And of course, cyclists/scooter/skateboard users are also risk serious injury or worse when they impact a person or a car door that has opened into the bike lane from the narrow parking lane.

Second, far from decreasing negative environmental impacts, the bike lanes in question have increased them. Vehicles, the vast majority powered by gasoline, now spend more time stewing in gridlock than previously, inching along, spewing exhaust gases into surrounding neighbourhoods.

Many drivers, impatient with the gridlock, are now diverting through those same neighbourhoods, desperately looking for ways to reduce the amount of time trapped in traffic.

Third, the logical result of installing hardened bike lanes on a major artery such as Bloor is an increase in gridlock, which now occurs not only east and westbound on Bloor for much of the day, from Islington to South Kingsway, but also north and southbound on Royal York Road, from earlier in the morning to later in the evening. This unavoidable 'collateral gridlock" sees traffic regularly backed up on Royal York south of Bloor from that street to Norseman and north of Bloor nearly to Dundas, even at 2:30 in the afternoon. The constrictions on Bloor have, logically, led to the north-south backups on Royal York because left and right turns from Royal York onto Bloor take longer, just as travel along Bloor takes longer. It's not rocket science: It's bike lane science.

Gridlock affects everyone, not just drivers in private vehicles. Everyone who depends on the TTC buses on Royal York, including students and workers are also unfairly and unreasonably impacted by the hardened bike lanes used by very few. Does the city really need to make the lives of TTC bus travellers harder and more inconvenient?

For all the above reasons, it is sadly necessary for the Ontario government to act to undo the harm done by Toronto City Council. In a city beset by inadequate public transit and gridlock, the decision to further restrict and choke access to the city by the nefarious installation of hardened bike lanes on major arteries is incomprehensible.

The mayor and councillors should take note of some recent advice from Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi. Although he was not, of course, referring to bike lanes in Toronto, his views on the role of government generally are worth following:

“I believe government should try to solve the biggest problems that affect the largest number of people.”

Finally, complaints about the cost of removing the hardened bike lanes pales in comparison to the costs of not removing them. In addition to the easily observable health and environmental impacts, the economic costs to businesses along the route are significant.