As a healthcare worker in a…

As a healthcare worker in a downtown Toronto Hospital: many of our downtown healthcare workers ( nurses, admin staff, mental health workers, environmental workers etc) live and work downtown. Many of us are not high earners. Driving to work would mean high costs for parking, gas, insurance and maintenance. Many of us cycle to work to provide the city with healthcare. We want to come and go safely. We want to stay healthy and active. Sitting in a car, driving to go to work, paying expensive parking fees and running the risks of being rear ended by people texting while driving is not my idea of “smart living”.

Taking away bike lanes is dangerous, wasteful, and a short sighted solution to solving a traffic problem.

Not only are there more cars coming into the city each day, cars have also tripled in size. No wonder people like taking their bikes and leaving the gridlock behind. Please don’t punish cyclists for the increased car/truck traffic.

There are other ways to reduce traffic:
- put a customer paid tax on (Amazon) delivery so people think twice about having cars come to their doorstep every time they’re in need of something
- create incentives that encourage people to cycle more (eg bikelanes)
- encourage car pooling
- increase reliable public transportation downtown, so more people will use it.
- increase taxes according to income in ways that actually makes a difference.

Please don’t make decisions based on the loud voices of a few. Families rely on these bike lanes. No more white bikes attached to street poles to indicate another death.