This bill is an overstep and…

This bill is an overstep and gross mishandling of tax dollars.
Firstly I will cover what the media has covered:

The handling of bike lanes by adding more bureaucracy on a provincial level not only makes it even more expensive and tedious to build. It also brings the representation and autonomy of municipalities into further question. What is the point of a mayor and a municipality if they can't even build bike lanes?

Not only does it affect that, it also is a safety hazard. Bloor St's bike lane was built because people died biking on it. There was an elderly lady who was dragged under a truck biking on the road. Bike lanes, protected bike lanes, protect people.

Bike lanes also reduce traffic. As people are given the option to bike, they won't take the car. Each car on the road increases traffic exponentially. (please refer to link1). So by removing bike lanes, congestion will only increase as it leaves more space for cars, which will be filled up by cars quickly.

The financial cost of this is also something to question. These bike lanes are young. And cost a few million to install already. Then to remove them, it will cost even more millions of dollars. It is a waste of money to sate the feelings of a few people who see cyclists pass them in traffic.
Mind you, the cyclist being faster than the car, despite cars having more lanes than bikes, should be a suggestion to think that perhaps cars are not an ideal mode of transportation.

Now onto the meat of the bill:
This bill pushes forth Highway 413. A highway that bypasses the 401 and the 407 by bypassing Brampton while going from Vaughan to the edge of Mississauga.

Firstly this highway does not seem to be helpful in any regard. It is a large detour for most motorists. To add to this, if highway 413 was a toll road, it would reduce its impact even more as people would not use it.

Once again referring to the study (among others that exist), more vehicles means more traffic. Meaning more space for cars and trucks means more cars and trucks, means more traffic. Highway 413, if used effectively by the people, will only cause more traffic in the area and would not reduce congestion in the long term. Your own documents show this.

The financial cost of highway 413 is also quite high, and it would be a long construction project with not only a large environmental impact, but also a large cost. $4 billion is a conservative estimate of the cost. This cost could be used elsewhere to actually provide alternatives to cars, thus relieving congestion.
We could be building rails to increase service on the GO. Not just on the lakeshore lines, but also in other areas. What if we connected the rails between Bramela and Lisgar to allow freight to bypass more of the GTA. This would allow GO trains greater access to the rail network that exists in the GTA, providing much greater connection than any highway could provide. An example of this can be found in Link3.

You might ask "how much better can a train be?" The daily average ridership of GO Transit in 2024 was 275,900 people.
That rivals parts of the 401 in people moved. And that is with a considerably smaller footprint, and a fairly cheaper operation (especially if you include the cost of a each individual vehicle). If we expanded the service of the GO, not only in frequency on existing lines, but also opening new lines on previous freight lines, this would provide a much greater relief to traffic by providing the alternative to driving that many people need and want.

This car-based obsession is a ridiculous notion that must be left behind. I myself enjoy a good drive now and then, but I do not enjoy traffic, and I do not enjoy the stress of driving on a busy highway. I like many others, would rather and do take the train when possible and convenient. We should strive to provide alternatives to driving, not because we don't want people to drive, but because we want people to have the CHOICE to choose to drive or not to. At the moment the design of the GTA is very car-oriented, to the chagrin of many residents who for various reasons either suffer financially by having to maintain a car, or cannot drive due to disability, or are otherwise stressed and infuriated by the inability to access amenities because it is only reasonably accessible by car.

I implore you to scrap the majority of this bill. All it will do is cost the province money and increase traffic.