As a person who cannot…

As a person who cannot afford a car, and who cannot rely on the underfunded TTC to reliably get me where I need to go on time, I rely on the safety of bike lanes to get me around the City of Toronto.

I have been harassed, honked at, and treated violently by vehicle operators, as well as hit on my bike three times and doored once while using roadways that were not equipped with bike lanes. Bike lanes, especially the protected lanes on Bloor and University keep me alive on my daily commute.

Further, bike lanes do not increase congestion. Building highways instead of bike lanes and instead of funding public transit initiatives increases congestion more—the more highways are built, the more a car culture dominates our cities and provinces. It is more environmentally friendly, especially within a climate crisis, to be investing in public transportation such as trains, busses, streetcars, and subways to decrease traffic, rather than building new highways which will only serve to increase traffic more. Why? Because highways are an industrial complex, meaning their presence alone increases their need and use.

“The government’s investment in infrastructure depends upon said infrastructure’s ability to serve the interests of industry and capital”— and doesn’t serve the needs of the environment or the people. “Exhaust emissions of the vehicles that drive on roads ‘pollute the atmosphere with gases that raise global temperatures and make the air less safe to breathe.’ In 2014, light-duty vehicles – vehicles that have a gross vehicle weight under 8,500 pounds – alone produced around 12% of Canada’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In 2019, the Canadian federal government reported that 25% of Canada’s total GHG emissions came from transportation. By comparison, about 26% of the country’s total GHG emissions were generated by the oil and gas sector. Moreover, the wear and tear of car tires and brake pads also contributes to microplastic pollution. Researchers estimate that tire wear and tear make up 5-10% of all plastics that end up in the ocean and 3-7% of the particulate matter in the air. These microplastics, which have already entered our food chains, are hazardous to the health of animals, especially marine creatures, and may also be hazardous to humans.” This quote is from an article I have linked below. This is not new information. This bill is clearly negligent and irresponsible, foreclosing the very real risks cars and highways pose to our environment.

So why destroy the bike lanes that cyclist commuters rely on to get across the city each and every day, and why invest in highway infrastructure that will ultimately serve to further pollute our environment under the auspices of “decongesting” the province and its cities? Why invest in a culture of cars and their rhetoric of individualism, when we could be investing in making safe and accessible communities where cyclists can safely navigate the city and where we can depend on public transit to reliably get us to where we need to be. I am utterly against Bill 212— and its rhetoric of “reducing gridlock, saving you time.” Bike lanes do not contribute to gridlock as increasing bike lanes would save EVERYONE time because it would increase the number of cyclists and reduce cars on the road. Just as carpooling efforts and increasing funding in public transit saves EVERYONE time because it encourages a lower amount of individual cars to be driving each day.

“Bike lanes have a greater passenger capacity than lanes for vehicular traffic. The average single lane of private motor-vehicle traffic has a capacity of between 600 and 900 vehicles per hour, representing between 600 and 1,800 people (and it’s closer to the lower end of that range because most cars have but a single occupant).
By contrast, the average two-way protected bike lane (which typically occupies less space than a single lane of traffic), has a capacity of 7,500 people per hour.
That’s right: a single two-way protected bike lane can move about 10 times as many people, and do so using less space, than a single lane of car traffic.” (Article linked below.)

It is ridiculous, and frankly dense and idiotic to come to the conclusion that bike lanes increase gridlock. I am aghast, and truly questioning those who were responsible for the research and formulation of this bill, not to mention the government of Ontario under Ford.