I have lived in Mississauga…

I have lived in Mississauga for 34 years. I spent much of my working life practising law downtown. I had the good fortune to live near the waterfront trail. I often skated to the Go Train and then from Union Station to work, occasionally skating home from downtown or cycling to and from downtown over 2 days. It was wonderful. The hardest thing for residents is to get in enough exercise and to manage long commutes. When my office moved up to North York, the commute became awful. Toronto and Ontario have failed to build either public transit or roads, instead constantly changing their minds.

I strongly believe we need to reduce tolls on the 407 so that it can draw off traffic from the 401 and Gardiner. We need to invest in public transit, especially smaller more frequent electric buses. Finally, we need bike lanes and lots of them in a network that allows people to commute and exercise at the same time. The suburbs and inner city residents need to unite to achieve a system of travel that benefits both.

Finally, as a retired driver, I feel a lot more comfortable with separated bike lanes so that cyclists, many of them commercial cyclists, are not forced to ride in and out of traffic, scaring me and endangering them. Keep the bike lanes and expand the network, invest in transit, and make the 407 affordable for bypass travellers, people living north of the City and trucks.