I am sending this letter to…

I am sending this letter to voice my opposition to the proposed Ontario Bill 212 and the Highway 413 Act, 2024.
I. Highway 413 Act
Questionable government dealings & actions around this project.
A 2021 Toronto Star report claims 3300 acres of land surrounding the alignment is owned by a few property developers. To append, “most of the developers in the group are also prolific PC donors, contributing at least $813,000 to support the party since 2014”, said the report. With the presence of the highway, these properties may be reevaluated as residential property, with its value skyrocketing following suit.
The Highway 413 Act additionally gives the Province the power to expropriate privately-owned land along a highway without the chance to appeal. The implications are worrying, especially when considering that the term “highway” is very loosely defined by the Ontario government. To the point where all roadways are considered highways.
Highway 413 will be devastating to the environment.
This Act will grant the Highway 413 project an exemption from having to conduct environmental assessments. An extremely careless move, considering that the current route of the proposed Highway 413 would cut through parts of the Greenbelt, impacting almost 30 federally-listed endangered species of animals.
Highway 413 is not the best option.
Highway 413 will cost Ontario billions of dollars to construct and additional money to maintain regularly. Give it a few months after it's open to the public, and Highway 413 will inevitably fill up with traffic, just like with any other highways in proximity, except for the 407, because demand will eventually match supply, if it is not constrained. Why not find ways to get people to take the nearby Highway 407 instead of erecting an entirely new highway?
Instead of building the 413, the Province should ideally massively expand public transportation, both local level transit and long-distance services. Public transit moves more people, being a comparatively cost-effective alternative to building a brand new highway, all the while being environmentally friendly and convenient. A new double-tracked rail line with state of the art railway technology and rolling stock costs dramatically less than a highway of the same length, it will have the same, if not more capacity while taking up a tenth of the footprint.

II. Bicycle lanes
Most of the arguments on bicycle lanes covered in this letter are based on this Bluesky thread by journalist Matt Elliott. https://bsky.app/profile/graphicmatt.bsky.social/post/3laud6pusb22j
1. Converting bicycle lanes to car lanes will not speed up traffic.
The idea of eliminating bike lanes in an attempt to ease traffic congestion is essentially incorrect and not backed up by any data. Actually, studies and historical data have shown that eliminating bike lanes will not lower traffic. In fact, Toronto has removed bike lanes in the past for car lanes, case in point: Jarvis Street, 2011. The city’s own data indicated that travel times increased and traffic slowed, contradicting the intended outcome of easing congestion.
Furthermore, construction work will block and reduce usable road space significantly, bottle-necking every form of traffic on that street (cars, transit, bikes, etc.). Ironically generating more congestion for the tiny sliver of chance that traffic will speed up when it is done.

2. Government overreach - Toronto disagrees, Province is going to do it anyway.
The Annex is a neighbourhood that will be affected by the Bill, it currently benefits greatly from the protected bike lanes on Bloor Street. In fact, the installation of these bike lanes directly correlated to a business boom in local stores. Given that fact, the neighborhood’s BIA strongly opposes the Province’s bike lane removal.
Ontario Bill 212 was discussed during a Toronto council meeting on November 14th, during which a vote among elected municipal councillors was held to determine whether or not Toronto would oppose the Bill. This vote passed 21-4 in favour of opposing Bill 212. It is clear that the City of Toronto does not want to remove existing bike lanes, and any attempts to do otherwise is undermining local democracy.
Proponents of this Bill have deceitfully used exaggerated data to argue for the removal of bike lanes. In particular, the claim that only a measly 2% of Torontonians regularly bike. This claim is frequently parroted by Doug Ford and Prabmeet Sarkaria to any form of criticism of the bill. However, it is based on an outdated source, far before the installation of much bike infrastructure. Of course the car-centric suburban neighbourhoods with abysmal non-automobile infrastructure will have fewer people willing to bike compared to more pedestrian and bike friendly areas, the 2% figure fails to consider differences in biking levels between different areas. We do have evidence to suggest the addition of bicycle lanes impressively elevates bicycle traffic on a street, some recorded as high as 656% increase in bike traffic, as stated by a City of Toronto report.