I would like to publicly…

I would like to publicly oppose this bill as it is absolutely a step in the wrong direction. It is misguided at best and deceitful at worst. There are many reasons why bike lanes in a city is a good thing but in this comment I am going to focus on the three major reasons I oppose this bill as a resident of Toronto.

Firstly, it is a lie. Ripping apart the bike lanes will not, in the long term, better the lives of Ontarians. It will promote driving on these now four-lane roads. This isn't just a prediction. There are countless studies done that show that simply adding lanes to a road or even building more roads does not solve traffic congestion. It promotes more people to drive which brings us to the same problem that we were trying to solve. Additionally, it harms local businesses on the street that benefit from foot and bike traffic (think food delivery). It will bring more cars to these streets subjecting the residents of the streets to more air and noise pollution. And obviously, the biggest consequence of promoting more cars on the road - it will cause more deaths. More cars on streets statistically increase more fatal accidents on the impacted streets. Overall, this bill will make the lives of Ontarians only worse.

Secondly, it goes against any sane climate change measure. We as Ontarians need to be focused on implementing policies that combat climate change, not ones that enable them. A city that promotes less driving not only makes for more beautiful spaces for people to live in but also reduces carbon emissions immensely. Green spaces and walkable cities with a focus on public transit should be the goal when developing Toronto. This bill takes a huge step backwards in this aspect.

Finally, it fiscally makes no sense. We, Ontarians, have spent about a decade and millions of dollar of taxpayer money trying to get decent bike infrastructure in this city so that people are not forced to rely on expensive, carbon-emitting, space hogging cars. It allowed a freedom of choice to move the way we want to. It makes no sense that a conservative government is recklessly spending another $48 million to not just do something that has absolutely no benefit to Ontarians but also completely take away our freedom to choose by eliminating an entire mode of transport. This is an overreach in every aspect.

I hope my comment was able to shed some light on how this bill harms us Ontarians in many ways. I did not even begin to go into the public health benefits of biking and how spaces built around bikes and pedestrians actually promote more of a community feeling than car-centric spaces, which can combat social science issues such as rising hate and xenophobia. I also did not go into how much I oppose the Highway 413 act which skips extremely important environmental checks before callously mowing down land to build another highway. I believe the Ontario government should instead focus on delivering projects that actually will solve the problem of traffic and congestion - Finch LRT, Eglinton Crosstown, GO Expansion and the Ontario Line.