My daughter is a…

My daughter is a professional cyclist who has represented Canada on the national team for years. She just quit at only 22 years of age and despite being Canada's top ranked domestic pro racer and I couldn't be more relieved. The greatest catalyst was the impossibility of training in Ontario. She has multiple incidents a day that make her fear for her safety and make us believe that purely on the numbers a serious road incident caused by inattention, road rage, malicious drivers, or just poor infrastructure was inevitable. In addition, one of her best friends and training partners (a tenured pro and one of Canada's brightest stars in the sport) was recently hit by a car, nearly died, spent almost a week in a coma and is now coping with permanent, non-recoverable, debilitating results. She's just 22 and the number of people she knows who have been killed or injured in this way is shocking.

This law is nuts. Any urban planner or expert in transportation infrastructure will tell you it just won't help. And many more will die because of it. And for what? to score cheap political points? To drive us into american-style polarization?

My family is Dutch and here is something that will never happen: a Northern European coming to Ontario and saying 'wow your highways and travel infrastructure is amazing!'. They look at our car centric approach and think we are simply crazy.

The research is pretty clear her to my knowledge:
- active transportation is good for communities - in the near term and the long term
- injuries and deaths in Ontario are common and severe
- cycling infrastructure can promote healthy, active transportation that is safe and well-used
- removing cycling infrastructure and adding lanes to existing transportation systems (over transit or active transpo) will clearly not help to ease congestion in the long-run and may very likely come with serious health risks

I've voted conservative most of my life but this bill sickens me.