I moved to Canada in 2001…

I moved to Canada in 2001 from the US to run a biotech company in Toronto. After the company was sold, I decided to stay in Toronto because it was a great place to live and I became a Canadian citizen in 2022. In the past several years the city has significantly expanded bike lanes and I can now cycle safely in lanes from my house (near Casa Loma) all the way to Tommy Thompson Park. I own two cars but use my bicycle almost exclusively for commuting around downtown. The bike lanes on Bloor and Yonge have been extremely useful. The prospect of removing them baffles the imagination.

Removing existing bike lanes and preventing others from being created will lead to increased traffic congestion because of induced demand. Induced demand is a well-established economic principle and “is the phenomenon whereby an increase in supply results in a decline in price and an increase in consumption” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand). As regards urban planning, creating more vehicle lanes will initially reduced congestion but that will soon be eliminated as more people start using the new lanes (“if you build it, they will come”). You will end up with the same level of congestion only with more vehicles involved in producing it. A major cause of traffic congestion in the downtown core of Toronto stems from the ceaseless rezoning and construction of “lux” condos. There is a half-dozen such projects currently underway within a one-kilometer radius of my house near Davenport and Dupont. The congestion doesn’t stop once the condo has been completed because now the city has to repair the road that the construction has destroyed. I’m not saying stop building condos – just don’t delude yourself into thinking that removing bike lanes will decrease traffic congestion.

The 401 ranks as the most congested highway in North America. How many bike lanes are on the 401? Bike lanes and other forms of public transportation are part of solution to decreasing traffic congestion in the GTA. Removing them will make it worse.