Bloor Street separated Bike…

Bloor Street separated Bike tracks lanes will allow more people to use transit as an option that provides efficiency and near door to door flexibility,

From reading the comments about this bill by Premier Ford and his transportation minister it is apparant that their premise is that streets serve to move cars or trucks. They talk about increasing productivity and efficiency, but only when driving cars. This narrow view of the use of this public space has resulted in a very inefficient use of this common infrastructure over the years of their tenure and of those before them.

The premise should be the purpose of streets are there to move people - whether they are on bikes, in transit vehicles or in cars, and of course cargo, whether it is moved by bike couriers, in trucks or cars. If you want to look at efficiency (moving the most people at the lowest cost it is transit first, bikes second and cars and trucks third.)

My own example illustrates the point. I take the subway when I work downtown, the subway moves me to the St. George station quickly from 30 - 40 mins. However the next leg of the the trip from St. George station to my final destination via bus and walking adds about 20 mins to the trip. However using a Bike Share bike I travel the separated bike lanes on Bloor and George street take 10 mins off my trip there. The same is true on my return trip. I take a bike share bike back up St. George Street and then along Bloor to Yonge Street to catch the subway. This takes 10 - 12 mins off the trip. Those lanes make the trip 16% faster.

I was encouraged to start using the Bike share bikes this fall as part of a hybrid transit+bike trip because of the newly constructed separated lanes on Bloor. They made the trip markedly safer. Traveling this way gives the speed and efficiency of high capacity transit with the speed and flexibility near door to door travel provided by the Bike Share bike and the many stations that are the potential end points of my trip.

Premier Ford your plan to remove them will remove that incentive from me and many other people. Supporting this Hybrid option of Transit + bike is a way to encourage more people to make the switch from driving single person cars to much more efficient means of transportation, transit and bike.