I believe that Bill 212 is…

I believe that Bill 212 is both unproductive and irresponsible. As a rural Ontario citizen (postal code N0B 1S0), I strongly oppose this bill for the following reasons:

Regarding the removal of bike lanes where a lane of traffic has been replaced with a bike lane:
- Research has shown that adding bike lanes helps to reduce gridlock by getting vehicles off the road; even though anecdotes may make you feel like the bike lanes are contributing to gridlock, they are NOT
- The bike lanes in downtown Toronto have been thoroughly researched and approved by the municipality and are very new; ridership will only continue to increase as bike share becomes increasingly popular and people become familiar with the new bike lanes
- Biking in downtown Toronto is extremely dangerous; removing the bike lanes will only force cyclists to bike in more dangerous areas therefore CAUSING the deaths of more Ontarians
- Canada's public transit lags behind that of many other developed and developing countries; this is where investment should be made to improve gridlock so that we stop lagging behind countries that show advancements in these areas
- Induced demand makes it so that additional road infrastructure will encourage more cars to be on the road, worsening air quality in cities and going backwards when it comes to environmental considerations

Regarding highway 413
- Highway 413 is slated to go through valuable greenbelt land and will disrupt many important ecosystems; we are in a climate crisis and moving backwards in terms of environmental protections is irresponsible and short-sighted
- This highway will encourage urban sprawl and induced demand will make it so that travel time is NOT improved, and in fact worsened due to increased urbanization
- If you want to spend money on a big project to help clear congestion, improve GO train and transit service in and around the GTA, and make it so that less of the GTA is zoned exclusively for single-family homes; this will help clear the roads for those who HAVE to drive

All together, Bill 212 is irresponsible and will damage the environment, worsen traffic congestion, increase the number of cyclist deaths, and contribute to Ontario becoming more of a disgrace in the eyes of both urban and rural individuals.