I ride my bike to work nine…

I ride my bike to work nine months of the year. I rely on the presence and good repair of bike lanes to stay alive and get to work on time. As an Ontarian, do I not deserve this safety and freedom of movement? Do I not deserve the free choice of mode of travel? Do I not deserve – as much as people who choose to drive do – to be able to commute in the most efficient and direct way possible: on bike lanes on main roads, not shunted off to side streets and forced to take inefficient and circuitous routes?

This government's own experts have said that bike lanes do not contribute to traffic and gridlock. Yet this government persists in ignoring its own commissioned research, preferring instead to waste Ontarians' money and time by tabling endless legislation prioritizing traffic-generating private cars in a fruitless bid to get control of our notorious traffic problems.

Every year, Canada's meteorologists, climate scientists, and regular citizens who go outside observe that the climate crisis is getting worse, with massive wildfires, extreme weather events leading to flooding and damage to infrastructure, and heat domes. Continuing to prioritize private motor vehicles over all other possible travel options the way this government does is wrongheaded and foolish. The government could be at the forefront of leading positive change, but it prefers to pretend these problems – which worsen public health outcomes and cost the taxpayer more money – are somehow not happening.

This is just another undemocratic attempt to strip our cities of their ability to build and maintain infrastructure that residents and workers need. Cities should have the ability to build what their residents have expressed that they want and need, to look to the future and not remain mired in regressive, backward-looking design and planning.