I strongly disagree with…

I strongly disagree with this regressive proposal. It fails to account for basics concepts around environmental sustainability, induced demand, and human safety.

Highway 413 will be an astoundingly expensive use of taxpayer money, it will be a very resource-intensive project, and it will fail to meaningfully address gridlock and traffic, because in the long term, induced demand (an inevitability) will mean that traffic and gridlock will inevitably become problems on the newly built highway, in addition to remaining problems on existing roadways. Will the province then spend yet more money to build yet another highway, only for the same problems to occur?

The building of new roadways (rather than the maintenance of existing ones) is environmentally impactful. The proposal says that environmental impact will be "considered", but this does not mean the environment will be prioritized. Something can easily be "considered", and those considerations then discarded. I have no confidence that due consideration will result in mitigation of environmental destruction.

Further, every person who is riding a bike is a person who is not inside a car. Bicycles are a low-to-no-impact mode of transportation environmentally-speaking, and the fewer people who use private cars unnecessarily the better for our environment. It is unclear to me why the province would want to discourage free choice in this matter.

Bicycle lanes enable people riding bikes to do so safely, with less risk of being in a collision or crash (being hit by a person driving a car). Data do not support the idea that bike lanes negatively impact travel times for people who choose to drive. Data also do not support the idea that they negatively impact travel times for emergency services vehicles (rather, it's cars which are in the way of emergency vehicles, and it's harder for a car to get out of the way on any road than it is for a bicycle). Fewer cars on the roads means easier transit for emergency vehicles.

Finally, municipalities should be allowed to make decisions that effect their residents, including installing and maintaining bicycle lanes used by local residents and visitors. It is inappropriate for people who do not live in a city to be able to unilaterally prevent municipalities from making such decisions, and to force cities to remove existing infrastructure at taxpayer expense. This is government overreach.

Free choice in mode of travel, including allowing people who choose to get around by bike to do so safely, is the way of the future. Forcing a top-down heavy-handed approach on cities, at taxpayer expense, is regressive policymaking.