The government's proposal to…

The government's proposal to limit the construction of bike lanes and remove existing lanes is counter productive, ill considered, and a gross overreach of jurisdiction, and will directly result in more deaths, reduced business, and increased traffic time. Time and again data has shown that increasing alternative modes of transport is the only way to reduce car traffic, but this proposal seems to suggest that putting more cars on the road will somehow make everyone's journey faster. This is, frankly, boneheaded. The Toronto bike lanes that seem to be the focus of the government's ire have proven to be wildly successful, increasing the amount of cyclists in the city and removing them from dangerous car traffic with minimal-to-nil impacts on overall travel time. Removing these lanes will do two things: encourage travellers who would otherwise cycle into cars, increasingly traffic; and force cyclists to share the lane with car traffic, thereby reducing overall speeds and vastly increasing the risk of injury, road violence, and death. Make no mistake - this policy will directly result in more cyclist deaths.
On top of this, the micromanagement of municipal policy by the province will result in a huge increase in red tape. Premier Ford has previously said that the province would not interfere with cities determining their own development; why then does he feel that he needs to have such a direct hand in this? The Premier's personal vendetta against Toronto and cyclists is a poor excuse for this sort of onerous overreach, and the demand to roll back infrastructure that has been studied, planned, built and paid for is an onerous cost. The government should stop meddling in the personal gripes of the Premier and spend its time, money and focus on projects it controls that will help Ontarians' commutes - like the three transit lines that are stuck in development with no completion in sight.
More than anything else, the existing and planned bike lanes are good transit policy, and the result of literal decades of global data on increasingly transit times and road safety. Business along the corridors have seen increased traffic, street culture has been enlivened, and safety has been improved. Removing these vital pieces of infrastructure to make space for more cars - or, even dumber, parking - is incredibly backwards, and should be rightly discarded as the insane ditherings of out of touch policy makers who spend more time behind the wheel of their car then interacting with the communities they allegedly represent.