I am writing this comment to…

I am writing this comment to urge the Ontario government NOT to pass Bill 212, particularly the parts regarding bicycle lanes. If passed as is, Bill 212 will kill and maim cyclists and other vulnerable road users. We need bike lanes, and this attempt by the provincial government to limit them is an overreach into what should be local city matters.

I only began cycling this year, but I quickly realized how necessary bike lanes are for safety. In June, I was cycling on a road when the bike lane suddenly disappeared. I continued close to the side of the road, as I am legally obligated to do. A person in a car decided this meant I should be assaulted, and they smashed a full bottle extremely hard into the back of my head, nearly knocking me down (possibly falling into the path of a vehicle) and splashing liquid all over me.

I am also horrified at hit-and-run news stories like when 81-year old Doug Fritz was struck by a car, shattering the windshield, and the driver treated this as a minor inconvenience for her appointment. She drove away as if nothing had happened and left him to die.

It is clear that there is a significant amount of drivers that will actively assault cyclists and have zero consideration for their lives. Not to mention distracted drivers, who could easily kill cyclists by accident. We need bike lanes, as many as possible, so that cyclists can have separation and protection from drivers and their increasingly lethal motor vehicles.

It is an inhumane farce that "congestion" is treated as more important than the lives of cyclists and other VRUs, when the reality is that bike lanes enable a modal shift away from driving so that congestion can in fact be alleviated.