Downtown Toronto is growing…

Downtown Toronto is growing rapidly with new condos and office buildings being built on nearly every street in the downtown core. However, it's only in its intensity that this development is unique to the city's core. Densification is a feature of the entire landscape.

As the population grows it's critical that the transportation capacity of the city meets this growth. This means transportation for the tens of thousands of people moving into new developments in the downtown core who need to be able to get around within the city center, and this also means transportation infrastructure for those commuting into the cities.

We simply cannot continue to expand streets, even if this was the best method, there isn't enough physical room. We need alternative forms of transportation, and we need more efficient forms of transportation.

For this reason, bike lanes are essential infrastructure for the city as it grows. Bike lanes move people more efficiently as bikes take up much less space, and there is much more room to add new bike infrastructure than there is room to add lanes for cars. While this happens, it should be expected that the need to move more people will result in car lanes that are near capacity being turned into bike lanes. The very fact that this car lane is being turned into a bike lane is a symptom of the fact that this corridor is one which should be available to more people to move.

The proposed legislation is incongruent with the needs of a growing and densifying city to allow for the movement of its people. By preventing new bike lanes in the cases where it requires the removal of a car lane, this legislation will prevent the new and more efficient transportations options that I have so far demonstrated are necessary. The future this legislation is creating for Toronto is one in which congestion and traffic are worse, the population has less access to safe and active transportation, and one where Toronto is markedly moving backwards in terms of environmentally sustainable forms of transportation.