By legislating the…

By legislating the construction of bike infrastructure by municipalities and limiting the ability of cities to expand Ontario's bike networks, this bill will have the opposite effect that is intended. This bill will not "reduce gridlock and save people time" as claimed, and will in fact continue to make traffic worse and result in longer commutes for everyone.

Evidence from major cities around the globe all suggests the same things: by increasing funding and construction for higher efficiency modes of transportation, such as public transit and cycling/pedestrian infrastructure, wait times across all modes are reduced, regardless of which ones people take, because the efficiency across all systems is increased.

Tokyo, a city with more than 5x the population of Toronto, does not experience congestion even close to the level Toronto does, because it's a city where one can commute by train with a high degree of reliability.

Paris, a city with a population on par with Toronto, saw traffic improve drastically when it added hundreds of kilometers of bike lanes in the lead up to the Olympics, which also resulted in shorter wait times for police and ambulatory services (see attached link).

Even those who do not personally use bike lanes or public transit will see an improvement in their car commute as long as other people do use them, because those are more cars off the road and less traffic. This province's insistence on only promoting and building around motor vehicles only is what's causing the congestion problems, as people needing a car for every trip they make results in more cars on the road, which results in more traffic.

This bill is not based in reality, and it is more interested in blaming efficient forms of transportation for the downsides of less efficient forms, namely motor vehicles. It will not solve the problem of congestion, and at best will make congestion worse. At worst, it will put people's lives at risk by pushing cyclists into motor vehicle lanes - which I imagine again, will not make motorists happy either.