It is not the jurisdiction…

It is not the jurisdiction of the provincial government to be reviewing and approving every bike lane across all 444 municipalities. Decisions on bike lanes should be made by the local municipal government with data and input from local residents, not from the provincial government, which could be thousands of kms away from the municipality where the bike lanes may be installed.

The reason for the traffic congestion in our city is because of too many cars, not because of bike lanes. More people on bikes means less cars on our roads. The less safe bike infrastructure we have, the more people that will be driving in our cities.

I am a driver, public transit user, and bicycle user. My family and I primarily use our bicycles to get around the city. The bicycle infrastructure in Toronto has started to become more connected and comfortable in recent years. If bike infrastructure is removed, we will need to use our car to get around the city, which will make traffic even worse.

This is not a good use of taxpayer money to spend money removing infrastructure that was just recently installed. University Avenue already has 4-6 lanes of car traffic on it in addition to parking and bike lanes. Removing a bike lane is not going to make a different other than putting more people back into cars and further clogging our streets.

For Bloor street, the studies have shown that 90% of people who shop at local businesses are pedestrians, bicyclists and transit users. Removing bike lanes on Bloor street would put families at risk and will negatively affect the businesses on this street.

More than 70% of people in the Greater Toronto area commute to work on foot, by bike or on transit. The provincial government needs to stay in its lane and focus on completing its long delayed transit projects rather than removing bike infrastructure that will only cause more congestion in our cities.