This bill is a terrible idea…

This bill is a terrible idea I am completely opposed to. Notwithstanding concerns if bike lanes either help dissipate traffic or if they make it worse, it is a gross overreach of power by the province. This bill interferes with municipal autonomy, further making them subservient to the province. Although this is legally within the province’s right, it is a massive breach of public trust and of people’s rights to self determination. This is my primary issue with this bill, but I have further issues with its goals of reducing congestion. Bike lanes, when implemented correctly, have been shown to ease traffic as they incentivize more people to cycle because the lanes are physically there. If they are not there, then people will be forced to drive leading to more cars on the road and more congestion. Bloor, Danforth, University, Yonge, etc are all streets with both bike lanes and subway lines. These streets give people options: subway, ride a bike, or drive. By removing bike lanes, this increases congestion on the roads (requiring more money to be spent on traffic management), on the subway (requiring billions spent on capacity improvements), and requires future governments to foot the theoretically higher bill to re-install them when future governments inevitably decide to do this. So not only is this bill trampling on the roots of democracy by its attacks on the people’s right of self-determination, it also is heavily regressive, and likely to put a substantial cost on re-installing bike lanes in the future. This is not a bill that has any place in a modern progressive society.