The first point that I would…

The first point that I would like to make is that the municipality's needs should take precedence over the province's desires, as those living in the municipality are the ones who are affected. Municipalities should be the primary lawmakers when it comes to issues that only affect their specific municipality, while the provincial government should only step in for province-wide issues, or when asked to.

The second point is that bikers who feel unsafe biking in car lanes will look for alternative modes of transportation, such as driving. By removing bike lanes, you are adding more cars to the road and creating even heavier gridlock than an extra car lane will not be sufficient for.

Conversely, by adding more bike lanes and creating a comprehensive network that allows one to bike across the city swiftly and efficiently, people who are not comfortable commuting by bike due to the lack of bike lanes on their route will be encouraged to bike for the commute by the added safety of bike lanes, reducing gridlock from cars. Most cars only contain one or two passengers, whereas the same amount of space that a car takes can fit many more bikers clustered together.

Additionally, having more bikers naturally increases business in the areas they are biking through, as it is much easier to stop by a cafe that catches your eye when you're on bike, as opposed to driving, where you have to find a parking space, potentially pay for parking, and deal with the hassle of merging back into traffic.

The last point I want to make is that by creating more bike lanes that will encourage people to consider biking as a primary mode of transportation, we are also encouraging people to be more active, which is always a good thing.