I would ask the province to…

I would ask the province to reconsider this legislation. It is misguided. I understand that the province wants to help solve congestion, but this unfortunately, is not an evidence-based approach to resolve congestion. Indeed, all this legislation will do is make cyclists bike in the middle of the live traffic lane, and then cars will be parked where the current bicycle lane is. In this communications the province has cited outdated (2011) data that applied to the whole GTA, not the city of Toronto. More recent data shows that approximately 70% of Toronto residents cycle. Indeed, the routes targeted by this legislation are the most popular routes (seeing upwards of 8,000 cyclists a day on the Bloor bike lanes, alone), representing about 40% of all vehicular traffic on that route.

Bikes are extremely efficient modes of transportation. Encouraging more cycling (by having good cycling infrastructure, like the ones targeted by this legislation) is the only path forward. It is perplexing why this province is going to spend taxpayer money and resources to destroy infrastructure.

This legislation will cause significant safety issues for all road users (cyclists/pedestrians, particularly), while making congestion worse on the targeted routes. It truly is a perplexing piece of legislation that should be completely abandoned. If the province moves forward with this, the bike lanes will just be re-installed after the government is out of office. So the province is just wasting its time and money for nothing.