Taking out the bike lanes…

Taking out the bike lanes that were just installed - this is NOT a good idea. The Ford government needs to listen to science, studies, facts, and professionals.

The City of Toronto has dedicated teams of urban planning professionals, transit professionals, and city departments who have devoted years of study and time and best practices when making decisions in how our city should be run. They work together and have put in a lot of hard work and coordination to make the city a better place. The result of a lot of this work was to enhance our city with bike lanes to elevate Toronto. The installation of the bike lanes was clearly done to meet city goals such as vision zero, safety, environment, giving people transportation options, and moving more people through existing streets. We see this kind of success in many cities like Montreal, Paris, Amsterdam, etc.

The studies and 'science' support this. The recent surveys shows that most people think that vehicle traffic can be improved if construction projects were adjusted - not via the removal of bike lanes.

The Ford government needs to listen to the people of Toronto and/or open their eyes and observe streets that do NOT have any bike lanes at all - e.g. Keele street at Dundas. There are zero bike lanes and yet Keele is always backed up. This is because of car traffic - there are too many cars and the moment a car is parked, parking, picking up or dropping off Ubers or packages or food, or turning left, or turning right, then the whole lane starts to back up. This type of traffic frustration is already an existing phenomenon - way before bike lanes were put in. Bloor street was always busy way before the bike lanes were put in - it was always terrible to drive on. Taking out the bike lanes will not make it any better.

The bike counters and bike data show that more and more people are using them. The bike share network has grown and is reaching new highs of usage each year. All levels of government need to listen to the facts - but especially the Ford provincial government. In a few years, you will see that more and more people will be using the bike lanes.

If the Ford government really wanted to help alleviate the car traffic problem, then they need to put in car congestion pricing and to toll the highways. These are case studies done around the world on this (e.g. London UK, and most recently NYC did a lot of planning in preparation for it). They need the monies to help pay for the delayed LRT lines and highways anyways (not to mention the underfunded TTC...).