Hello, I would like to make…

Hello,

I would like to make clear my opinion on the bike lane removal proposal. As a decades long downtown resident who pays property taxes, owns and drives a car and actually lives, works and plays in the downtown core, I feel the proposal is unjustified and based in popularity for winning favor of the masses of suburban and not quite urban car drivers. I can sit outside my house or ride 7.5 km to my place of work and watch the constant stream of single occupant car drivers in traffic. So many of these single occupant vehicles are massive pickup trucks or SUVs and their mere size alone create a large portion of so called grid lock. The amount of size and weight causes so much road wear, noise and air as well as sound pollution. I would encourage anyone to get some exercise, walk or bike around the downtown core and tell me I'm wrong. So many of these single car occupants are also driving with a cell phone in one hand, which causes another level of gridlock..I can see only 4 cars get through a light when there should be 8 because one driver is distracted with their phone. Horns honk, people get angry, etc. Any rational person should agree that opening up another lane of traffic does nothing to ease gridlock. Rather, it immediately gets filled with more traffic from other routes and encourages more single car occupants. I chose to live and work in the city, raise a family and support local communities. I rely on bike lanes to get around. My car sits parked a week at a time as biking and walking is a progressive means of living. These things are important to me and I intend to do whatever I can to support like minded and resist any and all backwards "provincial" thinking.