I am someone who has worked…

I am someone who has worked who studied transport economics as a student, worked as a transport economist for several areas, and continued to follow and be involved in transit and urban planning issues. This is an absolutely insane proposal, smacking of the worst kind of petty politics. Any body who has studied transit and urban mobility knows that adding more lanes in cities as they become denser in population does not solve anything. They are soon filled with the same gridlock. And if the lanes come at the expense of public transit, walking or cycling they make urban mobility worse and especially gridlock. This bill is a non-solution to a real problem -- something and grade-school child would be able to tell you, but apparently not this government. The problems of Toronto traffic is common to other parts of the province and other problems of mobility. The massive failure to develop and extend public transit in cities and between cities is the most direct cause of gridlock. There are few other options to get around but by car. More cars, more lanes, more people in urban areas is vicious circle that this bill and this government are encouraging. It will be a failure as soon as it is implemented. Other cities around the world, even in Canada such as Montreal, are doing the opposite. Massively encouraging walking and cycling, and developing the latest in public transit technologies within cities and between cities. This is a major generational failure, indeed over many generations in Ontario, in failing to realize that cars are the worst means to get around cities. This bill is another step backwards for Ontario.