I live in Toronto, work…

I live in Toronto, work downtown, and use the cities bike infrastructure daily. Although there have been excellent improvements to that infrastructure over the past few years, my daily commute still follows a snake-like path due to incomplete infrastructure forcing me to either ride on main roads among cars, or take a much longer route to ride safely. I've seen many comments claiming that they don't see bike infrastructure being used on corridors such as Eglinton, which fail to recognize that cyclists might be wary to use incomplete infrastructure that has no connections and will unexpectedly dump them back into increasingly hostile traffic.

With Toronto's ever growing population, and the fact that we are staring down the barrel of anthropogenic climate change, we need to recognize that assuming everyone can and will drive simply will not work. The city needs cyclists to alleviate gridlock, because someeone deciding to bike does not contribute to traffic in the same way that someone deciding to drive does. The more people who choose to take alternate forms of transport such as biking or transit (including those who bikeshare to their transit connection), the quicker and more efficiently those who do need to use a car are able to move. Given this, and the countless studies which show that the addition of lanes do not relieve congestion, it's foolish that the Ford government would want to remove bike lanes simply because Doug gets annoyed on his commute to downtown.

The premier should align himself with his own purported principles of small government, and allow municipalities to quickly and dynamically respond to their traffic needs without interfering and introducing unnecessary red tape.

I, for one, can assure the premier that should the bike lanes be removed from corridors such as Bloor, Yonge, and University, he'll be sitting in his car wishing for bike lanes, because many of us who cycle won't simply stop because there isn't infrastructure. Personally, I don't own a car because I can't afford the (on average) 16,500 dollars per year is costs to own a car. He can look forward to me trying my best not to block the traffic that he will be forcing me to join.

As a quick note, I just want to tack on a couple facts that Doug might not be aware of, or has chosen to willfully ignore.
1. Taking into account all of the environmental, infrastructure, and health costs of cars, driving has been shown to be a net cost to society at large. One that I, despite not driving, have been dutifully paying. Conversely, biking has been shown to be of a net benefit to society at large. Bikers are more likely to stop at local businesses, the infrastructure costs of maintaining bike lanes are much lower due to weight, and biking yields to improved health outcomes for both the biker and those around them.
2. Premier Ford tried to be the mayor of Toronto and lost the election. He should respect the decision of the people of Toronto.
3. People see nobody in a bike lane and assume it is unused, but fail to recognize that cyclists not only do not contribute to traffic, they also aren't stuck in it. We don't wait around waiting to be seen.
4. Wider roads and more lanes cause drivers to perceive the road as being safer (for the driver), and to drive quicker. This increases the danger to everyone, as speed is the biggest predictor of whether someone hit by a car will survive or not.

I'd like to suggest that Doug tries biking to work a couple times, to see what cyclists in Toronto are already contending with. Perhaps then he might recognize that putting us further into jeopardy is not a solution to anyone's problems.