I'm a long-time resident of…

I'm a long-time resident of Etobicoke who walks, uses the TTC frequently, and recently started learning how to ride a bike due to the expansion of the Tangerine RideShare bikes to my area. I've grown up with cars all my life and know how useful they are, and I've also nearly been struck and killed at least twice on intersections in my neighbourhood while I was walking in the middle of a crosswalk. Having infrastructure that encourages safety is paramount - in each case (walking, cycling, driving) the greatest danger to someone is someone else in a car. The new bike lanes going down Bloor and the safety they promised were what encouraged me to start practicing to ride again, and this would have had positive effects on everything from my physical well-being to my mental health. Without these bike lanes? I'm not biking. I've already been in situations where the road has been unsafe for me because of careless drivers, and I'm not willing to put my life on the line and die like many unfortunate cyclists have due to lack of safe cycling space. Being a world-class city means that we have modern infrastructure that provides people choices in how they want to move about, and removing the bike lanes is actively removing that choice for a large group of people for the benefit of drivers only. Traffic was terrible before bike lanes were added, and at the very least that won't change if you remove them. There will just be more people at risk of losing their lives.