This legislation is, to be…

This legislation is, to be totally frank, insane. It makes very little fiscal sense, is the opposite of what we need to do to fight climate change, and will have no real impact on traffic over any reasonable timeframe. It also goes against some of the core principles that the government argued in support of when giving municipalities “strong mayor” powers, and is surprising anti-democratic.

This isn’t like the housing crisis, where not enough of something is being built and so the province wants to step in to make changes. It’s the exact opposite — things are actually being built, with input from citizens via city council, and people are actually using the bike lanes. There are also existing city expansion plans. While overall usage is low relative to cars, the increase year-on-year is generally impressive no matter how you slice it and suggests bike lanes are doing what we want them to do — getting people onto bikes to get to their destination — and will be winners in the coming decades.

Many businesses have also commented that they have seen increased or unchanged foot traffic since these bike lanes have been constructed. Adding cars to a busy street with no additional street parking is not going to drive additional business traffic unless you have giant empty parking lots sitting empty, just waiting to be filled.

As such, I do not understand how this legislation makes any sense. We want to support mobility of people of all types, whether that be walking, cycling, driving, buses, subways, etc. Bikes are an integral part of that mix.