My family uses the bike…

My family uses the bike lanes in Toronto every weekday. We don't own a car and I don't know how to drive. Instead, we have a bicycle and a bicycle trailer that we use to take our 2-year-old daughter to preschool. For the first part of the trip, we bicycle through the back streets. But the one way system means that we can't legally cycle the entire way through the back streets. We rely on having good separated bike lanes on Bloor so that we can travel safely with our toddler.

These bike lanes are not just convenient, they are essential for us. Our little girl is in a trailer that's relatively low to the ground, and an inattentive driver could easily run into her. We have a flag on the trailer and a light, but I know that we wouldn't feel safe riding with her in fast mixed traffic.

The bike lanes on Bloor in the West end have not only made it safer to bicycle. My partner tells me that it is now easier to drive on Bloor near Royal York. He grew up in that neighborhood and we frequently visit his parents there. He remembers that the constantly switching lanes (from parking on the right to turning on the left) between Royal York and Prince Edward were very frustrating to drive. But now that stretch is faster and easier to drive because the lanes do not change, and the cyclists are given a safe place to be and are thus also less distracting for the drivers.

Bicycle lanes benefit all road users. They protect cyclists' lives, they make things simpler and easier for drivers, and they protect pedestrians by discouraging any riding of bicycles on the sidewalk.

I have been cycling on roads in Toronto for 34 years - from when I was 13. When I was younger I didn't have any sense of my own mortality and would happily ride in traffic with great big trucks going by. But now that I have a child, I am so aware of how dangerous large vehicles can be to very small vehicles. Cycling is it important way for many people to get around the city, and the more people who use bicycles, the less car traffic drivers have to deal with. But we cyclists should be in a separate lane of traffic because we are not as fast and we are not as large as motorized vehicles. Giving us all our space on the road makes everyone safer and gets everyone where they are going faster.