https://ero.ontario.ca…

https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-9266

This Bill is counter productive and ignores all the data and research showing the path to reduce congestion. It also would allow skipping steps on building Highway 413 where a project like this is exactly why we have these steps.

I live in a city in a rural area with limited bike infrastructure. My main form of transportation is by bike and there is limited bike infrastructure in my area, but we are planning more. Studies have shown us there is a lot of latent demand to bike and we know car transportation is highly inefficient, both in terms of money and land/capacity, when only moving 1-2 people per vehicle. Even when I do drive, I wish bikes were out of my way on their own infrastructure. As long as it’s still possible to get to a destination by driving, getting more people out of cars will improve travel times.

The Minister of Transportation stated that only 1.2% of people commute by bike in Toronto. However, this information is old data from the 2011 Census, covers the whole Toronto CMA, and only represents the primary method of commuting so someone biking to public transit would be represented as a public transit commuter. The vast majority of the Toronto CMA has poor or non-existent bike infrastructure so it’s unsurprising they have limited bike usage. However, in areas of Toronto with good bike infrastructure, biking represents 15% to 20% of commuters. This correlation demonstrates that building good bike infrastructure will encourage people to use it, which in turn will reduce congestion and save the city and the province money.

The Minister also stated that bike lanes are taking away nearly half of the infrastructure on those roads. However, this is factually incorrect as even a road with a bike lane and car lane in each direction is at most ~33% bike lanes. Most of the streets he is talking about have parking lanes which reduces this percentage even further.

This bill also proposes exempting Highway 413 from needing an Environmental Assessment. This type of major infrastructure project is exactly why we require Environmental Assessments, so that we are aware of the negative impacts of a project before we blindly incur these repercussions. The government states skipping this step is necessary because this project is so essential. Besides the fact that I don’t agree Highway 413 is essential, this hasn’t been used on any other projects that are essential like those for TTC or GO.

Thank you for your time.