As a life-long Toronto…

As a life-long Toronto resident who is approaching 70 years old, as a frequent driver in a
3-car household, and as an avid cyclist, I would like to register my strong opposition to the
proposed destruction of cycling infrastructure within the city of Toronto.

As a taxpayer, to waste my provincial tax dollars for such a retrogressive move as paying
for the removal of existing infrastructure, as well as waste my City of Toronto tax dollars
by reversing years of city infrastructure development is highly misguided.

Paying for the elimination of the cycling infrastructure is a waste of provincial tax
revenue, but failure to pay the City of Toronto for the present value of those improvements
which will be destroyed is an economic burden on all taxpayers in Toronto.

Having grown up in Rexdale, and cycled, while risking my life, on Kipling Avenue, on
Martin Grove Road, on Rexdale Boulevard and occasionally on Islington Avenue to
commute to work at summer jobs in my late teens and early twenties, I can attest to the
incompatibility of cycling and car traffic on multi-lane arterial roads.

More recently, cycling along Bloor from Parkdale, where I now live, to close to Islington,
where my dentist is located, was highly dangerous until the introduction of the dedicated
bike lanes.

Last Wednesday I cycled on Bloor in the bike lanes to and from Parkdale to Broadview.
The safety of that route is greatly enhanced by the bike lanes. During my cycling both late
morning heading east and in rush hour returning to Parkdale that day, the primary
impediments to automobile traffic flow appeared to stem from road repair work, and
construction on new buildings. Illegal turns by vehicles, and illegal stopping and blocking
the road by ride-share vehicles seemed to also contribute to congestion. Not so prevalent
on that route was the frequent blocking of intersections by cars causing gridlock during
rush hour which I regularly encounter on my normal route to work.

The presence of frequent signalled intersections, which is a feature of any built-up urban
area with or without bike lanes, makes speedy vehicular travel unlikely even without bike
lane infrastructure, nor is high speed vehicular travel safe in an urban context on vitally
active streets used by pedestrians and shoppers, and which feature car parking on the
sides of the road.

For decades I have cycled from Parkdale to and from work in downtown Toronto. Over
those years, I have seen enhanced infrastructure greatly increase the number of bike
riders regularly using bikes as an alternative to car travel. More recently, the growth of e-
bikes used for commerce by couriers and food delivery has exploded, further reducing
vehicular travel, and contributing to the lessening of road congestion. Furthermore,
growth in use of bike-share riders has been spectacular.

This past spring my wife and I visited Montreal by train, and were blown away by the
vastly superior cycling infrastructure that city possesses. We took advantage of the BIXI
bike-share system to use both conventional and e-bikes for our travels around the city,
feeling completely safe due to the separated bike lanes that city provides to allow year-
round cycling in a city with much more challenging winter weather than Toronto has.
There are a wide variety of measures that can be implemented to reduce vehicular
congestion in the city, which are well documented by case studies and figures to
substantiate their impact around the world.

• One of those measures includes making transit free, which would instantly reduce
vehicular travel volumes, particularly by commuters whose free use of roads and
supporting infrastructure which is paid for both by car drivers and those who do not
drive cars.

• Introducing fee-for-use on major roads, such as was used on Highway 407, would
also help level the imbalance of subsidy of car use over other modes of travel.

• Congestion pricing on travel within the downtown core during certain hours has
been highly effective in reducing congestion in places like London, England.

• Increased levies on parking lots also act as an incentive to reduce vehicular traffic,
but unless accompanied by transit fee reductions, unfairly penalizes those with
economic challenges.

• Closing of parts of the downtown core to vehicular traffic is a mainstay in many
major cities to manage and reduce traffic volume. Partial road closings such as has
been successfully on King Street, limiting traffic to transit only, are also a tool.

• Targeting gridlock by use of cameras to ticket those who block intersections on red
lights would significantly improve traffic flow at a modest cost.

• Provision of additional separated bike lanes would further reduce vehicle use and
reduce congestion, as part of a well-considered policy of allowing for a wide variety
of travel alternatives, including transit improvements. The Metrolinx/Intrastructure
Ontario boondoggle in implementing transit improvements continues to negatively
impact vehicular, transit and cycling travel in the city.

The current Bill 212 is interventionist and seems antithetical to the deregulatory mode the
present provincial government would normally take.

It adds red tape & bureaucracy to the provision of transportation options while reducing
safety for cyclists and car drivers, who will now need to deal with road lanes shared with
cyclists, adding to congestion.

I urge the government to implement enabling legislation to allow many of the alternate
measures mentioned above rather than foolishly waste taxpayers’ resources on the
wrong-headed direction demonstrated in Bill 212.