I have multiple concerns…

I have multiple concerns about the removal of bike lanes and will attempt to be brief, or at the very least concise.

- The targeted bike lanes for removal are exclusively in Toronto. This is at its core a gross misuse of taxpayer money, particularly for non-Toronto residents. Why should a resident of Kingston be paying for the removal of bike lanes in Toronto? These are pieces of infrastructure that have zero impact on residents outside of the targeted municipality and should ONLY have local taxpayer money spent on them.

- Even if it were only local taxpayer money being used for the removal, it is still a gross misuse of taxpyer money considering many of the lanes were just put in. These are lanes that were not placed on a whim, but were implemented after years of deliberation and policy. Yet the province has promised to remove them within days of promising to do so. This makes close to no sense.

- The proposed routes that will have bike lanes removed still allow street parking. Even if we forget about bike lanes for a moment, many large cities globally with good traffic flow do not have street parking on their main arteries. Street parking should be the first thing to go. It is unproductive for traffic flow. Bike lanes, however, are productive for traffic flow as they remove cars from the road.

- Safety: you can remove bike lanes from roads, but cyclists will not stop using those roads. This will be a death sentence. Our cycling infrastructure in Toronto is good but removing these lanes will further disjoint it. A cyclist that needs to get from Yonge & Bloor to Christie & Bloor will take Bloor. They will not use winding side streets or deviate multiple blocks south/north just to use an approved bike lane.

- Cyclists are legally entitled to using the entire lane of traffic when there is no bike lane. By removing bike lanes on these streets you may inadvertently be creating more traffic.

- 100 cyclists using a bike lane over an hour will make the lane look empty, but even if just 70 people use cars instead to get from point A to point B, that is a considerable amount of traffic. We should be focusing on removing cars from our roads, not adding them.

- Globally, the cities that "just work" and have vibrant communities all have cycling and pedestrian infrastructure. The trend, globally, is to add bike lanes. Not remove them.

I'm assuming none of my points are new but the fact of the matter is that this is a step backwards. I understand the province's desire to improve traffic flow, but you can have both. Bike lanes on University Ave, for instance, are fairly wide. They can still exist, but be slimmed down to a more appropriate size. I would also like to remind the province of street parking on these streets. It is unproductive from all angles other than minor convenience for the very few.