The move to rip out recently…

The move to rip out recently built bike lanes represents a significant waste of taxpayer money, undoing decades of hard work and investments into transportation infrastructure.

Bike lanes are vital for cities, making them safer, healthier, and promoting business. Toronto’s bike lanes are no exception; they are essential to the function of the city, and they are under threat.

The proposed Bill 212 plans to remove portions of the major bike lanes on Bloor, Yonge, and University, and impedes the creation of future bike lanes. We believe the bill is very dangerous both in terms of what it means for the future of bike infrastructure in Ontario and in terms of the ability of cities to govern themselves.

The Progressive Conservative government claims that bike lanes are bad for business and that by removing the bike lanes on these major streets gridlock will be reduced, but this is not true. Businesses in the Bloor Annex state that their business have flourished due to the bike lanes and that bike customers far exceed car ones. The Star found that bike lanes are not responsible for vehicle gridlock, since the addition of bike lanes to Toronto's central roads commute times have both increased and decreased, largely due to external factors like construction and post-Covid traffic increases, not due to the bike lanes themselves.

If this bill passes, these streets will be much more unsafe. Bicycle lanes reduce the likelihood of crashes by up to 45%, and in Toronto there have been numerous deaths due to a lack of cycling infrastructure. We cannot let this happen, we need to protect bike lanes not only for the sake of bikers but for the sake of the whole city.