Dear Premier Ford and the…

Dear Premier Ford and the Minister of Transportation,

I am completely and fundamentally opposed to the proposed Bill 212 for the following reasons:

1. The proposed Bill 212 does not consider the safety and transportation needs of Torontonians and privileges the needs of commuters coming to Toronto from outside Toronto who wish to drive. My children bike to school and sports activities, my husband and I bike to work, and as a family we choose biking over driving whenever possible. This proposal will put my family in harms way. More provincial funding should be directed towards increasing and improving transit infrastructure. Perhaps a better use for the $200 that will be given to Ontarians would be to invest in transit infrastructure.

2. A significant proportion of Torontonians use biking infrastructure to navigate the city (https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7374744). The 1.2% statistic cited by the Transportation Minister to justify this bill is fundamentally incorrect and inaccurate. High parking, gas, vehicle ownership costs make driving inaccessible for many. This bill will deny many access to affordable, convenient and safe modes of transportation.

3. Building more highways and making driving easier is a backward decision that will not reduce gridlock and discourages the use of public transit (https://thenarwhal.ca/ontario-highways-induced-demand-explainer/).

4. Removing bike lanes and building more highways will contribute significantly to climate change and air pollution, and negatively impact the health and wellbeing of Torontonians.

5. Removal of bike lanes adding more lanes of traffic will not reduce congestion ( https://www.theglobeandmail.com/drive/culture/article-drivers-bike-lane…. ). In fact gridlock will increase with aggressive, impatient drivers leapfrogging around parked cars to try to advance a few cars. This will lead to increased driver frustration, more aggressive driving and more accidents, further adding to, not reducing, gridlock.

6. Removal of bike lanes and provincial regulation of future bike lanes in Toronto is undemocratic and fiscally irresponsible. Democratic processes have been followed to study, decide, plan and implement bike lanes in Toronto. This bill centralizes municipal decision making and the silences public voices and circumvents the public consultation process. The waste of municipal funds, generation of construction waste, and significant provincial funds that are required to remove existing bike lanes is a rediculous and irresponsible waste of taxpayer dollars that should be instead directed to our crumbling public education and healthcare sectors.

7. Removal of bike lanes will take time and will cause gridlock through the process.

For all of these reasons and more I implore you to reconsider and scrap Bill 212 for the sake of Ontarians living in Toronto today and in the future.
Thank you.