The amendment to remove bike…

The amendment to remove bike lanes in Toronto and to require provincial review of new bike lanes across Ontario is a mistake. There is no legitimate evidence (Provincially, Federally or even Globally) that proves adding bike lanes decreases traffic flow. This would be a complete waste of taxpayer money, especially since the City of Toronto has already spent the money to add bike lanes where they were clearly needed to begin with. Removal of bike lanes, particularly in a metro area such as Toronto, has massive safety risks. Removing bike lanes does NOT remove the cyclists themselves. It simply dumps them onto a dangerous shared road with cars/trucks trying to squeeze past the cyclists, which is extremely dangerous to the cyclists. The cyclists will have no option but to take up the entire lane in order to protect themselves from being sideswiped, which will SLOW DOWN TRAFFIC EVEN MORE. This is a terrible proposal, doomed to fail and will needlessly cost money and potentially lives. Moving on to the portions of the proposal requiring provincial oversight of new bike lanes in all municipalities. Why would the province spend time, resources and money to review something that can be decided by the highly qualified staff and city councillors? This level of government overreach is a waste of provincial funds and potentially very detrimental to local developments that should remain in the hands of those most qualified: local residents, city staff and councillors. Please, please reconsider this proposal. It is going to be dangerous, costly, and is a big step backwards in progress towards providing citizens with options on how they choose to get around their cities.