Please do not remove the…

Please do not remove the University, Bloor, and Yonge bike lanes that downtown Toronto has invested so much and worked so hard to install recently. I use those bike lanes daily and we should support cycling infrastructure especially in the downtown areas. In the downtown core, bike lanes work to reduce traffic, since cycles are a substitute for cars. There is a big difference between the downtown core and the rest of Toronto.

In the downtown core, cycling is the preferred means of transport as it is a high density area. It encourages physical activity, is way faster for getting around, is generally more pleasurable and drastically reduces traffic and makes the entire city core more pedestrian friendly, all the while reducing greenhouse emissions and noise pollution. It is such an obvious decision to support cycling infrastructure in the downtown core since most trips are of such short distances.

The statistic that "only 1.2% of Torontonians commute by bike" has been completely debunked and is misleading. Please refer to this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScwcEVzmCU4&t. That statistic comes from a survey done more than a decade ago when we did not have good biking infrastructure and includes people living in the suburbs, away from the downtown core - where obviously cycling is a lot less popular. As I said, there is a big difference between the downtown core and the rest of Toronto.

Instead, when concentrating on the downtown core, a more accurate figure would be one-third of people in the downtown core use bikes regularly, whether for pleasure, or for commuting, and this figure keeps growing every year. With the Toronto bike share program growing exponentially in popularity, having good bike lanes is an obvious complement for the city. The people in the downtown core have shown immense interest in using cycles for transportation along with public transit and we should do our best to support that and remove car dependency.

If we continue to support biking in the city center, more and more people will switch to using cycles as their regular means of transport. Build it and they will come. This is already a growing trend, and if we continue to support it, we can likely reach more than 50% of people cycling in the near future. We should strive for that and reduce our reliance on cars -- especially in the downtown core.