To the honorable ministers,…

To the honorable ministers, and premier Ford,

I have been a cyclist in the city of Toronto for over a decade. I believe the removal of these bike lanes is detrimental to the city, detrimental to the province, and detrimental to Canada. We are removing urban transit, we are increasing gridlock, we are abandoning our climate goals, and we are abandoning vulnerable road users.

Around the globe we have seen the concept of induced demand, more roads makes for more cars, which makes for more roads. The same applies to bicycle lanes, more bicycle lanes, a solid network of safe infrastructure, makes for more bikes. Moving into the future, where density increases, we need to focus on moving people not cars. This is not only good for the environment, this is good for those who choose to commute by car as there are simply less on the roads - COVID was remarkable for those travel times.

I implore you to look at your commute. Hundreds of cars, each taking up 6x10 feet of road space to, for the most part, move a single person. What if we could put a fraction of those users on a bike or e-scooter? Each taking up far less space, and like people on a crowded sidewalk, flowing. The cars you're behind at the light don't have to be there and instead on a nice side lane, separated and out of the way. For these side lanes to be viable they also need to take people to where they need to go, small businesses on main roads, to work, to their friends and family.

What is not better for mid-range (20km) commute than a bicycle that is powered by breakfast, clean, and quiet. As you are in charge of leading this province you have the opportunity to be a leader here as well. We need to increase viable alternatives to driving so those who have to will have less traffic in there way. This includes building out public transit and bike infrastructure.