The new and old bike lanes…

The new and old bike lanes make such a difference when trying to commute. Since they've updated the ones on college and university I actively choose biking over driving to work 80% of the time, even when the weather is poor, vs before when I would do it maybe 20% of the time. The bloor bike lanes make a huge difference to my choice of transportation as well. I went out and bought fenders for my bike for rainy days and better gear to protect me from the weather because biking is just a nicer experience now. I am a driver who has gotten off the road since these bike lanes have been put in. If you take them away it will do nothing to help congestion because me, and many others, will just get back into our cars. Those take up a lot more space than if we're all on our bikes. Leave the driving to those who don't have the option. Plus, if those who don't have a car are biking instead of say, taking the TTC, it relieves TTC overcrowding, thereby encouraging others who can't bike to take it as a convenient and fast option. Furthermore, the company who operates the city bikes noted a significant increase in usership (I believe it was 120%) in the latter part of this year - not so coincidentally since there have been major bike lane improvements. If that's not enough to prove that bike lanes on "priority" streets are encouraging people not to drive when they don't have to, I don't know what is. Even food couriers who use e-bikes a probably benefitting from these lanes. If you make it more dangerous and difficult to do their jobs in this way, they will also start opting to drive a car instead. Removing the lanes will make everything worse.