While I agree with the…

While I agree with the general idea of reducing gridlock, especially as a driver, I do not agree with limiting the authority of local governments. Municipal governments are the closest to citizens with the most impact on everyday citizen life. They spend a lot of time and effort on targeted local consultation to ensure projects represent the unique needs of their communities. This is an important point to consider in this legislation. Ontario is a vast province with communities having very different needs, environments, economies, and capacities. Uploading approvals to the province for extremely locally impactful projects like lane reductions and cycling infrastructure removes grassroots citizen influence on these projects. With respect to the great work of people in the Ministry of Transport, they do not know local needs, history, or unique situations and cannot make as effective decisions as local governments can.

So I urge caution in the application of this legislation and suggest limiting its scope and range significantly. It appear to be largely targeted at the City of Toronto, and if so, then perhaps it should be only for projects in the City of Toronto. I do not want Toronto centred solutions to be blanketly applied to my community outside of the GTA. Please respect local decision making!