Bill 212 is a farce. Doug…

Bill 212 is a farce. Doug Ford is trying to MAKE ME UNSAFE biking to school so that he doesn’t have to drive next to bike lanes on his way to work (when he actually goes to work, which is less than a 100 days a year).

This bill is an obvious distraction, red meat for the SUV-driving, bike-hating suburbanite Conservative base, so that they will forget about the fact that their six kids will never own a home. Decades of research from around the world and right here in Toronto show that adding bike lanes reduces gridlock. By removing them, this bill literally does the opposite of what is in its name.

I urge you to see reason. Since I’m not sure you are capable on your own, I’ve laid out those reasons here:

1. The province should listen to local governments, they have done the research that shows bike lanes reduce congestion.

2. The province should not be meddling in what are clearly municipal affairs. This sort of petty meddling is such a waste of Ontarians’ tax dollars. We need the province to focus on doing ANYTHING about building affordable housing that benefits Ontarians, not Doug Ford’s mobster developer buddies.

3. The province should not be adding red tape and bureaucracy that will slow down and increase the cost of municipal business, it should be removing red tape so that we can build affordable housing.

4. I use the Bloor St. bike lane every day to get to school. Bike lanes are essential infrastructure like sidewalks and roads. They are most useful when they are contiguous, uninterrupted routes divided from the road by physical barriers. If you break them up into pieces, they will not be as useful or safe. If Doug Ford’s drive to work involved multiple sections where he had to drive through an open field, I don’t think he would find that acceptable. Similarly, bike lanes that just end, leaving cyclists on the road, are not a good solution.

5. When I do drive, I prefer cyclists be in a bike lane with a physical barrier. It just feels safer for everyone. If the bike lanes are removed, people will still ride on Bloor, Yonge and University, they will just do so in a less safe way.

6. Bike lanes support the transit investments that the province and municipality have made, allowing more people easier access to stations.

7. Tearing up bike lanes is a colossal waste of money. Why not spend that money on more inflationary cheques to Ontarians to pay for their votes in the next provincial election instead?

I demand that this bill be IMMEDIATELY RIPPED UP and thrown in the trash bin where it belongs. I would also encourage Doug Ford to resign so that he can focus on fighting the various corruption charges he will soon be facing in court when the RCMP concludes their investigation into his Greenbelt scandal.