The removal of bike lanes…

The removal of bike lanes will negatively affect local businesses with less business given a reduction of "slow" foot/cyclist traffic and the removal exterior sitting area. Increasing the number of traffic lanes does NOT solve the lack of parking in the downtown core surrounding the bike lanes to be removed.

Removing established bike lanes is a step in the wrong direction. First of all one of the main problems along these routes is not the actual driving TIME but instead it is about DESTINATION PARKING. Regardless of increasing the lanes for cars by removing bikelanes will not solve the issue of parking along these routes, and local businesses will actually see a drop in their business as bikes actually increase local traffic and business customers, since parking bicycles does not require street surface area. Moreover, there are many cyclists that will continue to use these streets, and cars will not be able to go any faster, since passing bicycles will require cars to merge and give the required minimum 1m clearance to bicycles. This will lead to an increase in road rage as motorists will feel entitled to the road more than cyclists, which is incorrect. This in turn may lead to an increase of cyclists using the sidewalk to travel along these streets where bikelanes are to be removed, even though it is prohibited in Toronto for cyclists over 12 years old. More importantly, the bikelanes have allowed many local business on these streets to setup exterior sitting areas on the streets, removing street parking while not affecting bikelanes. The objective of creating an additional travel lane on these main streets will require the removal of all on-street exterior sitting area for restaurants on these streets in order to accomodate the additional car lane.