The bike lane removal…

The bike lane removal addition an extreme overreach of provincial governance. This is a municipal matter and concerns should be directed to the municipality, where decisions have been made analyzing local data.

The information drawn on about volume of bike commuters is inappropriately applied, as it does not include bike trips that are not for work commute purposes (such as school, groceries, other travel). It also does not focus on the areas with the bike lanes, and draws on information from the entirety of Toronto, which currently does not have many protected bike lanes.

A network of protected bike lanes across the entire city would be required to make that data relevant. And this would also be required to effectively assess the value of active transportation to the city of Toronto residents. Currently unless the person deciding to cycle is living, working, and accomplishing all of their daily activities within the few corridors with protected bike lanes, we cannot asses the decisions made without considering the effect of the lack of safety inherent to cycling without protected bike lanes. The current bike lanes are only a step in the direction of creating a stronger cycling infrastructure, and as yet not complete enough to use their use data as a reason to remove them or limit their building.

This bill also does not address the inherent power imbalance between pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers. Protected bike lanes do exactly this - protect people. This is not about the current number of people cycling, it is about public safety. We have had way too many deaths and injuries from cars hitting cyclists and pedestrians, and making people safe to choose other means of transportation instead of car travel is a massive step in reducing Toronto's congestion issues. Objectively - pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users take up much less physical space than individual vehicles. This is necessary in dense urban centres, which Toronto is increasingly becoming. Encouraging these modes through infrastructure that promotes safety and prevents the deaths and injuries that make it unsafe to cycle in mixed traffic is the only way to work on truly reducing gridlock.

Removing bike lanes or limiting their continued building will only continue to remove the safety afforded to people choosing active transportation. It will result in more people choosing the safety of a large vehicle when they have the option to do so, causing there to be more cars on the street and an increase in traffic. It will result in more injuries and deaths from car-bicycle collisions from those who attempt to continue to cycle.

As a pedestrian, I also regularly experience the risk of bicycles driving on the sidewalks - which is technically illegal - but cyclists are currently thrust between the lack of safety of sharing the road with cars, or the illegal space of sidewalks. The function of protected bike lanes is to appropriately divide the space into the different modes and speeds of those using our streets so all can move safely. Unless we want to reduce speed limits to the maximum speed of a non-electronic bicycle, cyclists and motorists sharing roads is not a reasonable expectation on dense city streets or "arterial" roadways, from public safety or traffic congestions perspectives.

Why are protected bike lanes considered controversial? We don't expect pedestrians to walk in car traffic, as we cannot move at the same speed as a car - and neither can cyclists. And yet it would be ridiculous to suggest removing sidewalks because of car traffic - sidewalks are essential infrastructure. So are protected bike lanes!

The only way to truly reduce gridlock in a dense urban environment with a high volume of people is reducing the number of individual vehicles by providing the infrastructure safe, affordable, and efficient alternatives - like walking, taking transit, and cycling.