The primary way to reduce…

The primary way to reduce traffic in the city is to have fewer cars on the road. If removing bike lanes did reduce traffic, it would only encourage more people to drive, since there is no traffic. This will ultimately lead to more traffic, and there will be no more lanes to remove. This bill will not reduce traffic, but it will discourage people from biking to get around the city, which leads to more cars on the roads.

Safe bike lanes will make more people bike. That is a fact. People biking means they are not driving. This means less traffic. If I could not bike around the city safely, I would consider buying a car.

Biking as a means of transport through the city allows you to stop at multiple businesses on your ride home. This is not possible on the subway or in a car (downtown where easy, fast parking is scarce). This kind of behaviour should absolutely be encouraged. Any business should hope that they have a well-used bike lane right outside their door.

Anyone who says that bike lanes should only be on side streets has clearly never ridden a bike to get from point A to point B. There is so rarely a route within Toronto that involves avoiding all major streets, and if there is, it's substantially longer. Maybe drivers forget that cyclists are actually physically exert themselves to move around the city. Suggesting that a 20 minute bike across Bloor should now become a 50 minute bike getting lost in side streets is demeaning and ridiculous. Cyclists and drivers can coexist on a main road seamlessly. When cyclists have their own lane, everyone feels safer, including drivers.

This bill should definitely consider adapting what we currently have instead of wasting money ripping out perfectly good and frequently used bike lanes. Some alternative, much lower cost ways to improve traffic in the city include:
- More intersections that don't allow a right turn on a red light, and do have advance right turn signals.
- More advance left turn signals.
- Adaptive streetlights for streetcars so they do not have to sit waiting at a red light (this would encourage more people to take a streetcar, if it moves faster).
- Any other traffic light changes that allow for traffic to run more smoothly.
- Enforcement and tickets for those who block the box.

All of this energy towards ripping out bike lanes would be much better for everyone involved if it was directed at proven ways to fight gridlock. There is no proof anywhere that removing bike lanes reduces traffic. There are a lot of lies being thrown around and I am really unimpressed that the province would consider a bill that affects so many Torontonians' lives without considering that it is based on vibes and not facts.

Also, the province should not be spending so much time thinking about our city's bike lanes. We have a municipal government for that. They are overstepping and should focus on building more housing, combatting homelessness, and the huge amount of debt it is in. It's ridiculous that this bill is being suggested. What a waste of everyone's time and energy.