For the purpose of this…

For the purpose of this comment I am going to focus on the bike lane aspect of Bill 212. For this focus I do not support what is being proposed by the bill as it greatly misrepresents the holistic picture of what is going on in our communities and attempts to solve movement issues in isolation.

As it is laid out in the bill, there is a focus on making it harder to add new bike lanes as well as scrutinizing the existence of the current infrastructure. As someone who has lived in the Bloor West Village community before and after the addition of the bike lines through this section, I want to make a passionatepleato let communities make the decisions that are right for them without this added scrutiny. 

I had my first child a few months before the installation of these lanes and have witnessed a drastic change to how people engage with our neighbourhood. Before the bike lanes I had several cases where cars travelling at speed or without concern for pedestrians nearly ran into me pushing my child in a stroller. Since they have been added, they have not only boosted bike traffic through our area, but also introduced traffic calming measures that have decreased the speeds at which drivers engage with our community. Because they are now travelling slower, they have been more likely to notice the other humans that are walking and taking part in our public spaces and stores. With it feeling safer to be a pedestrian in this neighbourhood, there has also been a noticeable upturn in the number of people out and about, even now as we are heading into the colder months. The area is feeling more vibrant, communities and connections are flourishing, and this aspect of the benefits of bike likes, the human aspect, is being overlooked by this bill.

If we focus on gridlock, we loose the human engagement of flourishing communities in favour of just one of the myriad of ways that we can get people to and from their destinations. Instead focusing on seeing our community as a highway to put in the rear view mirror with no regard for the people truly living within it.

A lot of the discourse around this bill has been about drivers vs cyclists, but there are so many more ways that we can improve our city, reduce the traffic, and encourage connectedness than prioritizing separating us into metal boxes going faster and faster.

Reading this I am reminded of the musing of Rex Weyler, the founding Director of Greenpeace about how cars were the worst social engineering experiment that humanity has conducted. Instead of atomizing the limited connection we have left, let's focus our efforts on looking each other in the eye.