I live in midtown Toronto …

I live in midtown Toronto (St. Clair and Dufferin area) and am married with two teen-aged kids. We don't own a car, as we never saw the need living in Toronto and I think that this decision benefits our neighbours--one less car to park as most of the people who live on my street use on-street parking.

I am writing to express my concern with removing bike lanes, in particular the Bloor Street bike lanes for many reasons, but these are the main ones: (1) independence for my kids, and (2) Safety. The bloor bike lanes automatically made my kids more independent. Both my kids started biking on their own to reach destinations on Bloor Street--school especially--once the bike lanes opened. They are smart cyclists, but the bike lane gave them more confidence to get around the city on their own. (2) Safety is of course the biggest issue. Bloor Street especially has many businesses with people getting on and off their bicycles to do shopping. Take those lanes away and everyone will be mixing in traffic. I am not opposed to that, but if the goal is to get people moving, mixing cyclists and cars will most definitely slow down traffic, there will be no choice. Plus, we have seen a huge rise in food delivery workers on electric bikes, and people on electric bikes more generally. Mixing all those people in two lanes of traffic is a recipe for chaos.

Keeping them separated is the smart and safe thing to do.