I am opposed to this…

I am opposed to this legislation which overrides municipal decision making. I am also opposed to removing bike lanes in favour of cars. Cars add substantially to green house gas pollution, bikes do not. Bike riders can and have been killed in interactions with cars but people in cars are not endangered by bikes. Bike riders need to take these major routes just like car drivers to get to work and school. The roads need to be shared in a manner that is safe for all.

Personally I have stopped riding a bicycle myself due to my age and health issues. I take public transit and occasionally drive my car but I never take the car downtown. However when I used to drive a car on Bloor Street, before there were bike lanes it was always very crowded and bikes would dart in and out around the cars. It was very unsafe for cyclists. I witnessed a person fall off a bike right in front of the car ahead of me but luckily the car stopped in time due to the congested traffic even back then, about 10 years ago.

When there were no bike lanes on Bloor in the past there were parked cars there most of the time so it was still one lane of traffic as it is now.

The real cause of congestion for car traffic is that there are too many cars on the road and not enough people taking transit and/or biking. The future for us and our children and grandchildren is to stop using cars as much and turn to less polluting forms of transportation. It is one of the most important ways to reduce the very real threats of climate change.

I hope that if this submission is being considered from an environmental point of view that you will recognize that encouraging and enabling more cars to travel our downtown roadways is not environmentally friendly and makes no sense when routes with subways underneath them like Bloor St. and University Ave. are available and in fact are underused currently.

Thanks very much for reading this submission.