This bill is dangerous and…

This bill is dangerous and demonstrates lack of awareness of what life is like in Ontario municipalities.

As a pedestrian, cyclist, and transit rider in the city of Ottawa I routinely feel unsafe by the unbound traffic cutting through our downtown and adjacent neighbourhoods (large commercial trucks included). Streets have become increasingly dangerous with drivers speeding, disobeying traffic signs and signals. Telling bikes to share the road with this unchecked traffic is a death sentence.

This bill increases already volatile dissent among drivers toward cyclists, leading to verbal and physical threats. Ride a bike around any city, you'll see what I mean. Law-abiding cyclists are cut off, squeezed, threatened, and put in imminent danger by entitled drivers, and this bill gives cars impunity to worsen this entitlement they believe they have to our city streets.

Cyclists reduce traffic. My partner and I both cycle or take transit to work, that's two fewer single-occupant cars on the highway. But failing transit in Ottawa and removal/reduction of bike lanes will put two cars back into traffic.

City streets should be for pedestrians (walkers and cyclists) and busses and streetcars full of people. Downtown businesses benefit from this kind of safe, accessible, and welcoming environment. Trash this dangerous, ignorant, fiscally irresponsible bill.