Dear Premier Ford, I…

Dear Premier Ford,

I urgently ask you to reconsider Bill 212. Removing bike lanes on Bloor, Yonge, and University will not make traffic flow better. It will hurt small businesses and quite literally lead to deaths of cyclists. Is that something you want? I imagine the answer is of course not.

Mayor Olivia Chow has denounced the bill as well. I do not understand why a provincial premier feels the need to meddle in the business of municipal affairs like this, especially when it's related to just a few bike lanes?

Bike lanes save lives. They are important parts of a city. By removing them, we are moving backward in society. We need to be more like Europe, not less, when it comes to city building. Cars are NOT king and car-centric design does not help the flow of people within a city. Surely you can understand that many, many people rely on bike lanes to get to where they need to go.

Furthermore, Toronto has only recently put in these bike lanes. Removing them will cost MILLIONS of dollars. To be a Conservative premier means that you want to abandon reckless spending, right? Well, leave them where they are, please.

If I am forced to bike on the road where a bike lane once was, I will commit to cycling right in the middle of the road. We will see how that fairs with drivers.

For further reading, please read this study: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L1YzYJA--Yz0rIsGifP95RbzDNYTuqdf/view