I am hoping that Premier…

I am hoping that Premier Ford and Minister Sarkaria will move Bill 212 forward because the City of Toronto has fallen prey to the cycling advocates and only serves this minority. My other primary issue and I did notify the city of my concerns, and I asked them for a copy of the disability assessment they were required to do at the onset of this project when they decided to make a massive change to the use of space and access in the City and they did not do one. I sent the city of Toronto numerous pictures and videos evidencing how the new lanes for parking were limited for people like myself who have physical disabilities and require reasonable access. I often use a cane and must exit on either side of the vehicle into fully live traffic, either cyclists if I am a passenger and also speeding e-bikes and scooters and none in a bike lane will ever stop for anyone trying to get out of a vehicle they just scream and say move it or hit their bell- it's horrible and this is to elderly and visibly disabled people forced to step into live bike lane traffic over a cement barrier. The other concern is the amount of accessible parking the city removed for bike lanes, it's over 40% and for those of us who cannot move freely this is a lot. The other issues are during the winter when the city clears the snow for bike lanes and I notified the city that 6 ft high snow banks made it impossible to exit as a passenger and there were no mid block breaks to get to the curb. The city told me, knowing I used a cane, to walk several blocks in the snowstorm on the street in live traffic to get to the end of a large block on Danforth Ave. This is the way the city views disabled people and bike lanes. Also at St. Mikes all but one spot vs. the two blocks at the emergency for a trauma hospital have been removed for bike lanes and ambulances are frequently stuck getting to the hospital after exiting the DVP and trying to get up Gerrard St. Exit to go to the trauma unit due to bike lanes. Police, Fire and Ambulances are trapped on all streets because cars cannot pull over and in Toronto we are left with one single lane and then foreign people new to Canada who don't care about road rules and driving uber simply block the lane and sit there- it's utter chaos. The city and their people they rally around say bike lanes don't cause traffic- it's not true, they have. Our population has increased 17% in the last 10 years and in 2021 when the pandemic happened we had traffic, but nothing like this. Now that the city has put in all of these horribly designed bike lanes we are at a complete standstill and we simply can't go anywhere. We didn't get millions of people in a year and a half and those who did come in are low wage earners per the federal guidelines, they are the e-bike users and not a large volume of car drivers so the only thing that is causing the traffic jams are that every single street in Toronto is one lane only from two due to bike lanes, no advance green lights being used so cars just sit there trapped due to bike lane barriers and often streetcars will block intersections causing you to sit in a car for up to 6 light changes and not go anywhere while traffic builds for blocks and blocks- it's utter insanity and this mayor has ruined the city. Worse the city of Toronto does not have a disability advocate on staff who works on projects but rather has a very vocal bike TO advocate who is paid with tax dollars to swing the public opinion and provide unequal views at any meeting, again not fair and not how government decisions on projects should be made. Hospitals, main arteries and any street with a streetcar should not have a bike lane. I ask you to consider Dundas Street and Adelaide Street East the two streets downtown that both link up to the DVP. They should be free of bike lanes. Most certainly Dundas St should never have had a bike lane because it's widely used to get to the DVP and with the streetcar traffic is often backed up from River Street to just west of Jarvis solid bumper to bumper and this is what prompts the extended TTC streetcars to then pull up and block intersections like Sumach and Dundas, which because of the bike lanes prevents anyone from turning right and then just forces a giant traffic jam and blocks access to parking garages. It's a total horror show. I also find it appalling that the city of Toronto is dragging out BIA reps who are political jockeys and not the hard working business staff who have lost business and this was evidenced by the store owners on Bloor Street West who said they have a loss of business since the bike lanes went in. The arrogance and bravado of this mayor to ignore them is the problem we have in Toronto and I do not know one person who thinks the bike lanes are a good idea. I also talk to the store owners, bar and restaurant owners all along Danforth and they all say the bike lanes coming out of the pandemic destroyed them and they lost even more money they they could absorb. This is telling and you can see what was once a thriving city with cute busy stores where you could go pick up a large load for your home and drive it home, you are now prevented from doing so- clearly this hampers business owners and no one is riding on their bike to go buy large items and then hop back on and ride off into the sunset. All the Mayor has done is to wage a war on the car and ignore an aging city and ignore disabled people with her bike lane agenda. The city of Toronto councillors have also failed to identify their connections with bike lobbyists which is clearly a conflict of interest when the lobbyists have so much pull in this city and my question is who is getting a kick back at city hall over this bike lane business? The city of Toronto should never have continued with shoving in bike lanes once they knew there were concerns raised about disability access and they knew going back to 2022 there were concerns, but they ignored them. The city has taken away parking from people on Broadview ave by randomly adding a bike lane at Cosburn northbound to Pape and has then threatened to close two full streets one going north and one going south to make each fully bike only access- again another fully unbelievable move as people own homes and have cars on all of these streets. People have families and need to use their vehicles and the city arbitrarily just decides to slam these in and on Broadview the planned building will further compound reduced lanes the mayor has now created, grinding this area and turning it into a total circus. It's also an issue because when the DVP has road closures Broadview is the secondary road along with the Bayview Extension and when the Bayview Extension floods Broadview again is the secondary road used and this city fails to ever consider these things just like they fail to consider the massive builds and massive road retstrictions with the subways that are already in play. All we get is a very underwhelming city response where it's so clear this mayor doesn't care and doesn't consider anything else going on and has an agenda that aligs solely with lobbyists but doesn't serve the majority of society. I am asking the Premier and Member to ensure the Bill moves forward and that they remove the majority of the bike lanes and look at a strategy to move them into the city bike trail system and free up our roads. What we will see is an immediate reduction in traffic. All that has to happen is remove the white pickets and repaint the roads, this is not the cost the mayor is saying. Also we need to have clarity if she is tossing out these numbers as to what she has wasted on this poor design. Lastly I would like to close with the design of these bike lanes is flawed and not natural. Cars parked obstruct the sightline of the bikes and when turning it's almost impossible to see anyone in the bike lane while looking for pedestrians also crossing, those who simply walk out into traffic and then oncoming traffic. It would have made more sense to have cars remain where they were beside the curb as drivers were already used to looking out for bikes and put any lane on the outside. Again all of this is such poor design and function it should be scrapped. I believe once this is fully viewed the Premiers office will be able to safely say the park system is where these should have been originally put with key intersections into the city thus leaving the majority of the streets free and clear and disability access must be at the forefront of the minds and not excluded and all concrete barriers that are knee high and all concrete bollards must be removed due to tripping hazards and design must be redone with a disability consultant involved. I have tripped when using a can exiting a bike lane on to the city sidewalk bays due to the ice and the city of toronto simply doesn't care. This is a recipe for disaster and litigation waiting to happen due to negligence.