I do not support removing…

I do not support removing bike lanes nor creating additional provincial red tape for the implementation of new bike lanes. I live in Toronto. Year after year in this city, bike share ridership has been increasing quickly and at a steady rate. People are seeing the developments to bike infrastructure and making the choice to cycle more. For Toronto, this means fewer cars on the road, less air and noise pollution, less traffic, improved public health and greater freedom of transportation within the city. Every cyclist using a bike lane is one less car on the road and one more person out of your way as a driver.

One of the most common users of bike infrastructure that I see regularly are food delivery workers (eg. Uber Eats, etc.). Anyone who has ever been in downtown Toronto has seen them on their bikes with their big square cooler bags. Removing the bike lanes will not keep them from cycling within the city. They'll either use the roadways (slowing down car traffic and endangering themselves), or they'll use the sidewalks (illegal, slower, and endangers pedestrians). Bike lanes keep cyclists out of everyone's way and keeps traffic moving, which is better for everyone, including drivers.

Premier Doug Ford himself said, during an episode of TVO's Political Blind Date in 2017, that he himself feels safer when the bike lanes are separate from the road lanes, and that "1 [cyclist] death is way too many". This year, 6 cyclists have died riding their bikes in the city, and now Ford wants to use his provincial powers to take away the infrastructure that makes cycling safer, despite the agreement of the local municipality and local voters that they want these lanes. The premier is overstepping his bounds with this legislation and I hope it fails.