The proposed legislation…

The proposed legislation will do very little regarding gridlock in the urban centres and may even worsen gridlock. There is no evidence provided by the minister regarding the causes of gridlock in the municipalities. Some of the Minister's public comments were even evidently false. There is gridlock on the 401 without any bike lanes, there are many intersections in the cities without bike lanes that have gridlock. As a matter of fact, you are more likely to find a bank branch or a coffee shop at an intersection with gridlock than a bike lane.

Studies in many parts of the world have shown that merging and braking are the main causes of gridlock. The gridlock on the 401 is for a large part caused by aggressive drivers who constantly switch lanes forcing other drivers to brake to maintain a safe distance, and by the design of the 401 where the right lanes often turn into exit lanes forcing drivers to merge if they need to stay on the 401.

In urban centres, a single lane of vehicles with dedicated left and right turn lanes (and thus no merging) has less gridlock than 2 lanes without those dedicated lanes. In theory, two lanes of car traffic can hold more vehicles and subsequently, people assume that traffic will go faster. In reality, every 4-lane street with vehicle parking during off-peak times will have cars stopped during peak times leading to unnecessary merging into the left lane. When merged in the left lane, the driver will be stuck behind a left-turning car. More than half of the year, many of the 4-lanes streets in the cores are reduced to 2 lanes anyway to provide outdoor dining options for the restaurants on those streets.

The streets with dedicated bike lanes have dedicated left-turn lanes, so drivers will not get stuck behind a left-turning car. They also have dedicated parking spots, so people can legally park and grab money from the ATM or a coffee at Tim Horton's. I drive quite regularly on the three streets where the premier and minister want to remove the bike lanes. Most of the time when there is gridlock, an illegally parked vehicle is blocking both the bike lane and half of the live traffic lane or a vehicle is trying to make an illegal left or u-turn. I also remember the situation before the bike lanes were installed and density was lower; I always tried to avoid driving on those streets as travel times were unpredictable: Christy to St George could take anything from 4 to 35 minutes and sometimes even longer. Now with the bike lanes, it takes between 5 minutes in normal traffic to 8 minutes in heavy traffic. The longest was 10 minutes when the subway was closed down and buses were added.

As much of the gridlock is caused by bad traffic behaviour, common sense would dictate us to increase enforcement and tighten driver licensing. This would result in more driver's licenses being suspended, but those drivers will still need to go from point a to point b and need to find an alternative mode of transportation. Where the removal of bike lanes will result in less options.

How can we improve traffic in urban areas? The easiest solution is to have dedicated left- and right-turn lanes AND signals. Especially in urban centres with a lot of pedestrian traffic, dedicated right-turn signals will allow motorized vehicles to make safe right turns without impediment. The simultaneous left-turn signals for N->E and S->W can have dedicated E->N and W->S right-turn signals for the most efficient use of an intersection. Another option would be to focus on transferiums: parking options outside the urban cores where transit fare to the cores is included in the parking rates.

We also need to plan for the future. The government's policy in urban areas is to increase densification, especially near Mass Transport Stations. This means more pedestrians and cyclists as the new developments have no minimum parking rates anymore. In midtown Toronto, one development submission has 6 resident parking spots for 357 dwellings. The residents who don't have a motorized vehicle as a mode of transportation will use micro-mobility besides public transit. Even if they only act as pedestrians, they will be in the intersections to go to the TTC entrances adding to the gridlock.

Tens of thousands of people are moving into the downtown and midtown cores. They will shop locally as they do not have access to vehicles to go to the big box stores and monster plazas. They will shop on the main streets in the cores, they will work in the offices in the cores. Many cyclists on Bloor, Yonge and University work and/or shop on Bloor, Yonge, or University. The BIAs in the cores confirm this. They know that most of the motorized vehicles on Bloor, Yonge and University are not bringing business and just passing through. The BIAs know that pedestrians and cyclists are the ones who bring business and allow the businesses to survive. When vehicular traffic increases, less pedestrians will frequent those shops.

Many of the malls in the suburban areas with minimal gridlock are currently suffering. These are easily accessible by motorized vehicles. That raises the question of whether removing the gridlock in urban centres will remove the economic losses of an estimated $11B or result in different, even larger economic losses.

Lastly, a small comment regarding safety. Every year, many pedestrians and cyclists die on our streets. No economic gain justifies the enormous loss of life. The two options I provided for easing gridlock will also prevent unnecessary and unacceptable loss of life. The Minister claims that he feels the pain of people from Brampton travelling by car into Toronto, I wished he would feel the pain of the families whose loved ones are killed by drivers.