I write today with great…

I write today with great concern with Bill 60 and it's amendments to prohibit municipalities from reducing motor vehicle lanes when installing, implementing or marking new bicycle lanes as well as creating regulation-making authorities to allow the Minister to prescribe additional prohibited activities and to provide exemptions from the prohibition. Not only will this action put all road users at risk by reducing one of our primary tools for making roads safer since on street bike lanes have been proven to reduce the risk of injury and death for all road users by reducing vehicle speeds and providing a protective buffer between cars and vulnerable road users like cyclists and pedestrians. It will also further reduce one of our few remaining Vison Zero tools as the Government of Ontario has now banned automated speed enforcement cameras with Bill 56, Building a More Competitive Economy Act. Unfortunately, as we know, speed kills since a person hit by a car at 50 km/h has a 85 per cent likelihood of death as compared to a 10 per cent likelihood at 30 km/h, so without speed cameras and now without on street bike lanes we will see an increased loss of life.

Further to this point I bring up Parkside Drive in Toronto where two senior citizens lost they life to a speeding car. A plan was put forward to use speed cameras and bike lanes to reduce the speed on this road and save lives, but now with Bills 56 and 60 these plans will be dashed and Parkside will remain one of the most dangerous streets in Toronto. Some might say that we simply replace these speed cameras and on street bike lanes with other Vision Zero tools like speed bumps and roundabouts, but I should bring forward Councillor Holyday's thoughts on this:

"... This idea that you would replace the cameras with speed humps and chicanes and circles is rubbish. Rubbish. If you think the people are angry now, wait until we change the roads like that, so instead if targeting the people who are driving too fast you target everyone."

As well as the words of Parkdale High Park Councillor Perks:

"... Speedbumps on Parkside drive and turnabouts . . . the institute of Professional Engineers across North America . . . advises against putting speed bumps on arterial roads . . . and the roundabout would have to be massive as it would have to accommodate the turning radius of a TTC bus."

If both Councillor Holyday and Councillor Perks, two councillors who a rarely ideologically aligned, are in agreement that speed bumps and roundabouts don't work as a proper replacement in all cases, then removing one of the few tools that can truly replace speed cameras, on street bike lanes, will keep streets like Parkside unsafe for all road users.

That all being said, what is also very worrying is the broad wording of this bill which will ". . . allow the Minister to prescribe additional prohibited activities." With wording this broad the Minister of Transportation could stop express transit lanes, on street CafeTO patios and even street festival closures. This additional prohibited activities" section needs to be removed from the bill all together to clarify that the government will not end street festivals or it risks driving the cost of these festivals and cast a pall over future street based events.