I ride my bike daily to and…

I ride my bike daily to and from work, and on the weekends I take my daughter to swim lessons and other places on my bike. Our household doesn’t have a car. When she’s older, I hope she’ll bike to high school and to see friends and engage in activities. Having protected bike lanes makes this possible. Without them, I don’t think I’d take the risk or be OK with her taking the risk. There are so many more people in the city now and with the trend to bigger SUVs and trucks, every collision has such high risk of serious injury and death.

Banning bike lanes puts cyclists like me and bike passengers like my daughter at risk. It puts pedestrians at risk by removing that barrier between curb and road. It makes the air we breathe more polluted and undermines our efforts to mitigate the climate chaos coming for our children and grandchildren. And it does this for no reason except scoring political points in a manufactured culture war. It will worsen traffic congestion, not reduce it. The government’s own experts have consistently said that bike lanes are not a cause of gridlock.

This bill threatens other uses of road space that communities rely on, including transit priority, safe crossings, patios, curbside access, and school streets.

I’m tired of seeing provincial decrees strip my city of local authority and decision-making, even when projects are supported by evidence and local residents. We know what’s best for our city.