The Battle of the Bike Lanes Bill 212
Bike lanes in, bike lanes out.
Every time I think that Toronto might actually become a better city that can compete with other cities around the world, maybe even be considered a world-class city, politicians have to rain on our parade. This time, we can blame good old Dougie Ford, the Premier of Ontario.
The city/province spent millions of dollars creating safe, good bike lines that span for many kilometers in and through and around the GTA. The infrastructure is new, and so many people are ecstatic about finally being able to ride bikes to their jobs, or to entertainment, etc., to and from the downtown area without dying.
Just google the news; every time you turn around, a bicyclist is being hit by a car or killed. I have a couple of friends who have been doored and have suffered chronic injuries for life from it. Bike lanes are necessary and innovative.
Friends that go to Europe rave about the cities full of bikes and safe bike lanes. How some downtown cores are just bikes and pedestrians.
I have seen cities in the US with my own eyes that have safe, beautiful bike lanes in their downtown corridors.
Bikers were happy all these new safe bikes lanes have gone in around the GTA over the past couple of years. One of my sons bikes to his job downtown and loved the new Bloor bike lanes. He felt much safer and protected along busy Bloor Street. As a mom, I’m always glad that more and more bike lanes are being put in to protect everyone’s children, even if they are adults. In fact, I ride my own bike more because there are now more safe bike lanes in my part of town.
But Ford is a car person. I guess it’s in the name. I can’t imagine he’s ever ridden a bike. He doesn’t like the new bike lanes. Other car people hate the new bike lanes. They say the lanes create traffic.
I say our crappy transit system that is road-based, our poorly designed streets that can’t accommodate millions of people on a good day, bike lanes or not, plus all the endless, endless, endless construction are just a few of many things that cause traffic.
The car people complain about traffic, not seeing the irony that most cars have only one or two people in them where thousands drive a day, so the traffic is from thousands of cars clogging up the roads. You can put in more car lanes and there will still be traffic jams.
What do bikes have to do with car traffic?
Bikers that don’t have to weave and wind throughout traffic will be safe and not creating traffic. Areas with no bike lanes will be back to bikers weaving in and out of traffic, bikers getting doored, people getting run over, cars getting dinged, bikes will be back (illegally) on the sidewalks because it’s safer for them but not necessarily for pedestrians and all of the rest of the chaos that happens in a megacity when there are no designated lanes.
I drive a car, I ride a bike, and I am a pedestrian. I love areas with bike lanes and bike lane lights. Everyone knows where everyone is. Bikes aren’t knocking people down on the sidewalks; they aren’t weaving in the cars; they are in their own lane. We can see them as car drivers.
I often see people in wheelchairs in bike lanes, too. I don’t blame them. The sidewalks are always a disaster and it’s likely way safer to be in a bike lane.
Now our Premier Doug Ford is going tear up all the new bike lanes because of some lazy fat asses crying about traffic. It’s going to cost the city MILLIONS of dollars.
Millions of dollars that could have been funneled towards the hundreds of homeless encampments around the city. Millions of dollars that could have helped the food banks that are overflowing. One in four Torontonians use the food bank right now. An all-time high.
But no, Ford has to destroy something that made us look like we care about people, the environment, safety, alternative transportation modes… and so on. Infrastructure that most world-class cities are proud of.
Four million dollars could have gone to the TTC to do something to make it run better.
If Ford wants to stop all the traffic, he should be encouraging people to get out of their cars and walk, bike, take transit, etc., not make room for more cars. There will always be more cars and more cars and more cars.
The current mayor is a bike rider, and no doubt uses all the lanes. I’m sure she’s pissed at this nonsense.
Why not build a rapid transit system in the sky like the subways in Brooklyn and so on? Or even a highway, a skyway?
Everyone fighting for the same patch of ground on the earth is nuts.
More tunnels for highways and transit can be built underground, though those will take decades upon decades, so we need a quick solution that will attract people to the downtown core without it taking hours of their lives.
Sky trains or even cable cars; transportation in the air to move people. Why not?
The highways are a disaster. One crash can shut things down for HOURS. We have to think outside the box.
Safe bike lanes gave me hope we were moving along the right track towards the future.
And yes, I know some people have mobility issues and have to take the car. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about banning cars. I’m talking about enhancing transportation options.
There are thousands of people who would likely be encouraged to take transit or bike into the core if there were enough parking lots at the transit stations for the outreaches of suburbs if the transit was actually reliable, and if there were safe and maintained bike lanes. Near where I live, there should be way more parking at the TTC station. It’s been under construction for a couple of years, which doesn’t help, but they aren’t building more parking. There is no new parking garage that I can see.
Other cities around the world function just fine with various transportation options besides the almighty car. Yes, even in countries where it snows!
But now we can just watch as the millions of dollars spent creating the bike lanes is squandered as it costs another many more millions of dollars to tear them up. I guess the bike lane builders and destroyers will have some jobs.
Oh, and the icing on the cake. Ford has an 11-page report that outlines how if a biker is injured or killed in any area where the bike lanes had formerly been but will be ripped out, they are not allowed to sue the province for injury or death.
WTF!
