Ontario Premier Doug Ford says his plan to remove three major bike lanes in Toronto will reduce gridlock, while the city’s mayor calls the move “arbitrary” and “costly.”
The legislation will also require municipalities to get provincial approval before creating new bike lanes.
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said removing the bike lanes would be costly and unsafe.
“Ripping up the bike lanes [is] just costly, makes it less safe for cyclists and car drivers,” she told reporters at an unrelated news conference on Nov 1. “It is arbitrary, and it’s not a good use of taxpayers’ money.”
Chow also said the province needs to be careful about overreach, noting that bike lanes are the responsibility of municipalities.
The proposed amendment is posted for public comment until Nov. 20.
“Based on the outcome of the review, a regulation could be made to require the removal of the bike lane and its return to a lane of traffic,” the notice reads.
Ontario said the criteria for the assessment would include environmental implications. It said the criteria would be developed in consultation with stakeholders, including “large municipalities.”
Chow said the city would like to work with the province on the issue, but that it required more time.
“We want to collaborate with the province of Ontario. We want to give them the evidence. We want to submit information to them. But the way they’re rushing it through, it’s making it quite difficult,” the mayor said during the news conference.
Ford’s transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said in a statement that the bike lanes are contributing to gridlock.
“We are doing everything we can to fight congestion and keep major arterial roads moving, but the removal of lanes of traffic on our busiest roads, such as Bloor Street, University Avenue, and Yonge Street, has only made gridlock worse,” Sakaria said.
“Bike lanes should be on secondary roads, where they make sense for the more than 70 percent of people who drive and for the 1.2 percent who commute by bike.”
