Toronto cyclists mount resistance to Ford's war against bike lanes

Toronto cycling advocates are mustering opposition to Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s crusade against bike lanes which he claims clog vehicle traffic in the city.

Joined by NDP MPP Jessica Bell, hundreds of cyclists held a ride and rally in front of Queen’s Park on Wed. night to oppose the government’s plan to control future bike lane construction in Ontario municipalities and even rip up some existing bike infrastructure.

For Bell, the battle against Bill 212 — the Reducing Gridlock and Saving You Time Act — is personal. Her daughter bikes each day to her middle school and Bell says “(my) heart is in my mouth” each time her child leaves for school. 

“I just want them to get to school safely and get home safely: I think every parent wants that,” Bell said.

Bell says Ford is playing a game of distraction to fuel a culture war pitting drivers against cyclists to avoid attention to the provincial government’s failures on housing, healthcare and traffic congestion. 

“Unfortunately, people will die,” Bell said. “Cyclists will die as a result of his decision to target people who ride bikes.”

She is calling on all cyclists to get politically involved “because if we don’t, we could lose all the gains we made.” It has happened before. In the Netherlands, cyclists stood up and organized after too many bike users died, including children, “and enough was enough and people got politically involved.” 

So far, however, Ford is not letting up. He is touting the government’s proposed act and ratcheted his attacks against bike lanes up another notch this week, even threatening to remove a new cycle path on University Ave. that was just built. 

So far, most of the comments from Prabmeet Sarkaria, Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation, have been that “drivers across Ontario are stuck in gridlock for hours every day and bike lanes are making things worse,” the minister said in a tweet. 

However, cycling advocates like Michael Longfield, executive director of Cycle Toronto, wonders how the minister responds to the fact that people are losing their lives, not just stuck in traffic jams. 

“I've spoken with families this year who have lost a loved one riding a bike; these are all completely preventable deaths,” he said.

Longfield said Ford’s anti-cycling campaign is a “big provincial overreach,” given that “local communities and municipalities are best equipped to handle” cycling infrastructure. It’s a life and death issue for Longfield, he emphasizes that six cyclists have already died on Toronto streets this year. He worries that number will grow if Ford has his way.

Raktim Mitra, a professor of urban planning at Toronto Metropolitan University, agrees. Bike lanes impact local communities and should be developed and managed by municipal officials, he said. It makes no economic sense to remove bike lanes that the city just spent money on to build, he noted.

Ford’s plan is based on “political and cultural views, and you can't put a price tag on that,” Mitra said. 

Historically, from an urban planning perspective, it’s a type of thinking that was prominent in the 1930s. The view in the  1930s and 40s was that the most efficient road is one that has no interruption of traffic. 

In recent decades, there has been a greater risk to safety of all road users, Mitra said. It’s where the new planning philosophies like vision zero (which seeks to end all traffic fatalities) and complete streets (which seeks to balance all modes of transportation, even cycling) emerges from.

Matteo Cimellaro / Canada’s National Observer / Local Journalism Initiative