Doug Ford’s plan to rip up Toronto bike lanes is a dangerous political stunt

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The Ontario government wants to spend tens of millions of dollars to speed up Premier Doug Ford’s commute.

That’s the only way to find logic in his anti-bike-lane Bill 212, officially named the Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act. But unless “you” are Mr. Ford, or among the tiny minority of drivers who share his specific drive to work, this bit of big-government meddling won’t save you time at all.

Mr. Ford’s plan to tear up Toronto bike lanes on Yonge Street, University Avenue and Bloor Street, including the Premier’s own commute from Etobicoke to Queen’s Park, is simply a political stunt.

Yet it is a dangerous one. This culture-war offensive will cost blood and treasure. Almost certainly, some innocent Ontarians will die in road crashes, as they’re forced to cycle in mixed traffic. That’s a heavy price to pay so that Mr. Ford can pander to drivers ahead of the next provincial election.

But over the long term, Mr. Ford is also damaging the future of transportation in the region. He is telling a story that bike lanes are a waste of space when, in fact, they are the future.

Even today, the lanes aren’t empty. While Mr. Ford’s government claims that only 1.2 per cent of people in Toronto cycle (the source is unclear), that number is clearly incorrect. While City of Toronto data are not up to date, a 2019 city survey found that nearly 10 per cent of residents cycled to work. Another 25 per cent reported cycling regularly for other reasons.

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In 2020, Mount Sinai Hospital’s chief executive officer told the city that 63 per cent of his staff biked to work. He and other downtown hospital leaders have been strong advocates for the bike infrastructure at their doorstep.

Mr. Ford doesn’t see that. He sees, out his car window, bike lanes with lots of space. I see something else, as someone who walks and cycles along the Bloor and University lanes regularly: crowds of cyclists who sometimes outnumber drivers. The advent of bike sharing and these lanes have changed my behaviour, and cycling is now my main mode of travel.

This, experts say, is typical: “The more people have access to bike lanes, the more they come out of the woodwork and start biking,” said Shoshanna Saxe, an associate professor in the University of Toronto’s civil and mineral engineering department and Canada Research Chair in sustainable infrastructure.

“In cities around the world, we’ve seen that people will bike when it’s safe and convenient.”

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow in an interview Thursday pointed out that the city’s Bike Share program has seen “dramatic” growth. It had 665,000 trips in 2015; this year, it is on track for six million.

“There’s no doubt that there is a huge increase in people cycling, which is great, because that means they are not in a car, causing more congestion,” she said.

For another thing, these lanes by themselves are too small to be relevant. Mr. Ford’s Progressive Conservatives want to link traffic congestion on the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area’s thousands of kilometres of roads with a dozen kilometres of bike lanes.

According to Statistics Canada, two million people in May, 2023, drove to work in the Greater Toronto Area. Of those, perhaps only 10,000 were driving in rush hour on the Toronto streets Mr. Ford has chosen to target. (One vehicle lane can generally move 600 to 1,600 cars an hour.)

Do the math: Mr. Ford’s stunt will do nothing for 99.5 per cent of drivers in the GTHA. This isn’t what some drivers want to hear. It is complex.

But coping with complexity is what adults do. Mr. Ford, who seems to spend a lot of his time picking fights in Toronto, leads a massive and fast-growing province. The Toronto region alone is headed for a population of 10 million in the next generation. Should we add a million or two more cars and see what happens?

Dr. Saxe suggests that would be unwise: “In our region, we are too dependent on cars, and it is choking us.” Bike lanes are more efficient at moving people, and there is evidence in Toronto that they radically increase ridership.

“We absolutely need more bike lanes if we want to have any hope of not spending all our time sitting in traffic.”

Mr. Ford seems ready to tear up the roads to make more room for himself. The rest of us will have to find our own way.