The Prime Minister and Minister of Transportation of Ontario have said for months that eliminating bicycle lanes is a necessary measure to reduce traffic in the GTA. But hundreds of document pages, reports and emails show that the government knows that the measure may not have a significant impact on congestion and could increase collisions for all those who use roads.
The very drafted documents were made public as part of a judicial challenge to the legislation (the bill 212 would see lanes for bicycles in Bloor Street, Yonge Street and University Avenue eliminated, mounted by the Toronto Charity cycle in Toronto.
The documents were used in a discussion for a court order on Tuesday to avoid any work of expulsion of bicycle lanes until the judicial challenge is fully heard in April.
The documents include a presentation on a legislative plan for a “pro-conductor package” and emails among the personnel of the Ontario Transport Ministry (MTO) that questions the ability to achieve bicycle lanes in secondary streets such as the Minister publicly promised.
There is also a report prepared by the Urban and Urban Planning firm Cima+ for MTO that says that collisions for all road users could increase by more than 54 percent when bicycle lanes are removed, depending on the previous research.
“There is an average risk that the proposed change does not reach the desired results,” says an informative note of the 2024 cabinet office committee.
“Since current data and research does not confirm that eliminating bicycle lanes that occupy a traffic lane would significantly relieve congestion.”
The Ontario government plan to eliminate bicycle lanes in Toronto had its day in court on Tuesday. CBC’s Lane Harrison has what you need to know.
An October information session that asks what sections of the Bloor lanes, Yonge and University must be eliminated indicates that the MTO did not possess the “data required to support the decision to eliminate a bicycle lane.”
Cyclists who set up the court challenge say that the documents reveal that MTO has been aware of what many critics have been saying about the legislation: that it will not solve Toronto traffic problems, it will make people not safe, and there is no secondary road network easily available to replace specific routes.
Province called High Level Engineering Report
At the Judicial Hearing on Tuesday, the province’s lawyer said that Ontario will have many documents and evidence to argue his justification when the judicial challenge is listened entirely in April. In the CIMA+ report specifically, which describes a higher risk of collision, Padraic Ryan argued that the report was a high -level comment without original analysis.
The top+ work for the province is divided into two phases, according to the documents. The first phase, which is where the 54 percent increase in the number of collisions comes from, was a review of the relevant research and case studies. A second phase of research, with specific security analysis analysis, is not included in the recently published documents.
The report says that, according to previous investigations, bicycle infrastructure can reduce collisions between 35 percent to 50 percent. He points out that the increase in collisions could be reduced if fewer people bike on roads where bicycle lanes are removed, but cyclists can start traveling on sidewalks, increasing the risk for pedestrians.
MTO staff throws doubts about the replacement of routes with secondary roads
“I want to make sure the cyclists are safe,” said Prime Minister Doug Ford in November. “I have always believed that you do not put [bike lanes] On the main arterial roads, you put them on secondary roads. “
Ford and Prabmeet Sarkaria, their transport minister, have repeatedly promised that broken bicycle lanes would be replaced by bicycle lanes in parallel streets to give cyclists another option. A solution that has been criticized by cyclists who say that the routes cannot be replaced on smaller roads without making someone’s trip significantly longer and less direct.
A problem of MTO staff seems to be aware. In an email exchange in mid -December, a MTO employee says that cyclists are sensitive to changes in the trip will often choose the shortest route, which in a large city is often an important road.
The Minister of Transportation of Ontario has defended the decision of his government to destroy bicycle lanes in Toronto’s main streets saying that only 1.2 percent of people in the city travel by bicycle. But as CBC’s Lane Harrison explains, federal data shows that the number is higher in places where specific bicycle lanes already exist.
“While I understand that there are messages on secondary roads, the extent to which it could be achieved and used in Toronto, for example, is an unknown/unlikely member,” wrote the MTO staff member.
The CIMA+ report echoes this concern, saying that cyclists will probably continue to use the most direct routes. It also says that some important bicycle routes in Toronto have barriers such as hills, ravines, bridges and railway lines that hinder a direct alternative route.
He says that there is a limited number of north-south streets that make sense for bicycle infrastructure “without affecting existing vehicles” on the main roads.
Small businesses can suffer routes
In a press release issued in January on the plans, an owner of an Etobicoke business between a group that demands the city for installing bicycle lanes in the neighborhood said the lanes are “damaging local businesses.”
Ford has said that congestion costs the economy of the province billions of dollars, since goods and services are trapped in traffic “because they have a traffic lane in the most congested city in North America.”
But ministry documents say that the elimination of bicycle lanes could be what should cause injured.
“The evidence shows that bicycle lanes have a positive economic impact on local retail companies,” says an informative session from August.
