The Ontario government is introducing legislation that will require municipalities to receive provincial approval before removing traffic lanes to install new bike paths.
Ontario Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria made the announcement on Tuesday morning, noting that the plan will bring “informed decision making and oversight to a process that is frankly, out of control.”
Existing bike lanes will not have to be ripped up under the first stage of new legislation, Sarkaria said. However he said that the province will also be asking municipalities for data on projects initiated in the past five years to assess whether the province agrees.
Sarkaria questioned some of the data used to estimate cycling traffic and the impact of bike lanes on congestions, saying he believes very hot and rainy days were not counted.
“When strategically placed, bike lanes are a vital part of every city, offering residents a safe and a reliable way to move around,” Sarkaria acknowledged. “What cities should not be doing, however, is taking away lanes of traffic on our more most congested roads.”
He singled out Toronto’s plan to massively expand its cycling network and said that some of the new lanes the city has installed were implemented during the pandemic, when there was uncertainty about the future of traffic in the city.
“This is a place that consistently ranks among the most livable cities in the world, but when you ask anyone who lives here, they say that is changing,” Sarkaria said.
He cited figures from Satellite Navigation Company TomTom indicating that commuters in the GTA are now wasting around 98 hours a year in rush-hour traffic congestion.
In a statement, Mayor Olivia Chow said she does not support limiting city powers.
“It’s always better when we work together to get things right. To tackle congestion and keep people safe on city roads we need all types of transportation,” Chow said in the statement. “The Province should focus on their job of finally getting the Eglinton Crosstown and Finch LRT open, which will have a huge impact on congestion in our city.”
She noted that as the province’s largest municipality, Toronto “also needs our share of money” to repair aging roads and potholes.
At a separate event Tuesday, Premier Doug Ford said he’s spoken with Chow about the new legislation.
“I get along very well with the mayor. We’ve talked about it. Her first comment’s always, ‘I never put ‘em in. Tory put ‘em in,’ which is true,” Ford said.
He said he believes most people don’t want bike lanes along Bloor or Yonge streets or on University Avenue.
The city extended the Bloor Street West bike lanes into Etobicoke last year.
“You know when Rob (Ford) was mayor, he put in more bike lanes than David Miller. He just put them on secondary roads, not going down the middle of the road putting in bike paths. So it’s not about being against bike lanes, it’s about putting them in the right spot, and I look forward to working with the mayor.”
In a release, Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner slammed the proposed legislation as a “distraction” and said the government doesn’t have a proper plan to tackle gridlock.
“What about the mountains of evidence collected by municipalities and the province itself showing that bike infrastructure does not make traffic worse?” Schreiner said.
“If we want to solve our traffic problems, we need to give people more choices – not take them away. More people biking, walking or taking public transit means more people not in cars and less gridlock. It means kids (like mine) can bike to school safely.”
Coun. Paula Fletcher said she believes that the provincial government’s “ban on bike lanes” is designed to “grind the city’s plans to a halt” and said bike lanes are an important part of Toronto’s traffic plan.
Toronto currently has a three-year plan to deliver 100 kilometres of either new or significantly upgraded bikeways by 2027.
The city’s long-term plan calls for the addition of 500 kilometres of new bike lanes along major corridors by 2041. Its currently almost halfway towards that goal.
“This is an over-the-top reaction which doesn’t recognize, number one; they keep everybody safe, drivers and cyclists and others using them, and they also take cars off the road,” Fletcher said.
“It’s only at peak times that things become really difficult, so it’s in the morning or the afternoon. Other than that, the roads are pretty well clear. So nobody said you could drive to work in 10 minutes and that’s a rule in the city. Maybe it’s 15.”
Asked about the decision-making process, Sarkaria said the call about whether or not a new bike lane can be installed in a municipality will ultimately rest with the minister of transportation.
He said the government is also developing a plan to allow vehicles to travel safely at speeds higher than 120 km/h on new highways and to freeze driver testing fees at current levels.
The freeze on driving test fees will cost the government $72 million “this decade,” Sarkaria said.