Reporting Live from the Centre of the Universe: Highways vs Main Streets
This weekend I’m escaping the cold and visiting famously tropical Toronto, where the most jarring thing besides the temperature has been the volume of people out and about downtown. Every piece of infrastructure is packed; The Gardiner, the subway, King Street sidewalks, and yes, the bike lanes. Even the one running alongside the now-destroyed Ontario Place parkland. But some of the busiest, running along University Avenue, Bloor Street, and Yonge Street, are living on borrowed time.
The Ontario Progressive Conservatives, ruled by the less-famous Ford brother, have fast-tracked a surprise bill tabled last week to dismantle Toronto bike lanes “on major streets”, which, if passed (under a majority legislature), will require cities to ask provincial permission for the installation of any bike lanes that take away vehicle traffic lanes. The province insists bike lanes are responsible for the growing chronic congestion in downtown Toronto, not the influx of thousands of new residents and commuters pouring into the Greater Toronto Area each month. The city’s Mayor, Olivia Chow, is opposed: "The city's preference is always to work collaboratively, and based on data and evidence," Chow said. "But the way they're rushing it through, it's making it quite difficult." So is the Bloor Street BIA, noting that spending in local stores has increased markedly since the neighbourhood bike lane was installed.
Research is increasingly pointing in the same direction: bike lanes ease congestion overall through modal shift, boost economic activity on commercial corridors, and reduce emissions. The Province stated erroneously that only 1.2% of local commuters use bikes in their day-to-day lives, but as pointed out by The Trillium, that figure covers the entire GTA, a massive sprawling area of low-density suburbia, office parks, and industrial areas. The figure is also a full decade old, from an era before most downtown bikeways were constructed, leading to a surge of bike trips year-round in many areas.
Toronto is in the grips of a prolonged, chronic congestion crisis, but it flies in the face of common sense to suggest the region can continue accommodating booming suburban populations and their cars into the downtown core every day. In a city with famously limited (and slow) downtown transit options once you’re off the GO Train or Subway, finding a way to move everyone more efficiently between destinations should be an immediate top priority for all levels of government, but suburban electoral math may once again win the day over evidence and best-practice.
-Written by Robert Brooks (Photo via CBC News)