Bike lanes installed on two major Toronto streets that Doug Ford regularly passes are at the heart of the premier’s justification for a government plan to limit new cycling infrastructure in Ontario towns and cities.
The Ford government is currently planning a new anti-congestion law expected to limit where and how municipalities can build new bike lanes. The law, which is set to be tabled after the house returns, will deal with several other transportation priorities.
Asked about his planned legislation on Monday, Premier Ford said he wanted to “get traffic moving” and claimed that cycling networks on main roads were part of the problem.
“We want to make sure that all forms of transportation move quickly, and that’s what it comes down to — making sure you aren’t putting bike lanes in the middle of some of the busiest streets in the country,” he said.
The premier offered insight into how his planned bike lanes law might work, potentially forcing cities to construct cycling infrastructure on residential side streets. Ford suggested he would model the approach after his brother Rob’s time as Toronto mayor.
“Believe it or not, my brother Rob actually put more bike lanes in than David Miller (Toronto mayor from 2003 to 2010),” Ford said.
“But he didn’t do it down the middle of University or Bloor or any of those streets, he did them on the secondary arterial roads, the side streets. That’s what you do — you don’t clog up traffic just because of their political beliefs.”
Ford repeated several times his view that bike lanes on Bloor Street West, near his Etobicoke home, and along University Avenue, just south of Queen’s Park, were key examples of the problem.
He suggested the biking network was slowing down paramedics, police and fire looking to get around downtown at speed.
“It’s an absolute disaster, it’s a nightmare,” Ford said. “We need to focus on transportation that gets people from point A to point B in a very quick fashion.”
One of Ford’s back-bench Etobicoke MPPs has also made bike lanes a key concern.
Progressive Conservative Etobicoke-Lakeshore MPP Christine Hogarth has organized a long-running campaign against their installation on Bloor Street, organizing a petition calling for them to be removed.
“Let there be no doubt that I share your view about the unsuitability of bikes on Bloor Street, and your concerns about the plan to add new ones on the Queensway,” one of Hogarth’s petitions read.
“There is a place for bike lanes, but arterial roads like Bloor St and Queensway are not those places.”
While Ford did not push back on the idea he planned to introduce bike lane legislation, and offered insight into his thinking, the specifics of the proposed law have not been made public.
Sources told Global News said the government was considering restrictions on towns and cities removing existing lanes of traffic to create bike lanes.
Critics of the government have been quick to call out the idea as short-sighted and potentially dangerous for those who cycle on city streets.
Ontario NDP transport critic Joel Harden said the likely law could be dangerous — calling it “cheap politics” by Ford.
“We deserve safe roads that makes sure everyone gets home safe to their loved ones. We have seen far too many lives lost this past year from unsafe roads, and too many vulnerable road users put in harm’s way,” he said in a statement.
“Nobody asked for the government to dictate people’s transportation choices or get in the way of local communities deciding what works best for them. More ways of getting around means less congestion, but this government is putting wedge politics over real solutions.”