The Ontario government has announced if legislation is passed that municipalities will needs its approval before installing new bike lanes, if those lanes remove a lane of vehicle traffic.
Municipalities would have to demonstrate that the proposed bike lanes “won’t have a negative impact on vehicle traffic,” the government said.
The changes are part of legislation that will be tabled to kick off the fall sitting of the Ontario legislature next week on Oct. 21. The government said the legislation will focus on tackling gridlock and getting drivers and commuters across Ontario out of traffic.
The law, Global News has learned, is currently set to be titled the Reducing Gridlock and Saving You Time Act is primarily aimed at drivers, and it will include the new provincial requirements on bike lanes.
Ontario’s minister of transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria made the announcement at a news conference on Tuesday morning.
“Cities in Ontario have seen an explosion of bike lanes, including many that were installed during the pandemic when fewer vehicles were on the road and their impacts on traffic were unclear,” said Sarkaria.
“Too many drivers are now stuck in gridlock as a result, which is why our government is bringing informed decision-making and oversight to bike lanes as well as taking steps to increase speed limits safely and clean up potholes,” Sarkaria said.
When it comes to bike lanes that already exist on roads, Sarkaria said those will stay put for now but did note the government has requested a review of data on every bike lane that has been implemented in the last five years. The proposed legislation is for new bike lanes that take out a lane for vehicles.
He said municipalities are still free to install bike lanes where they do not remove traffic.
“It’s absolutely okay to have bike lanes in the city,” Sarkaria said. “I don’t think it’s okay to be taking away lanes of traffic to then put bike lanes in that are not used.”
“Gridlock is at an all time high … This community for example is speaking out very clearly and we need to know the impacts on businesses as well,” Sarkaria said.
Sarkaria’s announcement was made in Etobicoke, the western part of Toronto. Progressive Conservative Etobicoke-Lakeshore MPP Christine Hogarth has organized a long-running campaign against bike lanes being constructed on the western portions of Toronto’s Bloor Street.
The bike lanes, which have been a key flashpoint between some cycling advocates and local businesses, are part of a massive biking infrastructure expansion the City of Toronto is undertaking. Streets ranging from Avenue Road in The Annex to the Queensway and Bloor Street in Etobicoke are seeing separate cycling infrastructure installed.
Hogarth has led the charge against that project in the city’s western former suburb.
“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.”
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.
The group Cycle Toronto worried in a petition that the move could block new bike lanes in Toronto, and make it less safe to ride.
“In Toronto, the new legislation by the provincial government will put so many transformative projects at risk and will allow a small minority of voices to block progress on our growing cycling network,” the group wrote.
“And in communities across the province that are just beginning to embrace the benefits of complete streets, this anti-bike lane legislation could indefinitely pause progress.”