It’s been a huge struggle to get bike infrastructure in Ontario. Only recently has adding bike lanes become a normal part of road reconstruction, and only recently have they become good-quality, with physical protection and obstacle-free—and still not all of them. These years of neglect show: anyone who’s tried to bike to the grocery store, or the doctor, or to a park, or to a hardware store, knows that 95% of the time, your route will involve biking beside cars, beside 2- or 3-tonne vehicles. So our bike network in Ottawa is a patchwork, and while we have 6,000 km of roads, we have 25 km of physically separated biking facilities.
The Ontario government recently proposed legislation that would enable the Province to weigh in on transportation projects involving bike lanes where car facilities are removed. This legislation is problematic from many important standpoints—not least of all because it won’t benefit anyone, not even drivers. Learn why it’s so misguided and what you can do about it.
As local environmental organizations from Hamilton, Ottawa, Toronto, and Windsor - we are deeply concerned about the proposed legislation from the Ontario government that would deny municipalities the ability to install new bike lanes on major streets without provincial approval. If passed, the new rules would severely limit municipalities’ ability to protect all road users, fight climate change, and ease congestion. We call on our local MPPs to speak out against this serious overreach into municipalities’ ability to make the best transportation decisions for their residents, and we call on the Province to work collaboratively with municipalities on solutions instead of undermining them.