Ontario fast-tracks order to remove key Toronto bike lanes
Ontario fast-tracks order to remove key Toronto bike lanes
Transportation Minister says all sections of cycle paths on Bloor, University and Yonge streets could be ripped out to restore car lanes
Archive: [ https://archive.is/gXsad ]
Making cycling more difficult and adding hugely expensive roads and tunnels to encourage more fossil fuel vehicles. As usual, Conservatives head in the opposite direction from where we need to go.
This whole removal of bike lanes on Toronto's roadways that are classified as streets is so backwards.
Streets are for the people that live on them. Streets are a destination points.Roads are designed to get you from point a to point b. Roads are not a destination and don't care about the community they cut through.
We are removing key infrastructure in our cities that directly supports the residents living within these areas, and replacing it to serve suburban commuters that live outside the city.
We need to make city centres more enjoyable and walkable. We need to make city centres more accessible to families. Having people move out of the city and commute into it everyday is the opposite of this. We need more choice in housing sizes and units layouts, we need more schools that are not at capacity.
There needs to be a greater push in how North America classifies its roadways. There are key differences between streets, roads, high-speed roads, highways, and interstates. All these classifications impact how these roadways serve the people around them, and how people use them. For example you would not put a sidewalk next to a highway car lane.
Instead these last few decades its been either "strode's" or highway. In some cases even strode's acting as highways as well.
A proper stroad should have highway speeds (80+), many intersections, every business is allowed direct driveway access, no sidewalk to make room for more car lanes, and there must be at least 3 drive thrus per kilometer.
Are you the Transportation Minister for Brampton. /s
This makes no fucking sense - They just finished putting these bike lanes in on big stretches of Bloor and University. These streets are always under construction, it makes no sense to just undo years of work. Did people not drive here before the bike lanes? Cyclists are still going to use these streets and be veering into traffic, blocking that supposed second lane. The second was always blocked with parked cars on Bloor anyways. The bike lane made driving easier and cycling way safer. It was win-win.
The result is going to be driving is going to be way worse on these streets and cyclists are going to die because of this decision. It's also hugely regressive. You should not be driving across Bloor or down Yonge or University to traverse these streets, because there's literally subways under all of three of them.
It's just such piss poor management. The more decisions I see Doug Ford make, the more I see the image of that stupid fucking Ferris wheel Rob Ford wanted to put on our waterfront. Dumb ideas run in the family, apparently.
edit: we have to elect smarter people who aren't going to play these stupid culture wars games and waste our own money doing it. Doug Ford's strategy here is to set up a fight with Olivia Chow in preparation for an early election next year, because he knows the "surburbs vs. Toronto elites" narrative plays well with his base. It remains to be seen if the city can/will meaningfully fight back against this or if our mayor is just going to give us lip service, because she still benefits from this conflict by being on the other side politically.
How the hell did a Ford get power again? I just don’t get it.
There was basically no opposition, that's how. People were sick of the Liberals and their new leader was hide-and-seek champ, and nobody really takes the NDP seriously in Ontario.
A broken voting system, plus weaponized apathy. He got 66+% of the seats in Ontario's Parliament with 17% of eligible voters choosing their local conservative candidate.
Published polls for MONTHS before the election showed he was going to win by a landslide -- so people stayed home, thinking it was pointless. They're doing it in the USA right now with slanted polls showing it's a toss-up, even though exit polls show that the majority of early voters are women.
This right here, "the second lane was always blocked with parked cars." Pretty much sums up most of Toronto's city streets. The second lane (or far right lane) is usually unusable because of parked or stopped cars.
And as soon as a side walk gets widened or a bike lane goes in to use the space more efficiently motorists looses their shit.
Bloor has really become more enjoyable as a street, and easier to traverse by car, bike and on foot.
To elect smarter people we need a smarter population.
That’s not going to happen with social media reinforcing the belief that uneducated is not a bad thing.
What the hell is wrong with Canada? Everything I've heard out of there for the past year or more has been horrible.
We're in quite the state up here. One of our biggest problems is that Conservatives rule in many provinces, another problem is leakage of American conservatism up north, and a third problem is our PM is deeply unpopular despite, and I am willing to defend this, being one of the best PM's the country has had in my lifetime (40 years). It doesn't matter that one could fill a book with the PM's accomplishments, the guy has been tuned out by the population and honestly needs to retire. He has been around long enough to have accumulated enough ill will that he drags his party down, my party, and I hate saying it but I feel like he has to go before we end up with a conservative blowout and all the progress of the last decade is erased in just four years.
Mood.
Very well summarized.
Well put
Maybe just Ontario? Though there does seem to be a common recurring theme in Canada these last few decades where its easier to not take action and say we tried everything, rather then taking action and solve problems.
Its always easier to take no action and not upset one group or another, zero-sum game, as opposed to take action and have a small group upset at the end result.
In both cases the Canadian in charge of the action, or inaction, says “Sorry, eh”.
We've got jealous of how wild things get in the USA and we had to step up our ridiculous policies to keep fitting in
Same as the US. The rise of fascism. The Fords have always been insane, though.
Beyond insane. Every time Doug Ford comes back to mind I'm triple thankful for being represented by David Eby.
The Ford brothers have had a massive vendetta against Toronto for the longest time... they try to screw the City over at every turn.
If you're in Ontario, please comment on it before Nov 20, 2024
Douggie ran on "governmental efficiencies", this is about as inefficient and counter-productive a method to reduce traffic as there can be.
Of course they’re attacking a good thing.
It surprises me that for all the shit Drug Fraud has put the GTA through, he's faced absolutely zero repercussions from the public.
Maybe it's time Torontonians decided enough is enough and shut the city down for a few days with massive strikes, walkouts and possibly a BBQ or two.
Just to see what kind of stuff Druggie is really made of.
Duggy panders to the low-brow uneducated vote. Closing bike lanes only has to do with sticking it to the bikers that the uneducated types hate flying past them while driving in gridlock.
If bikers were to plan a bike protest blocking streets. I guarantee you’d see mandatory bike licensing within a year with unlicensed bikes being impounded, and the rednecks would vote for him again in a split second.
He's doing this to keep eyes off of the 413.
The more "bike lanes!!" ragebait he stirs up, the less people pay attention to the clauses in the act about eminent domain, skipping environmental assessments or skipping the civil engineers that are on strike.
This is petty even for Petty Doug.
It makes me wonder what else he has planned that he is using this to distract from.
