By Staff
October 29th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
Open letter to:
Hon. Prabmeet Sarkaria
Minister of Transportation Ontario
We are writing to you with deep concern about Bill 212, Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act, 2024. This bill would negatively affect the future of mobility in the Province of Ontario. Slowing or reversing the installation of bike lanes will have an adverse impact on children’s health and the environment. We are Ontario’s Green Communities, a group of community-based non-profits that work with schools and provide environmental programming in communities in 52 municipalities and three first nations across Ontario.
According to the Government of Canada, only 37.6% of children aged 5-17 are getting the minimum 60 minutes per week of moderate to vigorous activity recommended by Health Canada. Across Ontario, fewer kids are using active modes of transportation (e.g., walking, cycling, rollerblading, scootering and rolling for wheelchairs or other mobility devices) for their school journey: 22% of kids walk to school and 4% cycle, whereas 74% travel by motorized transport. Bicycle lanes are important for kids who currently ride their bicycles, but also for reversing these trends.
Driving kids to school has led to several serious impacts:
1) More inactivity. Kids miss the opportunity for much-needed physical activity, fresh air, and quality interaction with parents, caregivers, and friends.
2) Less focus. Students are less focused in class, contributing to poorer academic outcomes.
3) Worse congestion. An estimated 25-40% of vehicle congestion during morning rush hour is related to school drop-off.
4) Riskier roads. 78% of Ontario parents reported witnessing unsafe driving behaviours in school zones.
Moreover, evidence shows that creating more car-centric lanes and roads ultimately leads to even more congestion. Reducing congestion and creating safer, healthier roads requires creating additional bike lanes and encouraging people who are able to switch from driving to cycling. Clearly, we need more safe routes to school – not fewer – to get children and families walking and cycling to school safely.
High quality networks of protected bike lanes on main streets are critical to providing safe routes to school and supporting higher rates of physical activity. By design, Ontario communities do not generally have side streets that run parallel to main streets for long distances. In suburban communities, they are designed to discourage traffic, and in urban communities like Toronto and Ottawa, they are often fragmented, with designated one-way sections that prevent traffic. While neighbourhood streets are important for bike lanes, main streets are the major connectors providing direct routes for students to get to school.
Climate Crisis
Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising: in 2022, they rose to 2017 levels after a pandemic-induced reduction. Road transportation is the largest source of pollution in the province, responsible for more than a quarter of all of Ontario’s emissions. While we acknowledge that the intensity of Ontario’s emissions reduced as Ontario’s population and economy grew, we are concerned that emissions from road transportation continue to rise and that we are not on track to meet our 2030 climate goals.
Protecting the health and safety of our communities, while also reducing congestion and fossil fuel pollution, requires that we do as much as we can to encourage cycling. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is unequivocal: “Targets to reduce carbon emissions by 2030 in line with the 1.5-degree limit for global warming cannot be achieved without a systematic increase of cycling.”
According to research, a standard vehicle releases around five metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. Choosing a bike instead of a car just once a day cuts an average person’s transportation-related carbon emissions by 67%.
Ontario contains the most densely populated areas in the country and is home to 40% of Canada’s population. We urgently need the government of Ontario to demonstrate leadership that provides its residents with more – not fewer – opportunities for achieving a sustainable, safe, and prosperous future.
Building for the Future
We worry that the legislation will jeopardize most future developments of safe, protected bike lanes in Ontario, reducing transportation options for children and families and contributing to higher rates of collisions, physical inactivity, and pollution.
We strongly encourage you, Minister Sarkaria, to reverse course on this legislation and instead encourage municipalities to continue building networks of high-quality protected bike lanes on major streets. Our collective future depends on it.
Signatories: EcoSource, EcoSuperior, Sustainable Kingston, Green Venture, Windfall Centre, Reep Green Solutions, Environment Network, EnviroCentre, GreenUP,Halton Environmental Network, London Environmental Network, Oakville Green
leaders need to remember that governing is about the MAJORITY of the people …. not just some of the people.
I’d like to see the stats (confirmed) on how many people use “bikes” of any kind in Burlington and the duration of their ride, especially in inclement weather.
Reduced road space, safety concerns, costs, under use, impact on local business and political controversy are the obvious downsides to “bike” lanes, but further, the riders contribute negatively to the issue with entitlement perception, unsafe behavior, conflicts with parked cars, interaction with pedestrians, and lack of awareness.
The increased vehicle traffic issues in Burlington put “bikes” in the nuisance category for a lot of drivers and so if there’s only a small percentage of citizens that “ride”, their special needs don’t represent an issue that’s a concern for the MAJORITY.
The day will come when these lanes will be full of e-bikes and scooters as gridlock and the cost of ICE and EV’s increases. As to “Sharrows” a waste of paint and rider beware.
Does anymore have to be said. This picture is a very good example of how bike lanes are used in Burlington. Looks like a beautiful day, dry roads, a protected bike path, one cyclist as far as the eye can see.
Anyone that cycles in Burlington takes their lives in their hands.
Making the car lanes narrower to accommodate a bike lane is a disaster waiting to happen. Worse are the ” sharrows”( Share the Road) – these are on streets that are too narrow to accommodate any bike lanes.
What about the bike lanes that suddenly disappear?
Rarely do I see any cyclists other than those cycling for recreation on the streets of Burlington. Never see anyone from December to April.
Most of the cycling lanes are covered with snow during the winter.
Money would be better spent improving public transit.
These Green lobby groups work in a theoretical world. The reality in Burlington, given its geographic layout, is that the car will continue to be the PRIME mode of transportation; road users want convenience and time efficiency. Look around–I have seen very few bicycle riders–even in good weather, who appear to be commuting. Nowhere is this more obvious than on Plains Road–a fortune was spent by the City installing dedicated bike lanes but the only people using them are seniors and families for recreational purposes. The lycra louts are still using the road. Yes–there are cyclists in Burlington but the overwhelming majority are recreational users, not residents using them to commute to work or to do daily errands.
I have found that a goodly portion of children don’t attend the school that is in the area where they live. My grandchildren attended an elementary school outside their area so that they could be in the French immersion program, which is not offered in their neighbourhood elementary school. This contributes to more school buses being on the road, my grandson is old enough to ride his bicycle to school, but when he and his older sister were very young they took the school bus.
Bike lanes are a good idea, however the way that they are done here makes them unsafe and vulnerable to vehicles on the road. I have travelled to many countries in Europe (the most recent trip was to Portugal this September) and the way that bike lanes are designed and implemented is much safer and more people use them. In Lisbon, there is a space between the road and the bike lane, and the bike lane runs alongside the pedestrian sidewalk. It is the same in Frankfurt. I found it to be a much safer way to travel by bike, in fact, if I lived in these cities, I would be much more apt to ride my bike than I am here in Burlington. I feel that there would be much in the way of resistance by property owners if they were asked to give up some of their property so that bike lanes could be constructed so as not to be on the road.
In North America, the “car is king” and people like the convenience of getting where they need to go quickly, comfortably and when they want to go. Riding a bicycle is not a joy when one is constantly worrying about being hit by a car. Changing people’s mindset and habits is very difficult…