Ontario to restrict where new bike lanes can be built | CBC News

The Ontario government says it will introduce legislation that would require municipalities to get provincial approval before building any new bike lanes that reduce lanes of vehicle traffic.

Municipalities would need to demonstrate any proposed bike lanes will not have a “negative impact on vehicle traffic,” according to the province.

The government will also request data from municipalities on bike lane projects initiated in the last five years, Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said Tuesday in Toronto.

“Across our province, we’re seeing 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,” he said.

“Strategically placed bike lanes are a vital part of every city, offering residents a safe and a reliable way to move around. What cities should not be doing, however, is taking away lanes of traffic on our most congested roads,” Sarkaria continued, adding that bike lanes should be installed on side streets instead.

Under the looming legislation, which was first reported on by CBC News, the ultimate decision on whether a lane of traffic can be removed for a bike lane will fall to the minister, not to bureaucrats within the ministry, Sarkaria said. The government will develop a regulation that will bring “informed decision making and oversight to a process that is frankly out of control,” he continued.

He made the announcement at an Etobicoke restaurant and pool hall on Bloor Street W. The busy thoroughfare has become a flash point for the debate about bike lanes in the city, with residents and business owners split over protected lanes that were installed in 2023.

Premier Doug Ford, who lives in Etobicoke, has complained about the bike lanes, saying the street is jammed and first responders are having a hard time getting through the congestion. The City of Toronto has disputed that claim, saying last month that emergency services have not raised any official concerns about the bike lanes.

Mayor says city, province should ‘work together’

Last week, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow publicly asked Ford to delay legislation targeted at bike lanes as the city works to address the “irritants” some in the area have flagged with the Etobicoke lanes. In a statement issued Tuesday afternoon, Chow said she doesn’t support “limiting city powers,” and mentioned other transit projects she believes the province should be focused on instead.

“It’s always better when we work together to get things right. To tackle congestion and keep people safe on city roads we need all types of transportation,” she said. “The Province should focus on their job of finally getting the Eglinton Crosstown and Finch LRT open, which will have a huge impact on congestion in our city.”

Ward 14 Coun. Paula Fletcher said she believes this is an “over the top reaction” from the province that doesn’t recognize that bike lanes keep people safe.

“I think … the ban on bike lanes is designed to grind the city’s plans to a halt,” she told CBC News in an interview.

Ward 2 Coun. Stephen Holyday, meanwhile, said he has heard from many constituents that the Bloor bike lanes aren’t working.

“It’s unbelievable that the province has to step in to do something logical,” he said.

Sarkaria also repeatedly implied Tuesday the existing bike lanes on Yonge Street, Avenue Road, College Street, Harbord Street and other stretches of Bloor Street in Toronto will be reviewed by the province.

He said the lanes are “staying in right now,” but suggested the provincial government could require the city to remove them at a future date pending a review of data related to the lanes’ impacts on travel times for drivers.

Sarkaria also said data that municipalities have used to justify bike lane decisions don’t take into account low usage in the winter months and on rainy days, or during periods when “it’s too hot” to cycle. 

“I think all of that has to be taken into consideration,” he said.

Sarkaria added that he frequently hears from drivers who say their commute times have increased on routes with bike lanes.

CBC Toronto reached out to the Ministry of Transportation for clarification on which data Sarkaria was referring to. In response, a ministry spokesperson sent a City of Toronto PDF summarizing the results of a pilot project on Yonge Street, between Bloor Street and Davisville Avenue, from 2022.

Data used to prepare the report was collected from May 2021 to mid-October 2022. And while there was no data collection during the winter, there is no information about the weather conditions on the days when bike lane usage was evaluated or any indication that rainy or very hot days were left out.

The document does include a note saying data on cycling volumes was adjusted based on the temperature, precipitation levels and hours of daylight in order to “not overstate the growth in cycling” when doing comparisons across seasons.

New bike lane data expected this fall

A City of Toronto report on an earlier stretch of bike lanes on Bloor, which were added in 2016 as a pilot project, found that collisions and near misses with cyclists decreased, the number of cyclists increased by 56 per cent, customer spending at area businesses increased and vehicle volumes decreased, while drivers’ travel time increased.

The city’s report said that travel time increased by up to 8 1/2 minutes, depending on the section of Bloor, but after traffic signal adjustments were made, that went down to four minutes during the afternoon rush hour.

The bike lanes in that report were all further downtown than the Etobicoke stretch, where an extension was approved in 2023. The city’s website says new data on the Bloor lanes will be published this fall. 

In a statement, the Ontario Green Party said Tuesday’s announcement was “just a distraction from a government that doesn’t have a serious solution to deal with gridlock.”

“If we want to solve our traffic problems, we need to give people more choices — not take them away. More people biking, walking or taking public transit means more people not in cars and less gridlock,” the statement said.

The pending legislation, which will be introduced once the legislature resumes Oct. 21 after an extended summer break, will also include other measures the government says will tackle traffic congestion. Among them is a plan to increase speed limits to 110 km/h on all 400-series highways “where it is safe to do so.”

Similarly, the province says it is also “developing a design standard to allow vehicles to travel safely at speeds higher than 120 km/h on new highways.”