NDP says Ford government’s bike lane bill bans lawsuits if cyclists injured or killed on streets where lanes removed

The Ford government’s controversial bike lane bill will prevent anyone from suing the province if they’re injured once the bike lanes are removed.

NDP MPP Jessica Bell said the change was included in an 11-page amendment to Bill 212 which was put forth during a meeting of the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy on Thursday.

“The bill went into committee bad and it came out of committee worse,” Bell tells CityNews.

“I have never seen an 11-page amendment be introduced so quickly by any government, it’s very concerning. What I’m most concerned about is that this bill is going to make it more dangerous to get around our city on a bike.”

Among the pages of the bill that Bell posted to her social media channel, it states that “claims arising from collisions between motor vehicles, cyclists or pedestrians …are not claims of negligence.”

“This bill is going to increase the chances of someone being injured or killed on the roads if you’re a cyclist and it won’t make commute times any faster for anybody. It’s very disappointing,” said Bell.

“When these bike lanes are removed it means that cyclists will be in a lane with cars which means they’re more likely to get injured and killed and it means that traffic will be slower, it doesn’t work.”

Premier Doug Ford commented on the amendments on Friday but did not directly respond to questions about bikers not being able to take legal action against the provincial government.

“We always want to make sure by bike lanes and bike riders are safe … we’ve always believed that you don’t put them on main arterial roads. You put them on secondary roads so you don’t jam up the main roads again.”

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said she was concerned the most about the safety of bikers. “I’ve been doored on Bloor Street without the bike lane. Now I ride on Bloor Street with a bike lane. I feel very secure that is because of the bike lane there and safety is always first.”

“We want to keep the roads safe for them and drivers will tell you that not having bikes weaving in and for in and out of them, in front of them, makes driving a lot easier … so let’s continue to look at the data. We’ll continue to talk to the provincial government,” added Chow.

Dozens of cyclists held a ghost ride to Queen’s Park on Thursday night in protest of Bill 212. Advocates raised two ghost bike memorials, symbols of two lives lost while cycling on roads in Ontario. Protesters say the bikes stand as a reminder of the deadly consequences of removing bike lanes.

Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria introduced the bill last month in what he said was an effort to reduce traffic gridlock. The bill would require municipalities to ask the province for permission to install bike lanes when they would remove a lane of vehicle traffic. Under the proposed legislation, the authority to approve or deny plans to remove vehicular traffic lanes and install bike lanes would directly fall to the transportation minister.

Bell said the bill clearly states that the Ford government intends to remove the entirety of bike lanes on Bloor Street, University Avenue and Yonge Street and municipalities won’t necessarily get reimbursed if the bike lanes are removed.

“Our interpretation is that they’re no longer guaranteeing that they will fully reimburse municipalities for the costs of taking out a bike lane and it does suggest that the Conservatives might just want to go ahead and take out the bike lanes themselves,” said Bell.

The government has said that bike lanes are contributing to gridlock across the GTA but Bell claims the government’s own documents which show that removing these bike lanes will likely not improve the congestion issue.

“It is not possible that three bike lanes in downtown Toronto is the reason why we have some of the worst congestion times across the entire GTHA,” said Bell. “If this government was serious about fixing congestion in our city they would invest in bike lanes and they would also invest in transit and plan it properly so that people live near where they work and play.”

A recent Toronto city staff report pegged the cost of removing bike lanes from some of its busiest streets at upwards of $48 million – a figure Premier Doug Ford called “hogwash” without providing a price tag of his own.

He accused the city of inflating the cost, but added that the province would be covering that the removal. “We’re going to make sure that we take care of their removal.”

“No one’s talking about you’re saying about the cost of the bike lanes,” commented Ford. “How about the billions of dollars that’s costing our economy for people and goods being in services going to point A to point B.”

The Bloor BIA recently released statistics touting the success of the Bloor bike lane, and other bike lanes in the Annex area, adding that removing them would be “disastrous to the neighbourhood.”