Revealed Oct 17, 2024 • Final up to date Oct 17, 2024 • 3 minute learn
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Cyclists use the bike lanes on Ridout Road in downtown London on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (Dale Carruthers/The )
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London teachers and biking advocates are puzzled by the province’s dedication to limit new bike lanes, as metropolis corridor anxiously awaits how the laws will look and work in apply.
Ontario cities must search the province’s permission to put in new bike lanes that take away lanes of car site visitors beneath upcoming laws, the transportation minister introduced Tuesday in Toronto.
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“When strategically placed, bike lanes are a vital part of every city, offering residents a safe and reliable way to move around,” Prabmeet Sarkaria stated at a information convention. “What cities should not be doing, however, is taking away lanes of traffic on our most congested roads.”
Too many drivers are gridlocked because of bike lanes put in through the COVID-19 pandemic, and the method is “frankly, out of control,” he stated.
Cities must show including a motorbike lane rather than a car lane wouldn’t negatively have an effect on site visitors, and the province will ask cities for knowledge on any bike lane tasks launched within the final 5 years.
It’s unclear thus far how, if in any respect, which will have an effect on operations in London given the lion’s share of the bike lane community thus far hasn’t taken away any site visitors lanes.
Andrew Hunniford, an proprietor of the London Bicycle Cafe, stated the province appears to be interesting to voters’ feelings, not taking a look at knowledge, to unravel gridlock.
“The only real solution to alleviating traffic congestion is by getting fewer people into cars,” he stated.
Alexander Wray is a doctoral candidate in Western’s geography and atmosphere division and group planner. He stated the thought limiting bike lanes has benefit on condition that in cities like Toronto, bike lanes have been added to main arteries with out changing misplaced street capability elsewhere.
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However he calls the provincial proposal “asinine,” saying the federal government ought to develop a transportation planning customary quite than requiring ministerial approval for each Ontario bike lane venture that would scale back car lanes.
“What I find hilarious is this government has been all about red-tape reduction, and then they . . . did this in a way that creates the most red tape possible,” Wray stated. “Now we’re going to have to hire a bunch more bureaucrats and develop a whole new process and all this red tape for municipalities to go through and add something as simple as a bike lane.”
The precise threshold for a provincial evaluate should be outlined, Wray stated, citing tasks akin to present medians being fitted with bike lanes, or foot traffic-related streetscape enhancements incorporating bike lanes.
“That’s where I think this policy kind of makes no sense from the province,” he stated. “Really what it is, I think . . . is GTA politics again dictating Ontario policy.”
Toronto mayor Olivia Chow and the Affiliation of Ontario Municipalities each harshly criticized the province’s proposal, with the latter calling it a “significant overreach.”
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Right here’s a wise response from The Affiliation of Municipalities of Ontario @AMOPolicy to Ford’s unreasonable bike lanes proposal. They name it “significant overreach” and ask the province to “respect local decision-making when considering transportation improvements.” pic.twitter.com/qFxM57i7EZ
— Samuel Trosow (@strosow) October 16, 2024
Mayor Josh Morgan stated he at all times has considerations “whenever the province creates a broad-based policy that doesn’t allow a municipality to make a local decision.”
However he stated the brand new guidelines are unlikely to have a major affect on London due to how bike lanes right here have been designed over time.
“They have not been on main arteries, and where we’ve done them in significant thoroughfares, we’ve usually widened the road . . . and not taken away lanes of traffic.”
Morgan stated he’ll await particulars of the brand new coverage. In an announcement, metropolis employees stated they’re awaiting the laws that might be tabled at Queen’s Park subsequent week.
Metropolis corridor stated any future bike lane plans within the metropolis’s upcoming 25-year grasp transportation planning doc, dubbed the Grasp Mobility Plan, should contemplate any new provincial guidelines.
The doc’s proposed new street, transit, biking and sidewalk networks shall be launched for public session in December, a brand new employees report says, then go to metropolis council within the spring.
With recordsdata from Dale Carruthers and The Canadian Press
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