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Ontario Premier Doug Ford is dismissing the Metropolis of Toronto’s estimates to take away bike lanes from three main Toronto streets, calling the $48-million price ticket “hogwash.”
The Ford authorities is fast-tracking a transportation-related regulation that might give the province the facility to resolve the place a municipality can set up separated biking infrastructure together with the authority to take away devoted bike lanes at will.
The province has recognized bike lanes on Bloor Road, College Avenue and Yonge Road as these slated for elimination and provided to cowl the prices of tearing out the infrastructure.
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Toronto council tackles Doug Ford’s plan to take away key bike lanes
The promise to cowl the prices, nonetheless, has triggered a brand new battle between Queen’s Park and metropolis corridor: the price of elimination and restoring lanes of visitors.
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“The entirety of the cost is indicative of the fact that in sections that have been recently reconstructed, there are concrete curbs separating the bike lanes from the motor vehicle traffic,” Jacquelyn Hayward, town’s director of planning, design and administration, instructed a Queen’s Park committee listening to on Monday.
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“There are catch basins that have been moved as a result. In order to put back the lanes in some places, you would have to redo the roads.”
Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria instructed reporters on the Ontario legislature that town’s estimate of $48 million “just doesn’t add up” and stated the value tag was double the set up prices.
On Tuesday, Ford additionally dismissed town’s estimate.
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“We know it doesn’t cost $50 million, that’s a bunch of hogwash,” Ford instructed Ontario Chronicle at an unrelated occasion.
“We’re going to show them how to do it for a lot less and get traffic moving.”
The province, nonetheless, has but to current any preliminary work on how a lot Ontario taxpayers must shell out to take away bike lanes from Toronto roads.
As for security issues, Ford additionally dismissed these, saying, “We’re going to keep bike riders safe.”
The laws to take away lanes doesn’t embrace any provisions for security.
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— with recordsdata from The Canadian Press
© 2024 Ontario Chronicle, a division of Corus Leisure Inc.
