The Conservative war on bikes continues
I return from touring Melbourne bike lanes to find the same old bike bashing in Toronto.
Three days ago, I was touring the bike infrastructure of Melbourne, Australia, with Murray Johnson of Melbourne by Bike (highly recommended). I then returned to read that the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, wants to ban bike lanes where they replace lanes for cars. Toronto City Councillor and perennial candidate for Mayor Brad Bradford picked up on this and was bashing bike lanes in Linkedin; I read some of the comments (not recommended), including one from a real estate executive who listed nine complaints about bike lanes.
Many of these are old and tired, and have been addressed many times, but let’s go through it again and address some of them. For no good reason, I illustrate between them with photos of Melbourne bike infrastructure.
1) more congestion = more idling and pollution?
This assumes that removing car lanes increases congestion. In fact, studies show that bike and dedicated bus lanes work as designed: more people take the bus or bike, and congestion remains the same as it was before. As Professor of Transport Studies David Metz noted,
“If road space is taken away from cars to create cycle or bus lanes, then congestion will initially increase. But the additional delays will prompt some drivers to make other arrangements, and congestion will revert to what it had been.”
2) We live in Canada so at best bike lanes are utilized fully 7 of 12 months?
Our complainer may have noticed that it doesn’t snow much anymore, possibly because of all that carbon dioxide emitted by the cars clogging our roads. I recall that last winter it snowed exactly once, and also that the bike lanes were used all winter by people of all ages, including me.
3) Of the usable months, it often rains or there can be extreme heat?
So everyone should be able to roll around in their personal mobile air-conditioned living room? Utility cyclists own rain gear, and with the e-bike revolution, you don’t overheat. In fact, moving on a bike causes evaporation which causes cooling. And if you want to experience extreme heat, keep driving, everyone. And by the way, it gets up to 45°C in Melbourne in summer and people still ride bikes.
4) there is a huge demographic of young people, the elderly and people with physical limitations that can’t use the bike lanes?
This is always the worst, a mix of ageism and concern trolling. There is obviously a huge demographic of young people who do not have drivers licenses or cannot afford cars, and not a few older people like me who cycle to keep healthy or have hung up the car keys. And if you are older, studies show that “cycle commuting was associated with a lower risk of CVD, cancer, and all cause mortality.”
6) On those perfect (weather) work days, many people who work in offices don’t have the luxury of showering after a long ride?
What does this even mean? On those perfect weather days they don’t need to shower after a long ride.
The complainer is conflating those who are cycling for a workout and those utility cyclists who are just rolling along on the way to work. Meanwhile, the number of utility cyclists as more than doubled in the last 20 years and I suspect post-pandemic is even greater than the chart indicates.
7) Placing bike lanes on the city’s busiest streets that already have major public transportation (Yonge, Bloor, Eglinton) is extremely redundant?
If those streets have such good public transportation, why are you in a car? Surely the same logic applies.
8) Fast moving bikes and scooters are an increased danger to pedestrians? I witnessed 2 accidents in one week over the summer.
So far this year, six people on bikes and thirteen people walking have been killed by people driving cars. This is an increase from one cyclist killed in 2023. If ever there was an argument for a safe, separated bike lane network, this is it. There were no deaths caused by cyclists, a good argument for getting more people out of cars and on to bikes. As Peter Walker notes in the Guardian in a similar article,
“As cannot be repeated enough, this is not about cyclists being somehow morally pure. It’s just physics. It’s possible to kill or maim someone if you are a 100kg-ish bike-and-human combination travelling at 12mph, but is extremely unlikely. In a 1.5-tonne SUV at 35mph, it is hideously easy.”
9) The shorter days make them dangerous for everyone?
The shorter days are another good argument for fully separated bike lanes; they are safer for everyone.
Doug Ford and his late brother Rob have always hated bike lanes and streetcars, and have cost Ontario taxpayers billions of dollars burying transit and building subways when streetcars could be moving many more people now. During a climate crisis, he wants to pour more billions into building highways and even tunneling under them. He increases speed limits while opening beer sales in corner stores and closing rural hospitals, which is a deadly combination, but nothing is too good for Ontario drivers, who love all of this. As Tony Keller notes in the Globe and Mail,
“The political genius lies in the fact that most of the province was designed on the assumption that everyone would drive everywhere, for everything, all the time. That’s why Ford policies to subsidize drivers – free licence-plate renewals, lower gas taxes, toll-free roads, opposition to the carbon tax – are popular. That’s why promises of more taxpayer-funded blacktop – such as Highway 413 – are popular.”
But at some point, all those voters who are not in Toronto are going to notice that they are paying billions in taxes to subsidize those Toronto drivers while their town loses its hospitals and other services decline. Or that the roads remain as congested as ever thanks to the law of induced demand. Or that burying the Eglinton transit line and building the Scarborough subway were stupid ideas that have delayed transit for decades, and that all Doug Ford has delivered is more congestion.
It all makes me want to go back to Melbourne and eat more croissants.
As a dedicated year round cyclist (on milder Martha's Vineyard) I am glad to learn that Canada has politicians who are just as knuckleheaded as the ones in the USA.
Pre-Covid, one of our favorite vacations was to go to Montreal for several days. Once we drove into town and parked the car, we never have driven it in Montreal. The bike infrastructure is so good we ride everywhere (even if it is raining).
Here in San Diego, California, the city has done a very good job of creating bike lanes. I've biked here for 40 years, and the contrast is remarkable. Streets on which I used to be squeezed between parked cars and traffic now have bike lanes between the parked cars and the sidewalks. Very safe! I can bike from home to downtown and lots of other places completely or almost completely on bike lanes now.
There is pushback. In some places the bike lanes have reduced parking for cars, and boy, does that get people angry.