Why bike lanes should remain on Ontario’s roads
In late 2024, the Ontario legislature passed giving the provincial government significant control over municipal bike lanes. The law requires municipalities to ask the province for its approval to install bike lanes if they would remove a lane for other vehicular traffic. The legislation also allows for the removal of three major bike lanes in Toronto.
argue that bike lanes worsen traffic congestion, negatively impact local businesses and delay emergency vehicles from getting where they need to go. However, research shows that bike lanes improve transportation infrastructure, .
One of the main values of bike lanes is that they promote . Many cities around the world install bike lanes to wholly or partially separate cyclists from larger vehicles. This separation limits the interaction with cars and .
Bike lanes can also be per unit width of the road compared to car lanes. They are also much more inexpensive to build than roads for cars. Protected bike lanes compared to .
Reduced injuries
under Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act, and cyclists are rightful users of all roads except .
When people cycle on (bike lanes, cycle tracks, low-speed zones, etc.), the . Bike lanes and reduce interaction between cars and bikes.
that looked at data on bike networks and injuries in 10 Canadian and U.S. cities between 2000 and 2015 showed that an increase in bike networks led to a decrease in fatal and serious injuries.
The safety associated with bike lanes can also encourage more people to take up cycling. A 2020 poll from the Canadian Automobile Association indicates that they would feel encouraged to cycle on bike lanes physically separated from other vehicles.
More inclusive roads
Bike lanes can make cycling more inclusive for women, children, older adults, people with disabilities and those with limited transportation options.
For them, bike lanes can bridge the equity gap and affirm cycling as something “.”
Fewer women bike compared to men. A 2014 study that surveyed cyclists in five U.S. cities found that strongly agreed that protected bike lanes made them feel safe and new ones increased how often they cycled.
Child cyclists benefit a great deal from bike lanes. They . They are also and navigate shared roads, so a separate lane can reduce those risks.
Older adults and people with disabilities also benefit from bike lanes, as they provide a more suitable cycling environment for riding with .
are significant bike users and are . Yet, without bike lanes, they may have no choice but to risk cycling in a dangerous environment. For them, bike lanes are crucial infrastructure.
Cycling is also much cheaper than having a car. , and switching from driving to from 30 per cent to 10 per cent of household income.
Consumer spending and congestion
Some argue that bike lanes reduce street parking, which can lead to . However, showed that people who cycle, walk and use transit frequent local businesses more and spend the same or more than those who use private cars.
In Toronto, when bike lanes were installed on Bloor Street West, there was an average . was observed in New appCity, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Bern, Dublin and Copenhagen.
When it comes to congestion, on the impact of installing bike lanes on in Toronto found that the most affected street segments would only result in an estimated one-minute delay.
from Melbourne showed a minor effect on traffic when bike lanes were added to residential streets with low speed limits. It also found the “selective inclusion” of safe cycling lanes, in the worst cases, leads to a delay of less than 10 seconds per kilometre for drivers.
In New York, found that adding bike lanes reduced the average time for car travel on major thoroughfares from an average of 4.5 minutes to 3 minutes.
Examples from elsewhere indicate that removing bike lanes would not bode well for Toronto. A well-used bike lane in London, England was removed in December 2020 following residents’ complaints that they caused traffic congestion. found that the removal resulted in longer travel time on the street compounded by cars illegally parking in the space previously reserved for the bike lane.
Emergency response
Immediately after the bike lanes were installed on Toronto’s Bloor Street West, paramedics response time within 500 metres of the bike lane corridor .
Toronto Fire Services (TFS) response time increased by 30 seconds within the same corridor compared to a two-second increase for the entire city. However, these evaluations were for two months in 2023. In October 2024, TFS Chief Jim Jessop said the .
If these bike lanes are removed and replaced with others elsewhere, it could create a . The associated with connected bike networks will be lost as a result.
Based on what research tells us, Toronto’s bike lanes should stay. Bike lanes provide various benefits, including making our streets more inclusive of more people.
Bike lanes offer safety on the roads by reducing the risk of fatal or non-life-threatening injuries on roads, and are a tremendous gain for transportation infrastructure.
Even in cases where a bike lane causes a few seconds of delay, politicians and city planners must consider the trade-off — especially if it means saving a person’s life.
By Assistant Professor , Environmental and Urban Change, app; Research Assistant , Environmental Studies, app; and Research Assistant , Environmental Studies, app
