Ontario's bike lane debate: 'Sure winner' in suburbs or 'blitzkrieg' on good planning?

Ottawa's Transportation Master Plan, to be completed next year, envisions that by 2046 more than half of all travel in the city will be by active transportation, public transit or by carpooling.

Published Sep 21, 2024  •  Last updated 0 minutes ago  •  4 minute read

The bike lane at the intersection of Elgin Stret and Laurier Avenue West. Photo by Jean Levac /POSTMEDIA NETWORK

The Ontario government’s plan to prioritize cars over bikes will undercut Ottawa’s new Transportation Master Plan and the province’s own work to make housing more affordable, Kitchissippi Ward Coun. Jeff Leiper says.

The provincial Conservatives under Premier Doug Ford are reportedly planning to make it illegal for municipalities to install bike lanes if that means blocking existing car lanes. The proposal is part of the government’s “Reducing Gridlock and Saving You Time Act” to be introduced in October, according to a report Friday by CBC.

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“I hope when people who are supporting these kinds of policies think about their kids and their grandkids and the kinds of cities they want them to be able to live in,” Leiper said.

“This isn’t a battleground in the non-existent war on cars. It’s a blitzkrieg on planning for affordable cities.”

Ontario Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria would not comment on the proposal at a media availability Friday, saying only the government was committed to ending gridlock.

“My job, as a minister of transportation, is to make sure people have choice, whether you want to take a bike, whether you want to ride public transit, whether you want to drive on a highway to get to work. Our government is is making sure you have that choice and options,” Sarkaria told reporters.

Lisa MacLeod, Conservative MPP for Nepean, signaled her support with a post Friday on the social media platform X.

“A winner for sure in Ottawa exurban and suburban neighbourhoods who voted overwhelming in the last city election to oppose more bike lines,” MacLeod posted.

https://x.com/MacLeodLisa/status/1836974294426898782

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Ottawa’s first segregated bike lane was established on Laurier Avenue in 2017 and is at the heart of the city’s downtown cycling network. It has been especially busy this month as federal government workers return to the office three days a week. On Wednesday, Leiper and a group of volunteers did an informal traffic survey at the intersection of Laurier and Bay Street and found that 42 per cent of traffic was either bicycles or occasional e-scooters.

“In the morning especially, I’ll see six, seven, eight bikes in just one block of Laurier,” Leiper said.

Ottawa’s Transportation Master Plan, to be completed next year, envisions that by 2046 more than half of all travel in the city will be by active transportation, public transit or by carpooling.

“That is going to be impossible to meet without putting the cycling infrastructure in place to safely accommodate the volume of people cycling that we need to reach that number,” Leiper said.

He said there had been a disconnect between the Ontario government’s push for more housing — and removing rent control on new builds — and its underfunding of public transit and active transportation. Housing is so expensive many residents can’t afford car, he said.

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“The affordability question around housing is intimately tied to transportation policy. And, when cars are increasingly unaffordable, we’re going to have rely, in large part, on active transportation,” Leiper said.

“Scott Street is the perfect example. Scott Street is exactly where the province has told us to put those tall towers, which no longer have rent control. And, if you’re going to put cycling infrastructure in, you’re going to have to retrofit it. How can we retrofit safe cycling structure without removing car lanes? I can’t square that circle.”

Capital Ward Coun. Shawn Menard said there was no evidence that bike lanes increased congestion.

“The experience we have had with street renewal where bike lanes are added is that safety and efficiency of travel are greatly improved,” Menard said in a text exchange. “The Bank Street Bridge changes have not seen any more congestion than before the changes, and safety has been enhanced for everyone who drives, walks, bikes and rolls. I suspect, like many things the Ford Government has enacted, this will cost taxpayers more and not improve outcomes for transportation.”

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The cycling advocacy group Bike Ottawa is planning to lobby the province to oppose the change.

“It’s an unfortunate direction for the government to take,” Bike Ottawa vice-president Dave Robertson said. “It’s not cars versus bikes. It’s about the mobility of people in our city centres. It’s not going to make things better for drivers. That’s just not true.

“The only way we’re going to reduce congestion is to get people out of cars,” Robertson said. “I can’t say that often enough.”

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