Doug Ford government gears up to remove Toronto bike lanes in one of its final pre-election actions

The Ontario government has announced an engineering company has been hired as work to remove some Toronto bike lanes moves ahead.

The wheels of Ontario’s plan to remove bike lanes on three of Toronto’s busiest streets are moving forward.

On Tuesday, the provincial government announced it had hired an engineering company to complete design work, “as it prepares to reinstate vehicle lanes on Bloor Street West, Yonge Street and University Avenue.”

“Our government has heard loud and clear from residents and businesses about the problems with gridlock. The failed approach of installing bike lanes without a second thought for drivers or local businesses is not working,” Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said in a news release. “By freeing up some of Toronto’s most important roads, we’re bringing common sense back to municipal planning.”

The minister’s office told CTV News Toronto that Stantec Consulting Ltd. had been retained to undertake the design work and construction to remove lanes will begin as soon as possible or in the spring.

Sarkaria’s office added that the work would be paid solely by the province and final costs would be reported in public accounts.

Last year, the province passed Bill 212, which requires municipalities to request permission from the government in order to build a bike lane that requires the removal of a lane of traffic.

The Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act, which received royal assent in November, also allows the province to get rid of the existing bike infrastructure on Bloor, Yonge and University.

Premier Doug Ford, who requested the dissolution of provincial parliament on Tuesday and trigger an early election, has said in the past that residents “despise” bike lanes and the bill would bring “sanity” back to where they are installed.

City staff have previously estimated it will cost $48 million to remove the three Toronto bike lanes. The cost to install them was $27 million. Ford, however, has taken issue with that estimate, suggesting the number is “hogwash.”

He’s argued the lanes should only exist on secondary roads, and that only 1.2 per cent of the city’s population actually commutes to work by bike, citing Statistics Canada data from the 2011 census. A more recent collection of data in 2021 showed that number now sits at two per cent – or 15,750 daily bikers – in Toronto proper.

The law also protects the provincial government from lawsuits filed by cyclists, or their families, if they are injured or killed in an area where a bike lane has been removed.

Biking advocates have said the move will put cyclists at risk and that bike lanes have reduced the risk of road accidents for all users.

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow has called the decision to rip up the bike lanes “arbitrary” and suggested that the province’s action will make congestion worse.

With files from CTV News Queen’s Park Bureau Chief Siobhan Morris