Ontario’s potential anti-bike lane policy raises safety concerns

Reports suggest the province may consider curtailing any further bike lane construction in the near future, and one lawyer has serious concerns. 

While primary conversations surrounding bike lane discourse have been relegated to larger-scale municipalities like Toronto, numerous other locations within the GTHA have seen their fair share of internal conflicts between motorists and cyclists.

Documentation recently obtained by the CBC indicates that Premier Doug Ford’s administration may be looking to scale back on bike lane construction throughout Ontario.

While no policy has been confirmed by officials, in a separate news conference on Friday (Sept. 13) Ontario Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria told reporters that “a multitude of proposals when it comes to congestion management” were being actively reviewed. 

For Dave Shellnut, an Ontario-based lawyer specializing in cyclist rights, any legislation looking to scale back bike lane integration — vague or otherwise — poses a major risk for both motorist and cyclist safety. 

“I think it hurts the people of Ontario broadly because any municipality in the province that is given a mandate by their constituents who analyze road and safety data, now, are going to have to run up a flagpole to the province,” Shellnut told INsauga.com. “With all the limited resources on a provincial level, is the Minister of Transportation now going to take time to audit all of these requests across the province for bike lanes?” 

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Shellnut went on to indicate that in the last month alone, numerous cyclists have been killed via motor collisions in Belleville, Toronto, Guelph, the Elora area and Niagara.

Due to this concerning trend, from a public safety and legal standpoint, Shellnut believes that a case-by-case municipal integration system for bike lanes remains the ideal way to save lives. 

“Everybody is complaining about these bike lanes but they all went through major consultations to get there. There are studies, there is data and there are discussions that go into all of this — it’s not willy-nilly — so to provide a further level of oversight on top of these decisions will take the power away from these communities,” says Shellnut. 

While conversations surrounding bike lane restrictions remain in the air, Shellnut and his team continue to assess data from municipalities looking into effective decongestion methods. Shellnut further indicates that, as far as boilerplate investigations go, not a single examination of commuter traffic in Ontario municipalities urges bike lane restriction in any capacity. 

“There’s not one single report that indicates that we have to get rid of bike lanes, not a single one. There is, however, plenty of reports that say that safe and protected infrastructure saves people’s lives and reduces injury,” says Shellnut. 

Beyond whispers surrounding provincial legislation, Shellnut has secondary concerns, mainly about provincial attitudes toward cyclists, citing that if any form of legislation were to pass concerning bike lane restriction, it would likely fuel further roadside conflicts. 

“When you see stuff like this, you have to worry that it may be stoking anti-cyclist attitudes; people could potentially feel emboldened to act recklessly around cyclists, and that will have negative consequences,” says Shellnut. 

Shellnut further indicates that if any restrictive policies surrounding bike lanes were to be passed on a provincial level, it would likely spell a grim future for commuter safety.

“If we, at this critical moment, take regressive steps rather than bold action, the death and mayhem on our roads is going to spiral out of control,” he says.

At the time of publication, no official policies have been passed down by provincial agencies restricting bike line construction.