Faulty data and biased sampling used by city officials to justify their case has hurt their credibility. Pictured: Toronto City Hall. Photo Credit: iStock.
If one is looking for the definition of a “woke” approach to public policy, look no further than Toronto City Council’s obsession over bike lanes.
It doesn’t matter that public opinion, host neighbourhoods, and drivers are opposed. Mayor Olivia Chow, city administration and the majority of council are true believers that they know what is best.
They are hell bent on solving Toronto’s significant traffic congestion by removing car lanes on major arterial roads and replacing them with bike lanes. They claim it encourages more people to ride bikes rather than use their cars, ergo, less traffic congestion.
Except it isn’t working. Yes, cyclists have increased by a few per cent, but so has traffic congestion by a far larger margin.
Bike lane advocates, drivers and affected neighbourhoods are in an uproar. Even communities from as far beyond the city as Sault Ste. Marie are having bike lane fights.
The brouhaha has caused Premier Doug Ford, with his usual blunt, “get it done” approach, to jump into the fray with both feet. The public’s generally positive response has caused his government to go from just banning new lanes to ripping up old ones on major arterial roads.
Ford’s transport minister has already introduced legislation to give the province the power to overrule a municipality’s bike lane plans if they would remove traffic lanes and, in some circumstances, allow the province to remove existing bike lanes.
And for those asking, constitutionally, provincial power trumps municipal power, although this may yet end up before the courts and who knows where they will land.
In the meantime, the battle royal continues.
Chow is trying to keep things civil between the two levels of government but temperatures are running high. The faulty data and biased sampling being used by city officials to justify their case has not helped their credibility.
It also doesn’t help their case when their claim that bike lanes have only increased driving time by a few minutes clashes with the experience of drivers caught in the crush.
Nor have claims that the cost of removing the lanes will be more than double the cost to install them in the first place. Even avid cyclist Councillor Brad Bradford questions the city’s financial numbers and approach.
It is tough to say where this will all end, but there is a clear lesson for municipal politicians to ponder.
Public policy is always risky in the hands of “true believers,” whatever their political stripe. Just because a loud, noisy group of advocates show up at a City Council meeting in support, does not mean that Mr. and Mrs. Front Porch, or if you will, what used to be called the silent majority, agree.
Bike lane supporters have done a good job of creating the impression that all are in favour and they have not been shy about harassing into silence those that do not agree.
The result is a policy approach that is inconveniencing the 45 per cent of driving commuters to benefit the 5.8 percent of those who use bikes or some form of scooter. The province would not be stepping in if the city had really listened to what neighbourhoods and commuters want, instead of barging ahead.
Telling a middle-aged commuter from Mississauga or Pickering that biking to work in January is the way to go, is not going to fly. It is this sort of political behaviour that undermines the credibility of governments and when taken to extreme, can result in the kind of over-the-top political protest we saw in Ottawa during COVID with the trucker convoy.
One has only to drive around the downtown core and see the endless number of new condo buildings going up to know that traffic congestion is only going to get worse. Adding capacity to Toronto’s transportation network is the way to go, not diminishing it.
Janet Ecker is a former Ontario Finance Minister, Minister of Education, Minister of Community and Social Services and Government House Leader in the governments of Premier Mike Harris and Premier Ernie Eves. After her political career, she served as the founding CEO of the Toronto Financial Services Alliance, a public-private partnership dedicated to building Toronto region into an international financial centre. She currently sits on a number of corporate and non-profit boards, agencies and advisory committees.
Ms. Ecker received the Order of Canada for her public service contributions and was recognized as one of the “Most Influential People in the World’s Financial Centres” by Financial Centres International. She also received a “Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award” from the Women’s Executive Network and the Richard Ivey School of Business, among other awards. She is also one of the founders of Equal Voice, a national, multi-partisan organization working to elect more women.
