The bike lane saga in Toronto took a heckuva left turn on Aug. 14 after Ontario won the appeal over a Charter Challenge from last year. So now what?
The next phase
Ontario announced on Sept. 1 that it will move ahead with plans to remove or reconfigure bike lanes on Bloor Street, Yonge Street, University Avenue, Queen’s Park, Queen’s Park Crescent and Avenue Road. But, the first step is not necessarily demolition.
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The province has issued a request for proposals for engineering work to study different options for the corridors. At the same time, Doug Ford’s administration did confirm it will begin restoring motor-vehicle lanes on a section of Bloor Street W., east of Clissold Road.
And how will they look?
Exactly what the finished roads will look like is still to be determined. There are lots of other questions, too. Including, how much will this cost to undo? Whether or not it’s even worth it is a whole other discussion…one that we’ve seen on the pages of Canadian Cycling Magazine since Ford’s government announced Bill 212 back in 2024.
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The “Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act” aimed to give the provincial government power over the municipal ones for when or how they could implement bike lanes. Plus, undoing all of the work could make the engineering work more complicated, and expensive, than simply removing bike-lane markings.
Margaret Parkhill, an engineer with consulting firm Arup who has worked on Toronto bike-lane projects, told CBC News that adding or removing lanes can have similar costs because the work can involve road reconstruction, traffic signals, signs and parking infrastructure.
The costs
The city says it spent about 27 million bucks installing the bike lanes covered by the province’s plans. That included 13 km on Bloor, 3.2 km on Yonge and about 3.6 km on University Avenue and Queen’s Park.
Toronto previously estimated that removing all 19 kilometres would cost about $48 million. The province rejected that figure, and there is still no official price tag for the work.
There’s another big elephant in the room…who the heck is paying for this?
Transportation planning and engineering professor Jeff Casello told the CBC that responsibility could become just a wee bit of a matter of contention between Queen’s Park and city hall.
The actual construction will also vary considerably. Painted lanes could be relatively easy to remove. But protected lanes with curbs or other physical separation could require major reconstruction. And it’s not just the lanes. No siree bob . There’s more. Which also means more money.
At intersections for example, the changes could go even further. Infrastructure such as traffic signals, fire hydrants, streetlights and drainage systems may have to be moved or redesigned.
But back to the question the province will eventually have to answer: will removing the lanes actually improve traffic?
Casello told the CBC that travel times should be measured before and after the changes so the government can demonstrate whether the project delivers the promised benefit. Local cycling advocacy groups have been adamant that it won’t help with traffic problems, even citing the government’s own internal documents.
For now, the province has launched the process. The engineering studies will help determine what gets built, how much it costs and, ultimately, what Toronto’s major streets look like once the work is finished. And speaking of gridlock…can you imagine the mess with traffic if you have crews across town ripping out lanes and redoing roads for months and months?