Mayor Olivia Chow is open to rejigging the road infrastructure on Bloor Street West ahead of Queen’s Park passing legislation that would give the province power to tear the street’s bike lanes out.
“I met with the business owners on Bloor and they have a point. It’s the way it’s designed — we can improve on it,” she said on Newstalk 1010 on Thursday morning.
Chow said on the wider parts of Bloor Street West, which are in Etobicoke, the median that separates the two directions of traffic could be removed so car lanes can be restored and existing bike lanes can remain in place.
She dubbed this “a win-win situation,” noting it was an idea the local business owners brought to her.
This plan could require narrowing the existing bike lanes, which are as wide as 10 feet in some places, according to the mayor.
“We’re looking at those possibilities,” she told Moore in the Morning.
However, it is unclear whether her plan will appease the provincial government, which has filed a regulatory proposal highlighting Bloor Street bike lanes as ones it wants removed.
Chow said some of the city’s recently installed bike lanes “are not very busy” and pledged to work with the cycling community to “fix them together.”
Cycle Toronto has said there should be “no compromise” when it comes to the city opposing Queen’s Park’s anti-bike lane push. “There's no metre or kilometre of bike lanes that we'll accept being removed,” the group said on social media earlier this month.
The City of Toronto released a staff report late Wednesday afternoon that pegged the cost of removing Toronto’s Bloor, Yonge and University bike lanes at $48 million.
On CBC’s Metro Morning on Thursday, Chow told host David Common the figure is “enough money to feed every kid in school.”
“That’s my priority,” she said. “I know that’s also the premier’s priority — feeding kids, because some of them are hungry.”
While she acknowledged Premier Doug Ford’s desire to reduce congestion in the downtown core, she said ripping out new bike lanes “will delay traffic for nine months at least.”
“It will take, in some cases, two construction seasons because in winter, you really can’t do a whole lot,” she explained.
When Common asked Chow why she took so long to respond to the Ford government’s bill, which was tabled on October 21 and could pass by the end of the month, the mayor said she was “waiting for the staff report so I have factual information, not just hearsay.”
“This is about respecting the people of Toronto, it’s about respecting local democracy,” she explained. “I want to bring in all the councillors today to have a good conversation, so that when I approach the premier and the transportation minister, I will be armed with council and lots of facts.”
“If the bill passes, at least they have the power to do so, but they don’t need to do it immediately. Let us work on some of the details.”
