Ontario Premier Doug Ford called a City of Toronto staff report that projected a $48-million price tag for tearing out bike lanes along Bloor Street, Yonge Street and University Avenue “hogwash.”
Speaking to reporters at Queen’s Park, Ford disputed the report’s findings.
“You know it doesn’t cost $50 million. That’s a bunch of hogwash,” the premier said. “We’re going to show them how to do it for a lot less.”
Last week, city staff produced a 28-page report indicating the cost estimate.
Soon after its release, staffers in Premier Ford’s office attempted to discredit the $48-million figure.
“There’s no real-life example of the costs being even remotely close to what the City of Toronto is suggesting,” Ivana Yelich, the premier’s deputy chief of staff, posted on social media alongside a photo of a news report about the cost of removing bike lanes on Jarvis Street in 2012.
While removing the Jarvis bike lanes — a project that was undertaken when the premier’s late brother Rob Ford was mayor — cost around $300,000, those lanes were simply painted on the street.
Most of the newer lanes the province wants to rip out are combined with significant road infrastructure, including cement dividers, reflective delineators and readjusted street parking spaces. They cost $27 million to install.
“We’re going to get traffic moving and we’re going to keep bike riders safe. Simple as that,” Ford said Tuesday.
When it comes to cyclist safety, Queen’s Park has suggested new bike lanes could be built on secondary Toronto streets to replace the lanes on main thoroughfares it plans to remove.
But city staff said that is not possible without also removing car lanes — the precise type of road reform that got Ford’s hackles up against bike lanes in the first place.
“There are no feasible parallel alternates for cycling routes that wouldn’t also result in the conversion of a motor vehicle travel lane,” the city report said.
The report also found that construction to remove the bike lanes would require months-long lane closures and result in “minimal improvements in travel times” once they are gone.
The province has indicated it will cover the cost of removing the lanes.
