Ontario moves to restrict new bike lanes at expense of vehicle lanes

Windsor Tecumseh MPP Andrew Dowie joins Jon Liedtke on AM800 CKLW to discuss the Ontario government moving to restrict new bike lanes in municipalities if they require the removal of traffic lanes.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Good morning everyone, Welcome to the Dan McDonald show. John
Lydkey here filling in nine oh seven on the sixteenth
of October. Can you believe that? I still can't. Pretty
hard to believe, but hey, here we are. You can't.
Just can't fret over it now, you can't. Middle of

(00:24):
the week Wednesday, and we were just listening on Mornings
with Mike and Meg with the Minister of Transportation for
the Province of Ontario about moving towards the new policy
regarding bike lanes with the province restricting new bike lanes

(00:45):
amid an out of control process requiring municipalities to seek
provincial approval before removing lanes of traffic to add on
new bike paths, the reason being saying that informed decision
making and oversight will be brought to a process that
is quote frankly out of control. We spoke about this

(01:09):
yesterday on the program with Ward nine Counselor Kieran McKenzie
about this and joining us to discuss right now, is
our member of provincial Parliament for Windsor to come see
Andrew Dowe joins me, Hey, Andrew, how you doing?

Speaker 2 (01:23):
That's bad? John?

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Good morning, Good morning, Thanks so much for joining us
here right off the bat with things. So you know, listen,
we chatted a little bit about this yesterday on the air.
You and I talked a bit briefly off air about this.
I guess my only question right off the bat here is,
you know you were an elected official at the councilor level.
Why do you think that the province needs to be

(01:46):
in control of this process rather than local elected officials.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
You know what, we have the municipal class environmental assessment
that governs whether you what you can do in terms
of the call consultation with the public. And so a
few years ago, two thousand and seven, the conversion of
lanes of traffic into bicycle lanes was put into something
called Schedule eight plus or a prime, which took away

(02:13):
effectively the the the changeover where you would get a
minister's approval. So it did essentially decentralize the decision making
on bike lanes. But part of that there's a condition
to it though it's pre prove provided you go through
the steps to do the traffic analysis and demonstrate that

(02:34):
there are no undue circumstances. And if you do have
undue circumstances, you've got to find a way to mitigate them.
There's there's been kind of a a difficulty in finding
the homework used to identify what the The challenge has
been where with these traffic cannalyzis where are they? And

(02:57):
so we have seen very very clearly in the East
West corridors and the GTA particularly, And I'll use it
an example. Last night, I left Toronto at five to
come home. I got back about eleven o'clock. There just
are no arteries and just that time of the day
is when commute commutes happen. There's there's no relief. We

(03:20):
need to have a more optimized system. So removing travel
travel lanes just when they're already congested is not helping
our environment, it's not helping us spend time with our
families and and really we need to refine a better
balance than we had before. So to your question, why
why should the province be involved? It's always been involved.

(03:41):
It had it had to be delegated bat under the
municipal class the A two thousand and seven. Now'd say,
you know what, if you're gonna remove a travel lane,
send us the work and we'll say, uh, well, we'll
give our comments. But it is it is another step
in the process, but quite honestly, I think it's a
necessary one given some of the installations we've seen and

(04:03):
the lack of traffic analyzes demonstrated to show how the
traff could mansion.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Is this an issue though for us down here in
Windsor Essex? Or is this primarily as you said, you know,
I hear GTA issue, King Street issue, commute issue from
the burbs getting into the core of downtown. I don't
see this being an issue here. I mean, we don't
even have a protected bike lane and windsor.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, you know what, I think. I've seen the news reports.
The Victoria lane is one that's cited as, oh, this
could be in jeopardy with such a policy, and that's nonsense, right, Like,
there's no traffic issue on Victoria. So I think if
we go back about twenty years Riverside Drive, you used
see four lanes from Strabane going all the way to downtown,

(04:48):
and so that Riverside Drive was shrunken to two lanes
with a center left periodically and bike lanes. That was
two thousand and three, two thousand and four ish. Now
there has been no particular impact to traffic circulation. We
did reduce the number of through lanes on Riverside Drive,
but it did have an impact that traffic analysis showed

(05:09):
the level service was not being lost. So if that
happens today, that work had sent up to the province
and they say, yes, you're good. So I struggle to
find a case in the City of Windsor where this
might be an issue. Perhaps if someone wanted to put
bike lanes on Dougal Avenue, for example, and knowing how

(05:31):
congested it is leaving downtown, and yet let's take out
a lane on Doogal so in addition to the off
off road trail, we decided to take off a lane
into bike lanes. I could see the province saying, you
know what, this this may not be the right balance,
but it'll be dependent on what's submitted to the province.
If the analysis shows that it's not. When you stop

(05:54):
commuters from getting home in any meaningful way by removing
lane on Dougal, then then why not do it that.
It's not meant to be punitive, it's meant to just
make sure that the decision is being made in a
balanced way.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Well, and it's not just about bike lanes that are
going to be encompassed in this legislation. There's other things
as well, such as raising all four hundred highways to
one hundred and ten kilometers an hour and then certain
ones up to even one hundred or twenty and twenty
or higher.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
You know what, it's been piloted forbid. And you are
very good earlier on recognizing that the sea limits came
down because of the oil crisis in nineteen seventies. But
the roads are actually designed from a geometric perspective to
handle higher speeds than they have been posted for so

(06:43):
at even residential roads too, And this is kind of
transmission planning in a nutshell. The driver's psychology is impacted
by the road design. So the wider you make the roads,
the less encumbrance is, the faster people will go. So
if you want it, if you want people go slowly,
got a name of the road down. We have wide highways,
they're designed for these higher speeds, and those pilot areas

(07:07):
where the one hundred and tens are even posted, I
struggle to find any issues that have resulted from that removal.
So I think it's a sensible next step for those
control of access highways, and we even see in the North,
there are roads that we would probably post at seventy
that are one hundred in the North because of the circumstances.

(07:32):
So I'd say, don't throw the baby out the bath
water if you're concerned about speed. Obviously there are alternative
routes as well, but local munipalities still have control over
there there roadways and how they post them. But if
it makes sense to allow the speeds to occur, then

(07:54):
why not. We have not seen any evidence that the
four one, four oh three other highways that have been
raised have had any particular impact on safety.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
There's also going to be a legislated cap on drive
test fees for driver's licenses, which is one of those
nice wedge issues that you guys put forward that makes
it difficult for opposition parties to try to undo. They'd
have to come forward and say we want to raise
fees for all of you people, which is you know,
smart tactic quite frankly on your part, not your part specifically,
but the party's part. But I do want to quickly

(08:27):
touch on this pothole reserve capital fund. What is that about.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
We have municipalities that have wide wide geographies that that
own roads. They need to be kept in good repair
for the safety and security of the users. And sometimes
there are so few residents contributing into into the pot.
They're sparsely populated areas, but the roads to let to

(08:54):
be maintained. So this fund helps out small municipalities and
gets them on their way. If they need to repair
and replace certain certain problem areas and they need some help,
this fund allows them to be helped to the provincial level.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
Okay, well, hey, Andrew, I really do appreciate your time
on this one. I think that we're going to be
getting some questions in about it. Do you do you
have a ten minutes more to stick around if someone
wants to.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Ask you a question, yes, absolutely, Okay, cool, Hey, what.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
We're going to do then, Folks is cut to a
commercial right now. But if you have a question for
our MPP for windsor to come see Andrew Dowie. Now
it's a great time to call in about this bike
laying issue, that well, the whole changes to the road
system that we have here. You can call her text
five one nine seven nine two c KLW again that
number five one nine seven nine two two five five

(09:43):
nine and we will be back with Windsor to comsy
MPP Andrew Dowie. Right after the break, John Lydkey here
on AM eight hundred