Jared Kolb

Current threads: parks, main streets, cycling and parenting #EastEndLove. Interim Executive Director at Green Communities Canada. Views here are my own.

[Jared Kolb @JaredKolb]

Huzzah! Keep on riding in the free world, friends: https://t.co/twKpnwConx

[Jared Kolb @JaredKolb]

@chorkins @CycleToronto Agree with your sentiment, Chris, though the current Executive Director of Cycle Toronto is Michael Longfield, whom I'm really feeling for today.

[Mike Layton @m_layton]

An admission of the significant financial and safety costs. The city regularly looks at alternative routes and puts lanes on side streets. Shaw (instead of Ossington), Palmerston (Bathurst), Brunswick (Spadina). Yonge, University and Bloor don't have equivalent options.

[Neil Pasricha @NeilPasricha]

Dear Ontario Premier Doug Ford (@fordnation),

My 10-year-old son was identified with a need last year and had to change public schools.

I now bike him 2.2km to school in the mornings and he bikes home alone.

We use the 8-year-old Bloor Street bike lanes which make the roads safe for him to do this.

With the roads full of Amazon delivery vans, speeding Ubers, massive buses, and whizzing food delivery e-bikes my son was nervous to bike alone.

We got him a rear view mirror and bike lights and practiced together a few times.

He uses the Bloor Street bike lanes which are full of many other kids riding to and from school.

You are now proposing to spend $48M in provincial taxpayer money (1) to overrule the wishes of the City of Toronto (2, 3, 4) to rip out these bike lanes, which you know pose a direct safety threat. (5)

If this happens we’ll need to ask his grandfather to pick him up in his car.

I’ll likely start driving him in the morning more since his grandfather's car can’t fit his bike on the way home.

Instead of what we need and want—*more* bike lanes that are proven to ease congestion, traffic, and pollution (6)—you’re proposing I spend more money, use more gas, spew more fumes, get less exercise, and create more car traffic.

In 2017 you spoke about bike lanes on @TVO and said: "You're nervous when there's no bike lanes. At least I was. We have to make sure there's never a death in the city. One death is way too many when it comes to bicycle riders. I felt so much safer when it's separated." (7)

Please reverse course here.

Keep the bike lanes.

It’s not too late.

Thank you,

Neil Pasricha

//

(1) https://t.co/WjzQIoEyBo
(2) https://t.co/iUtYBV0Oon
(3) https://t.co/GWPYwNR4BW
(4) https://t.co/2KFaHnQIoO
(5) https://t.co/JVP4TuOAUv
(6) https://t.co/bV3WO9gboI
(7) https://t.co/TO9TdnGZn4

//

CC: Ontario Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria (@PrabSarkaria), Ontario MPP Marit Stiles (@MaritStiles), Ontario MPP Jessica Bell (@JessicaBellTO), Ontario MPP Chris Glover (@chrisglover), Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow (@oliviachow), Toronto Councillor Alejandro Bravo (@bravodavenport), Toronto Councillor Dianne Saxe (@DianneSaxxe), Doctors for Safe Cycling (@Docs4Cycling), Cycle Toronto (@CycleToronto) Chrystia Freeland (@cafreeland), Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau), Jon Haidt (@JonHaidt), Lenore Skenazy (@FreeRangeKids), and Jeff Speck (@JeffSpeckFAICP)

[Matt Elliott @GraphicMatt]

The supplementary report on Doug Ford's bike lane ban bill is now available. City staff say it could cost $48 million in provincial tax money to remove bike lanes. And city would lose out on $27 million invested to install the infrastructure. https://t.co/0c4kWCO3WC (PDF)

[Dylan Reid @dylan_reid]

Letter from CEO of Sinai Health (Mount Sinai hospital etc.) noting that the *majority* of their employees cycle to work, and they want protected bike lanes (Mount Sinai hospital is on University Ave.) https://t.co/QxKFJWRo7i (PDF) h/t @GraphicMatt

[Jared Kolb @JaredKolb]

"Legislation proposing to guide road design decisions, such as Bill 212, should explicitly place higher priority on road safety than motor vehicle travel times. We oppose the proposed legislation" says 120 physicians & researchers from UofT @PrabSarkaria: https://t.co/94WjNVZjvm

[Jared Kolb @JaredKolb]

Children across Canada are facing an epidemic of inactivity. Alongside the climate crisis, this is no time to be reversing course on bike lane installation in Ontario.

Our letter to Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria and Premier Ford on behalf of many of @grncommunities members:

[Green Communities Canada @grncommunities]

Green Communities Canada + our #Ontario members wrote @PrabSarkaria expressing concern re: #Bill212. This bill would negatively impact children’s health, the environment, increase #congestion + slow/reverse installation of #BikeLanes: https://t.co/5mh8RmzLoh

[Green Communities Canada @grncommunities]

Green Communities Canada + our #Ontario members wrote @PrabSarkaria expressing concern re: #Bill212. This bill would negatively impact children’s health, the environment, increase #congestion + slow/reverse installation of #BikeLanes: https://t.co/5mh8RmzLoh

[Mike Layton @m_layton]

When we proposed the Bloor Bike lane pilot, we also proposed a rigorous third-party economic study. It was done and found a financial benefit to local businesses, on top of the significant safety improvements to ALL road users with minimal delays.

[Cycle Toronto @CycleToronto]

“Bike lanes could have saved our daughter”

This was George and Karen Amaro’s message in a letter to Premier Ford urging him to put an end to Bill 212. The bill would block most new bike lanes and possibly lead to the removal of existing ones.

1/

[Jared Kolb @JaredKolb]

40% of Ontarians that cast a vote in 2022 voted for the PCs. And yet only ~12% of respondents here ranked building the 413 and the 401 tunnel as their #1 choice.

Incredible support here for both buying the 407 and investing in better transit.

[Phil Pothen 🇨🇦 he/him @pothen]

Kaboom! New non-partisan polling from
@Thetrilliumca shows that only 12% of Ontario voters still think that Doug Ford's 413 Highway & 401 tunnel schemes are the right way to solve congestion. 🧵

[Colin D'Mello | Global News @ColinDMello]

Mayor Olivia Chow to Premier Doug Ford on bike lanes:

“Stay in your lane, open the Eglinton Crosstown and Finch West LRTs and fix the chaos at Metrolinx.”

#onpoli

[Chris Kemp (cbkemp.bsky.social) @mindoverdata]

A huge and passionate crowd gathered at Queen's Park to let @fordnation know that bicycle infrastructure saves lives and is a key part of *actually* addressing traffic congestion. More people biking = less people driving. #BikeTO #TOpoli #ONpoli

[Jared Kolb @JaredKolb]

"Our lives are not expendable. We need safe streets everywhere," says Kendrew Pape of @FFSafeStreets, who lost his sister to road violence. #Rally4SafeStreets

[Jennifer Keesmaat @jen_keesmaat]

Observation: all of the major streets that are targeted for bike lane removal have major below grade transit, either a subway or an LRT (and the LRT not running is 100% Ford’s fault).

So, that whole thing about ‘no other options’ is just bunk.

ALSO, over 1,000,000 people commute or use the Yonge Line daily, compared to the 25,000 vehicles that traverse Yonge street daily. Transit always has, and always will, do the heavy lifting in terms of moving people in this city.

This idea that stealing the sliver of street currently allocated to cyclists is somehow a game changer is a red herring. Grandiose politicking. It is also dishonest.

Improve transit service by cleaning up the trains and running them more frequently if you want to move more people in these corridors.

[Jared Kolb @JaredKolb]

Bike lanes mean business: 93% of customers walk, cycle or take transit to visit Bloor Annex BIA local businesses and only 7% arrive by car, says local BIA reps. And business has been growing since the lanes were installed in 2016.

[David Rider @dmrider]

Inbox: Group rep'ing merchants in the Bloor-Annex corridor tell @fordnation that bike lanes help businesses: “Are we building highways or are we building main streets? Because highways don’t encourage main street economic activity.”

[oliver-moore.bsky.social @moore_oliver]

Ontario Premier promises to take bike lanes off Bloor.

Inbox, BIA repping 270 businesses there says they:

"a firm believer in the actual evidence that concludes that bike lanes on Bloor Street are good for business, improve safety for all road users, and reduce congestion"

[David Rider @dmrider]

Inbox: Group rep'ing merchants in the Bloor-Annex corridor tell @fordnation that bike lanes help businesses: “Are we building highways or are we building main streets? Because highways don’t encourage main street economic activity.”

[Jared Kolb @JaredKolb]

Imagine if kids and caregivers felt safe enough to walk and bike to school? Counterintuitively, we'd have less congested roads #onpoli #biketo

[Jared Kolb @JaredKolb]

School drop off accounts for between 25% and 40% of morning rush hour in London, UK. Let that sink in. We need more opportunities to get kids and caregivers out of cars, not less: https://t.co/Xo8YsrYWJi