Last month, Toronto’s cycling community learned the City of Toronto would be resurfacing Eglinton Avenue without the promised bike lanes given the Eglinton Crosstown LRT continues to be faced with delays. This prompted me to prepare this action alert, while Cycle Toronto issued their own along with organizing tonight’s “Rally and Ride for Eglinton” which almost 100 people attended.
Two things that have made Torontonians furious at the Ford government lately are the constantly delayed Eglinton Crosstown LRT and their war on bikes through Bill 212. Both of these matters intersected yesterday when Toronto Today had reported the bike lanes proposed under eglintonTOday would be paused because of Bill 212. While the article was later corrected to state the City of Toronto’s commitment to do the installation after the LRT opens, the City of Toronto updated the eglintonTOday project website to say installation would not happen in 2025 when the road resurfacing work happens.
Last year, Toronto installed almost 27 kilometres of on-street bikeways; making it the second highest year ever after the 30 kilometres installed in 2020 during the pandemic. This includes 8.5 kilometres for Finch Avenue West which I deemed to be substantially completed per a site visit, but the City of Toronto didn’t count as Metrolinx hadn’t transferred the street back to the City. Even excluding Finch, 18 kilometres is still respectable compared to prior years. With Doug Ford’s Bill 212 limiting new bike lane installations and Cycle Toronto’s charter challenge win last month (which the Ford government formally submitted their appeal today), it made me wonder what the impact on new bike lane installations would be.
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| Bikeway construction on The Esplanade in May 2025 |
Yesterday, more than 100 people took part in the May Critical Mass ride. While a couple of recent Critical Mass rides were controversial with Dave Shellnutt getting ticketed in March and someone getting arrested at the April one (which I didn’t attend due to the Hot Docs festival), this one fortunately didn’t see any ticketing despite the police presence. Let’s look back at how the ride went!
A good-sized crowd filled Glendolyn MacEwen Parkette by the time I got there.
The presence of car-brain – or motonormativity as the experts call it – in Toronto has been quite infuriating as of late. In addition to some new developments surrounding Bill 212, even transit developments and revenue tools are being affected along with a different cycling matter. Let’s look at this mayhem and how we can respond!
On Wednesday, Cycle Toronto – along with fellow applicants Eva Stanger-Ross and Narada Kiondo – had their day in court to pursue a Charter challenge against the Ford government’s plans to remove bike lanes. The challenge targets Section 195.6 of the Highway Traffic Act (originally in Bill 212), which requires the removal of bike lanes on Bloor, Yonge, and University. The applicants are represented by Andrew Lewis of Paliaire Roland and Bronwyn Roe of the non-profit Ecojustice, while Greenpeace, For Our Kids Toronto, and the Canadian Public Health Association appeared as intervenors. Both the main and overflow courtrooms were full for the occasion while Justice Paul Schabas presided over the session which focused on Section 7.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
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| Cycle Toronto's "Rally for Justice" held the day before the April 16 Charter challenge |
While Cycle Toronto’s charter challenge against Bill 212 is less than three weeks away and their injunction request was denied earlier this month, Toronto’s cycling community continues to put pressure on the Ford government to scrap their bike lane removal plans for Bloor, Yonge, and University. To follow up on last week’s direct action by Fridays for Future Toronto, a Critical Mass ride was held last night. Not even the rain could stop more than two hundred people from attending.
With the court challenge against the Ford government’s Bill 212 expected to be held on Wednesday, April 16, Toronto’s cycling community will be hosting a Critical Mass ride on Friday, March 28. Meet 6:00 PM at Bloor and Spadina for 6:30 PM departure. As with other Critical Mass rides, the route is never provided ahead of time. This announcement offers a good opportunity to recap what has been happening with this bill since Doug Ford won his third majority last month.
As was widely expected, Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative party secured its third straight majority last night. This is despite him being the least liked premier in the country and all the trouble he caused including the RCMP Greenbelt investigation, the destruction of Ontario Place for a mega spa nobody wants, the crumbling of our health and education systems, and the ripping out of Toronto’s bike lanes. And of course, those $200 pre-election bribe cheques. However, there is a lot more to rant about aside from the outcome itself.
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| Editorial cartoon via Theo Moudakis |
Back on October 23, a group from Bike Brampton led by David Laing attended the Rally and Ride for Road Safety at Queen’s Park; some of whom biked all the way from Brampton. To return the favour, Jess Spieker of Friends & Families for Safe Streets organized a group to take the GO Train to Brampton yesterday for Bike Brampton’s delivery of a ghost bike at Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria’s office on Hurontario Street.
Upon reviewing the North York map for the 2025-27 Bike Plan, one of the most significant projects in the pipeline is the Bathurst Complete Street from Bainbridge to Steeles Avenues. A cycling route which also shows up in York Region’s 2022 Transportation Master Plan. Ahead of the public consultation scheduled for Thursday, January 30 (6:00 – 8:30 PM) at Rockford Public School, let’s look at what this project has to offer, as well as what’s needed to further improve connectivity in the area.
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| Bathurst Complete Street rendering - Via City of Toronto |
While trying to describe 2024 from a Toronto cycling perspective, the phrase "flip turned upside down" from Will Smith’s “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” song had come to mind. Especially considering the record number of cyclists killed and the Ford government’s passing of their anti-bike lane Bill 212 (which also calls for accelerating Highway 413 construction). Let’s recap 2024 to see why that was the case.
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| Winter conditions along the Sherbourne cycle track this afternoon |
It’s hard to believe, but another year is almost over, and it’s been quite the rollercoaster with the Bill 212 fiasco and all. With two more weeks to go, a lot has popped up which warrants a roundup post of its own. This includes a couple of updates regarding Bill 212, the East Don Trail, the Ellesmere Complete Street project, and some upcoming group rides. Let’s dive in to see what December 2024 has to offer!
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| A banner ridiculing Doug Ford's war on bike lanes found over the Gardiner (via Martin Reis) |
This weekend saw two cycling events take place in Toronto and the two atmospheres couldn’t be any different with one being a protest ride and the other being a festive one. Let’s recap what happened during these two events.
With the passing of Bill 212 last week, it’s time to shift focus to getting rid of the Ford government at the polls while still pursuing direct actions such as last Friday’s well attended Critical Mass ride. MPP Joel Harden’s latest e-newsletter indicated the Ford government will be retaining their own contractors to remove 500 metres of the most western section of the Bloor Street bike lane – most likely within The Kingsway where opposition is strongest – and 400 metres of the Yonge Street bike lane by the end of this year. If we are to achieve electoral success, it’s worth identifying which ridings to target.
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| This November 2024 Critical Mass video by @hope2hope.bsky.social went viral on Bluesky |
Yesterday was a sad day for cyclists in Toronto, Ottawa, and across Ontario with the Ford government having passed the Third Reading of Bill 212. This bill would not only restrict where new bike lanes would be built, but also remove existing bike lanes on Bloor, Danforth, and University while preventing people from suing the government. This is despite over 24,000 signatures for Cycle Toronto’s petition and a broad base of opposition from planners to engineers, doctors, universities, organized labour, and several city councils including Toronto’s. Despite this major setback, the fight is not over and it’s time to put things into perspective.
Yesterday, over 1000 people gathered at Queen’s Park for the second “Fight for Bikes” protest two weeks after their highly successful début. It marked the third protest in a week against Bill 212 including Sunday’s World Day of Remembrance and Thursday’s delivery of two ghost bikes. Unlike other events which had feeder rides meet at a central location, this rally split into three rides along University, Bloor, and Yonge Streets.
Earlier today, Zev and Eva – two University of Toronto students who started “Fight for Bikes” organized a protest against Bill 212 at Christie Pits Park. The turnout was incredible with some claiming there were at least 1,500 which would make it even larger than the September 23 rally at Queen’s Park!
