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GREENINGS: Ford listens selectively (Apr. 2025)

April 16th, 2025 · No Comments

From Science Centre to bike lanes, expert advice is ignored or twisted

By Terri Chu

The premier who abruptly shut down the Ontario Science Centre based on an intentionally misinterpreted engineering report, is now threatening to take away the Bloor Street bike lanes; this time, there’s not even a report to base his decision on, just his gut feelings and his promises to planet-hating constituents, and of course, big oil.

The engineering report regarding the Science Centre roof said that a mere 6 per cent of the roof panels were at risk of failure. The estimated cost to replace the entire roof for the three buildings was between $22 and $40 million, or about $1 million for an immediate fix. However, instead of fixing it, the big, business-friendly government immediately closed the facility and announced plans to move the Science Centre to Ontario Place at a cost of approximately ten times the cost of fixing the entire existing roof. That way, the taxpayers can foot the bill for the parking lot at Ontario Place which will benefit the new luxury spa Ford’s friends are building there.

Obviously, having these reports in public view does not help the premier. For bike lanes, Ford is not even pretending to solicit more expert views. Existing reports don’t support his cause, and he dare not get more. 

Businesses along Bloor want the bike lanes to stay because cyclists support local stores. 

Big box stores like Loblaw obviously benefit less from bike lanes because they need their customers to get into big SUVs so they can haul their excess goods home. Toronto is caught between urbanists who want the future to have some semblance of liveability and sustainability and those who represent the petrostate past who are becoming increasingly frustrated with the pesky youth who reject traditional values. 

The province doesn’t pretend to care about the annoying sustainability types who lower oil profit margins. They don’t even pretend to care about our lives as we get bulldozed by increasingly large SUVs that feed the oil profit machine, the same machine that openly spreads anti-science propaganda and funds conservative candidates. We are collateral damage as millions are spent to dismantle bike lanes, not out of efficiency, but purely out of spite. Unlike healthcare and infrastructure, no price is too high for political spite.

Through all this, I have a glimmer of good news for cyclists. At Albany and Dupont, there is a fancy new bike corral, the first of its kind on a residential street. The bike corral is between the stop sign and the road, approved by transportation, doesn’t block pedestrians or wheelchair users, and only reduces on- street parking by about a foot. People who live in densely packed homes can now seriously think about buying cargo bikes, e-bikes, or other alternatives to cars.  

Without on-street parking options, residents were limited to what they could physically haul up the porch steps or fit in the often-narrow passageways between their homes. Bike corrals on residential streets makes it possible for people who live in smaller spaces to have a place to park their alternative vehicles. 

This is a huge victory for the biking community. Having these bike corrals on more residentials streets will lower the barrier for many people to get cycling by giving them an on-street storage solution. This is also an issue of fairness. If a resident wants to buy a car, for a song, they could get an on-street parking pass, but no such option existed for cargo bikes—until now.

Despite the province wanting to kill us by taking away bike lanes, us cyclists are thankful for the city and Councillor Dianne Saxe for working as hard as she did to get that first bike corral in place. May every residential street see one of their own soon. Having more bikes isn’t just good for cyclists, motorists also benefit by having less competition for the huge amount of road space that each car takes up. Every cyclist in a bike lane means one fewer car on the road. This is good for delivery drivers, commuters, and even pedestrians. Parking spaces will be easier to come by too. 

Ask your city councillor how to get one on your street. Create these spaces for cyclists. It is time we took some of the public space that has been the privilege of oil-burning mobile murder machines. 

Our next challenge will be to protect those bike lanes from the man who sold out our green belt and the Science Centre. It won’t be an easy task, but we need to unite. We need to let this government know that there are more of us who want bike lanes rather than a spa.

READ MORE BY TERRI CHU:

Tags: Annex · Columns · Opinion