Proposed priority transit lanes on Bathurst will bring more shoppers
By Terri Chu
A few times a week, I take my kids about two kilometres south on Bathurst for Taekwondo. When the weather is nice, we like to go by bike, but when the weather isn’t so nice, we take transit. Lately, I have entirely given up on transit, even on the coldest of days. In addition to not dropping the $3.20 for pretty much nothing, it has been faster to walk, even with kids.
When we took transit, the app we used would show a bus arriving in a few minutes. Then the estimated arrival time would bounce back a few minutes, then a few minutes more. One day the scheduled arrival time was 4:48, and a bus finally arrived at 5:15. That was the last straw. It would have been faster and less stressful to walk. So ever since, we started walking. I have entirely given up on the Bathurst bus. It is often more than a 30-minute wait for three or four vehicles travelling in a wolf pack. Residents deserve better.
Imagine my excitement to see the city’s plans to create a transit corridor on Bathurst. The pavement currently taken up by empty cars will give way to a dedicated transit lane, giving commuters a fighting chance to get to where they need to be on time. The city plans on removing parking on either side of Bathurst to create a priority transit lane for buses (that bikes will be allowed to use). The priority lanes will be near the sidewalk north of Bloor and in the centre where the streetcar tracks already exist south of Bloor.
Most people reading this column are probably lucky enough to live close to the subway and walking is an option, but further up Bathurst is a large immigrant community completely dependent on reliable transit to get to work, school, or doctors’ offices. Many of these people do the hard work of taking care of kids too. The people of Toronto deserve reliable transit.
A luxury Lexus with nobody in it is not entitled to take up the same space as a vehicle that transports dozens of the city’s most hard-working people. The rich are not entitled to public space. This space absolutely needs to be taken back and put to better use.
There are businesses of course complaining about losing parking. Their counterparts on Bloor went through the same thing when the city first wanted to install bike lanes. Then they discovered that business went up because of increased foot traffic. It is hard to adjust a mindset based on fallacies, but the data is there. Empty cars don’t buy things; people do.
I will be boycotting any businesses organizing against this transit corridor. It reveals a narrow-minded perspective and a lack of community care. I want to support businesses that care about people, the environment, and the health of the city.
The city is seeking comments and will be hosting public meetings on the issue. Please tell them how much our community will benefit from dedicated transit lanes and do not let the empty SUVs speak for us.
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