Doug Ford Government — Dumber than a 5th Grader
Municipalities would have to demonstrate that the proposed bike lanes “won’t have a negative impact on vehicle traffic,” the government said.
One of the hallmarks of the Doug Ford Government in Ontario is how mind-numbingly stupid it is.
Prabmeet Sarkaria, Ontario’s Minister of Transportation, offered up this justification in a public op-ed in the Toronto Star:
we need bike lanes — where they make sense.
But unfortunately, that’s not where they’re going. Instead of placing bike lanes on side streets or in quieter neighbourhoods, where traffic levels and the risk of accidents are lower, bike lanes are being added to major thoroughfares like Avenue Road and Bloor Street West in Toronto.
Tell us you don’t know what a bike lane is for, without saying you don’t know what a bike lane is for. Let’s spell it out, bike lanes aren’t needed on quieter streets precisely because those streets are safe to share as mixed use streets. Bike lines are needed when cyclists need to be protected, and that is in heavy traffic corridors. The corridors that are the most direct route from Point A to Point B.
Cartoonist Andy Singer highlights the absurdity of keeping cyclists away from core routes. https://www.andysinger.com/bikesample10.html
This new policy by the Ontario Government has so many layers of absurdity and stupidity to it that the mind boggles. What it stems from is that members of the Doug Ford government are stuck in traffic, and see bike lanes, and get enraged by seeing them. They hate they are stuck in traffic, and blame cyclists. I’m surprised they haven’t declared a war on sidewalks as well, but maybe we just need to give them more time.
Why are people stuck in traffic? Because there are too many cars on the road. This is why the gut reaction of “build more roads” kicks in. But we’re talking about downtown Toronto. There is no room for more roads. Residents get upset when you demolish homes, park lands and other built infrastructure to replace it with a highway.
If you can’t build more roads, what is the alternative? Encourage people to stop using automobiles. Build up efficient transit, encourage active transportation (i.e. cycling). Cycling itself is in a renaissance period; the explosion of electric cycling options is expanding accessibility beyond core “gear heads” to the average person as a quick and efficient means of transport. Smart governments embrace innovations that help solve long-standing problems. Smart governments do that.
If we want less traffic, we need fewer vehicles on our roads. It’s that simple. Removing bike lanes is not going to meaningfully increase capactiy in any way, especially as Ontario, and Toronto’s population keeps growing. We have a fixed capacity problem, and we keep adding people. Forcing those people into cars because of the refusal to consider alternatives just makes the fixed capacity problem worse. You cannot fit 2 pounds of shit in to a 1 pound bag.
Given that the Ontario government cannot conceptualize the “2 pounds of shit in to a 1 pound bag” issue with their focus on bikes lanes, I will give them a pass on the other issue causing us to exceed the fixed capacity problem of our road network.
Vehicle size. As the average vehicle keeps increasing in size, that means for any length of road, fewer vehicles can fit in that length of road.
Let’s do some 5th grade math here.
- A Honda Civic 4-door, 2025 model is 4,694.20 mm long
- The smallest Ford F150 pickup, 2025 model is 5,318.8 mm long
That means, on a 1 km stretch of road, bumper to bumper you can fit 213 Honda Civics or 188 Ford F150s. Honda Civics allow for 12% greater capacity on the same road.
Let’s switch to an Electric car option. The new Mini Electric. It is only 3,845 mm long. Which means 260 Mini E’s on a 1 km stretch of road. An 18% improvement over the Honda Civic! Or 28% more capacity than a road full of F150s. I am skipping calculations for gaps between cars, but if drivers actually followed the “minimum distance” requirements between vehicles, which is measured in vehicle length, smaller cars means you can squeeze them closer together, and do it safely. Larger vehicles take more physical space directly, and for safety reasons need more space taken as a safety cushion to allow them space to come to a stop without hitting something.
If the Ontario Government truly cared about the efficiency of all our roads, and not just the rage inducing streets with bike lanes, they would be pushing for smaller vehicles. Pushing for legislative changes punishing larger vehicles. Alas, it is not to be. They think it is smarter to eliminate options for the smallest transportation options.
