Cyclists attempt to block Toronto bike lane removals for second day, one arrested
A cycling advocate is vowing to keep up a protest of Toronto bike lane removals after demonstrators successfully blocked the first night of Ontario's latest planned work along a stretch of Bloor Street.
In a statement, Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria says the Bloor Street work expected to start Tuesday night was halted by protesters, adding: "make no mistake: these bike lanes are coming out".
Videos shared on social media of the west-end protest show bicycle-mounted demonstrators around a truck carrying stacks of construction pylons.
The protestors chant "get home safe," as the truck slowly drives away, escorted by police officers on bicycles.
Michael Longfield, executive director of Cycle Toronto, says he expects the protests to continue "until further notice." The group is behind a constitutional challenge of Ontario's plan to remove up to 19 kilometres of protected bike lanes along stretches of Bloor, Yonge Street and University Avenue.
A Toronto roadwork website indicates the bike lane removal is slated for a roughly one-kilometre stretch of Bloor from Islington Avenue to Royal York Road.
The listing on the city website indicates the overnight work was slated to start Tuesday and run through Nov.
17.
The minister's spokesperson did not respond to questions Tuesday about the cost of the work, or whether it would keep a bike lane intact.
The protest happened the same day as the cycling group said they would ask Canada's top court to weigh in on their case.
A lower court initially blocked the bike lane removal plan as an unconstitutional safety risk, but the Appeal Court overturned that decision and said the trial judge had overstepped into the legislature's policy-making and political purview.
An engineering report commissioned by the province found any congestion benefits from ripping out bike lanes would be negligible or short-lived, the cyclists have argued in court.
The same report found bike lanes were predicted to reduce crashes among all road users by between 35 and 50 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct.
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