Future bike-lane projects could be impacted by proposed provincial policy

With the provincial government announcing plans to exert control over how Ontario municipalities add future bike lanes, Stratford’s infrastructure director acknowledges there could be impacts to future projects.

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But, Taylor Crinklaw said, these impacts are likely far in the future for Stratford since there are limited areas in the city where vehicular traffic would be reduced to add a new bike lane.

This change in provincial policy came during the first day of Queen’s Park fall sitting, when the Doug Ford government introduced its Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act, which, if approved, will require municipalities to receive provincial approval before installing new bike lanes that would result in the removal of lanes for traffic. The province will also be examining the potential removal of existing bike lanes that are determined to impede traffic, with the cost of elimination of any lanes established in the past five years being bound by the Ontario government.

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“It isn’t enough to keep an eye on future bike lanes,” Premier Doug Ford said. “We need to, and will, remove and replace existing bike lanes on primary roads that are bringing traffic in our cities to an absolute standstill.”

In Stratford, the province already has the power to restrict changes on highways that come into the city, Crinklaw noted, which includes Huron Street, Erie Street and Ontario Street. However, this policy change will not necessarily impact the ongoing road widening of Erie Street, Crinklaw added.

“City staff have been in contact with the Ministry of Transportation for several months now regarding the project. . . to convert sections of Erie Street to three lanes, plus bike lanes,” he said. “I am hopeful the design will be accepted. Our analysis shows that the three lane setup is safer and bike lanes have minor impact on traffic flow.”

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Given that Stratford is smaller city, there is not much of an opportunity to remove vehicle lanes to add bike lanes, an approach usually taken on four-lane roadways, Crinklaw said.

While the city’s 2023-endorsed transportation master plan does include some recommendations for bike lanes, the only two locations that may be impacted are Lakeside Drive, which could be reduced to a one-lane road to add bike lanes, and Romeo Street south of Ontario , which could be reduced from four lanes to three, with bike lanes. However, neither of these projects has moved ahead, Crinklaw said.

“Council has not made any decisions, or even seen any analysis, on what that might look like. They’re just flagged for future consideration. If and when we go to proceed with those projects, they would have to go through the revised provincial legislation,” he added.

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In St. Marys, the town is not likely to see any short-term impacts from the proposed provincial policy, public works director Jed Kelly and infrastructure services manager Jeff Wolfe said in an email.

While the town does have an active transportation master plan that is pending, it will not be approved before St. Marys’ new official plan, which is close to completion. Ideally, amaster servicing study would also be completed before the transportation plan is released. While St. Marys does not currently have any defined or specific bike lanes, it does have a 25 kilometers of a multi-use trail system, some of which involves sidewalks as connecting links.

“Although we haven’t completed a detailed review, we do not foresee a situation in the near future where the introduction of bike lanes would be accomplished by reducing vehicular capacity,” the email stated.

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However, they did say that removing bike infrastructure “may not be as simple as absorbing a bike lane into the motor-vehicle lanes” and that municipalities may have to make significant investments in order to reassign bike-lane space back to motor-vehicle lanes.

“Removing well-utilized cycling infrastructure may increase the number of vehicles on the road and have a negative impact on congestion,” the email said.

Changes go against goal of red tape reduction, expert says

While the legislation is still pending, one expert noted this move government seems antithetical to what the has been trying to do with the reduction of red tape.

“(They) kind of created a process (with) the most red tape possible for how you would tackle this problem that they think they have,” said Alexandra Wray, a lecturer at Western University’s department of geography and environment.

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While Wray says there are challenges in Toronto where bike lanes have replaced vehicle lanes, there have only been isolated incidents in the rest of Ontario, which do not warrant provincial intervention. While Wray said there could be some benefit from having a single policy of how bike lanes are implemented across the province, that is very different from having the Ministry of Transportation approve every single bike lane that would remove a vehicle lane.

“If the government had gone that route, then local municipalities have to have regard for that policy, and have to make their decision based on that policy, which would effectively result in the same outcome without all the (red) tape and the ability for ministers to politicize individual bike-lane positions, while also respecting local government autonomy,” said Wray while noting the proposal could change how municipalities draft transportation plans.

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She suggested that municipalities, limited by these provincial regulations, may not bother to include bike lanes in future transportation plans or opt not to pursue already recommended projects because of the red tape or “costs skyrocketing even higher than they already are.”

Crinklaw acknowledged the proposed legislation could see future council decisions overturned while making some transportation projects take longer.

“It would just add to the timeline for project implementation, so we just build that into our overall project planning process. It just means that if there is desired changes, it would just be a bit longer to go through that process,” he said.

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