{"id":307332,"date":"2025-11-26T04:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T04:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/307332\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T04:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T04:04:09","slug":"bill-60-passes-and-buried-inside-is-a-direct-strike-at-ontarios-bike-lanes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/307332\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill 60 passes\u2014and buried inside is a direct strike at Ontario\u2019s bike lanes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bill 60 may have been sold as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/toronto\/politics\/queens-park\/article\/doug-ford-tells-heckler-to-find-a-job-as-protest-erupts-over-ontario-law-critics-say-will-speed-up-evictions\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">housing reform package,<\/a> but now that it has officially passed, its biggest impact may be felt far beyond the rental market for cyclists\u2014on Ontario\u2019s streets, and especially in its bike lanes.<\/p>\n<p>Tucked deep inside the Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, 2025 are new restrictions that effectively bar municipalities from creating bike lanes that require road reconfigurations. It\u2019s the Ford government\u2019s latest attempt to claw back local authority over cycling infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>The province has insisted that cycling projects contribute to congestion, but its own expert evidence\u2014revealed during a successful court challenge in July\u2014showed no such link.<\/p>\n<p>That case, led by Cycle Toronto and supported by Eva Stanger-Ross and Narada Kiondo, protected 19 km of protected lanes on Bloor, University, and Yonge. While the province is appealing, the court was blunt: the policy was arbitrary, increased risk to cyclists, and did not advance its stated goals.<br \/>Cycling advocates say Bill 60 confirms what they long suspected. \u201cThis is a government doubling down on a bad-faith culture war,\u201d Cycle Toronto executive director Michael Longfield <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclingmagazine.ca\/sections\/news\/ontario-proposal-restricting-bike-lanes-draws-province-wide-backlash\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a>, warning the bill will worsen congestion and endanger people who rely on bikes to get around. Experts note protected lanes cut collisions by 35\u201350 per cent, a fact seemingly ignored in the rush to legislate.<\/p>\n<p>He added that, \u201cthis is further proof that any claims this time last year that the Province of Ontario intended to collaborate with municipalities on data-driven decisions\u2026were never sincere. This is a government wasting your tax dollars by doubling down on a bad-faith culture war. It will only make congestion worse while putting people\u2019s lives at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the bill\u2019s housing measures\u2014now law\u2014have sparked their own backlash. Tenant groups say the changes will accelerate evictions, limit appeals, and tilt the system toward landlords. The government insists the reforms will boost supply and stabilize rents, but protests at Queen\u2019s Park and criticism from advocates suggest a long political fight ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill 60 may have been sold as a housing reform package, but now that it has officially passed,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[33276,137513,49,48,635,13743,905,82],"class_list":["post-307332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-bike-lanes","tag-bill-60","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-doug-ford","tag-ontario","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}