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<\/p>\nPremier Doug Ford\u2019s government can rip out 19 kilometres of protected bike lanes in Toronto, the Court of Appeal for Ontario has ruled in a decision released Friday, reversing a lower court decision made in July 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The law empowering the province to remove bike lanes along Bloor Street, Yonge Street and University Avenue was initially passed at Queen\u2019s Park in 2024. But the infrastructure remained on Toronto\u2019s streets after advocacy organization Cycle Toronto and others launched a legal challenge against the bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the 2025 ruling, Justice Paul Schabas\u00a0ruled the removal would be unconstitutional because it would put people at increased risk of harm and death, which engages the right to life and security of the person.<\/p>\n
But a panel of three appeal court judges ruled Friday there is no constitutional obligation to regulate the use of roads in any particular manner. The Ford government has long maintained removing the bike lanes would improve traffic congestion in the Greater Toronto Area. <\/p>\n
“The legislature is free to legislate to remove a bicycle lane from a road \u2014 indeed, it may remove a road entirely \u2014 without implicating the Charter,” reads the decision from three appeals court judges. <\/p>\n
The judges wrote that Schabas’s ruling inflated the negative impacts of removing bike lanes.<\/p>\n
“[The original ruling is] talking of injuries and deaths that will occur only if the bicyclists choose to ride on the roads that have no bicycle lanes,” Friday’s decision says. <\/p>\n
WATCH | Do only 1.2% of Torontonians really commute by bike? StatsCan data says no:<\/p>\n
Do only 1.2% of Torontonians really commute by bike? StatsCan data says no<\/p>\n
Ontario’s transportation minister has defended his government’s decision to rip up bike lanes on Toronto’s major streets by saying just 1.2 per cent of people in the city commute by bicycle. But as CBC’s Lane Harrison explains, federal data shows the number is higher in places where the targeted bike lanes already exist. <\/p>\n
Prabmeet Sarkaria, Ontario’s transportation minister, welcomed the appeals court decision in a statement Friday.<\/p>\n
“Today\u2019s court ruling is a victory for common sense and for respecting the appropriate division of roles between duly elected legislatures and the courts,” he said. <\/p>\n
CBC Toronto has reached out to the Ministry of Transportation to ask when it plans to begin removing bike lanes.<\/p>\n
After the decision Friday, Ford posted on X, saying, “Common sense wins.”<\/p>\n
In response, the provincial Liberals alleged that what he really wants is to be the “Premier of Toronto.”<\/p>\n
“Whether it\u2019s Billy Bishop or bike lanes, Doug wants to control city-planning,” the party said on its official X account. “If only he\u2019d apply the same interest to the rest of the province.”<\/p>\n
Michael Longfield, executive director of Cycle Toronto, said the decision is a step back for evidence-based decision making.<\/p>\n
“I want to be clear that bike lanes do not cause traffic congestion. Removing them will put people’s lives at risk,” he said. <\/p>\n
Longfield said Schabas’s original ruling still found Ontario\u2019s plans were pushed through despite its own advisers and external experts broadly agreeing the move wouldn\u2019t accomplish its stated goal of reducing traffic congestion. <\/p>\n
But in Friday’s decision, the appeals judges wrote, “legislative policy is not arbitrary just because some or even many advisors, experts, and citizens predict that it will not work.” <\/p>\n
Government doesn’t have to use expert evidence: judges<\/p>\n
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The law empowering the province to remove bike lanes along Bloor Street, Yonge Street and University Avenue was initially passed at Queen\u2019s Park in 2024. (Patrick Morrell\/CBC)<\/p>\n