Good evening!

Over the past week and a half, we have succeeded in getting over 5000 people to sign this petition in support of building bike lane on Bloor, Danforth, and Yonge now. I cannot thank you all enough for getting us to this point.

Earlier today, the City has finally released their highly anticipated plan for accelerating cycling infrastructure in this city; the details for which you can read here. There are several great things relevant to this campaign including the extension of the Bloor bike lanes from Shaw to Runnymede, filling the Bloor East gap from Avenue to Sherbourne, and bike lanes on Danforth from Broadview to Dawes. These measures would create a 15 km continuous east-west bike route across this city, which is huge!

Some key gaps within downtown will be filled such as extending the Bayview multi-use trail south to the existing River Street bike lanes at Gerrard, as well as extending the Dundas East bike lanes west to Sackville. A call by councillors Layton and Cressy for bike lanes on University from Adelaide to Boor has been included to help relieve part of the subway system, while the suburbs will see new bike lanes on Brimley and Huntingwood in Scarborough, as well as Wilmington and Faywood in North York.

While we can thank the Mayor and City Council for the projects that have been included and need to show our support, the 25 km included in this plan is not enough to provide real TTC relief during COVID-19. Yonge Street was missing from this plan, while there is nothing proposed for Etobicoke or Midtown. One thing that should be encouraged for Etobicoke is to extend the Bloor bike lanes further west from Runnymede to Kipling which would help expand connectivity to the Humber River Trail, the Royal York bike lanes, and the Six Points intersection at Kipling.

Now that we know the details of the ActiveTO cycling installations, it’s time for you to e-mail Mayor John Tory (mayor_tory@toronto.ca) and councilmeeting@toronto.ca; while referring to Motion CC21.20 – Cycling Network Plan Installations in the subject line. Please provide a personal story expressing why you support these ActiveTO projects, but also remind the Mayor and City Council why we need bike lanes on Yonge and other busy TTC routes. The deadline to send e-mails is 4:30 PM on Wednesday, May 27.

Thank you again for all you have done so far. Now let’s make sure this motion passes on Thursday while keeping the pressure on City Council to do more.