We, the undersigned residents, small business owners, and community members, express our unified opposition to the RapidTO: Bathurst Street plan, which proposes removing all curbside parking from Bathurst Street between Eglinton Avenue West and Lake Shore Boulevard West to install priority bus lanes. While we strongly support investments in public transit, this proposal threatens to dismantle the economic, social, and residential infrastructure of one of Toronto’s most diverse and interdependent mixed-use corridors.

Impact on Small Businesses

Bathurst Street is home to dozens of independent businesses and essential services for example:

- Health clinics (e.g., MyoCare, Bathurst Bloor Wellness Centre)

- Dental offices (e.g., Bathurst Bloor Dental, Annex Orthodontics)

- Arts and education centres (e.g., Annex Art Market, Annex Dance Academy, La Parete Gallery, 918 Bathurst Street)

- Children’s programming and daycares (e.g., Gathering Wild, Annex Art Market)

- Restaurants (e.g., Kos, Rapido, Detroit Pizza, Annex Social)

- Specialty retailers (e.g., Qalat, Flur, Tattoo People, Nella, Summerhill Market, Minerva)

These businesses rely on curbside parking for client access, daily deliveries, service logistics, and staff transportation. Most have no laneway or alternative access.

Removing all curb-side parking would devastate these operations. Without reliable access, customer foot traffic would plummet, deliveries would become unmanageable, and businesses - many of which are just emerging from pandemic-related hardship - would face closure. The economic backbone of the neighbourhood would be irreparably weakened.

Effects on Residents

The majority of homes along Bathurst do not have private driveways and rely on limited street parking for daily life. This includes:

- Seniors and residents with disabilities who require accessible drop-off points for appointments, transit, and services.

- Families with small children who depend on curbside access to safely use schools, daycares, clinics, and recreation.

- Renters and homeowners who need nearby parking to unload groceries, receive deliveries, and transport supplies or passengers.

- Clients receiving homecare, paratransit, or medical transport, for whom curbside access is essential - not optional.

Side streets are already congested and restricted (e.g., no parking before 10 a.m., rush hour bans), and cannot absorb displaced curb activity without increasing risk and stress for both residents and visitors. Removing parking from Bathurst would push essential daily functions into overburdened areas, compounding safety and accessibility issues.

Institutions such as St. Peter’s Church have also raised serious concerns about the impact on funeral services, Wheel-Trans accessibility, and safe drop-off for seniors. Though not located directly on Bathurst, the church depends on nearby street parking to serve its elderly parishioners, grieving families, and community members attending critical life events. This proposal would create unacceptable logistical barriers for vulnerable residents and vital community institutions alike.

Equity and Planning Justice

The RapidTO Bathurst proposal overlooks equity impacts on low-mobility residents, small business owners, families, those with accessibility needs, and caregivers - precisely the groups who bear the brunt of inaccessible urban infrastructure. Equity-based planning requires inclusive consultation and protection of curbside functions essential to safety, independence, and economic participation.

A just transition to transit equity must not sacrifice those already marginalized by design. Equity that imposes harm on vulnerable groups is not equity - it is displacement

We Are Not Anti-Transit - We Are Pro-Community

We support transit enhancements. But transit should serve communities, not displace them. There are viable alternatives to full parking elimination, including timed bus lanes that operate during rush hours only; shared curbside zones for deliveries, accessible drop-offs, and timed parking; service expansion on parallel corridors such as Spadina, Christie, or Dupont; and pilot programs with seasonal or data-driven adjustments rather than permanent removals. These options would improve bus flow while preserving access for small businesses and vulnerable residents.

Alignment with Toronto’s Own Goals

The Toronto Official Plan commits to building complete communities - places that are walkable, inclusive, accessible, and economically diverse. This proposal contradicts that vision by stripping a major corridor of the very infrastructure that makes it functional. The Complete Streets Guidelines explicitly state that streets must support all users, not just vehicles or transit (City of Toronto, 2021).

Procedural Concerns: Consultation Was Inadequate

Despite public outreach, the City’s virtual consultation was performative at best, marked by one-directional information sharing and no substantive engagement with community feedback. Community members repeatedly raised critical concerns about business viability, accessibility, residential parking, and the absence of alternatives - yet the proposal advances unchanged. This approach fails to meet the City’s own engagement standards, as outlined in Toronto's Public Engagement Principles and Complete Streets Guidelines (City of Toronto, 2017).

Our Call to Action

We respectfully urge the City of Toronto to:

- Pause the RapidTO: Bathurst Street implementation pending a comprehensive impact assessment of economic, accessibility, and residential consequences.

- Convene a formal stakeholder roundtable including local businesses, residents, equity advocates, accessibility experts, and transit users.

- Collaboratively develop a revised plan that improves transit times without destroying community infrastructure, accessibility, or local economic life.

Let’s protect what makes Bathurst Street thrive. Let’s keep our neighbourhood a neighbourhood and not converted into a highway.