Doug Ford often argues that major arteries like Bloor Street are meant for car traffic, not bikes. But what he fails to understand is that these roads were actually never intended for cars at all.

Bloor Street started out as a 19th-century dirt track, long before automobiles even existed. Originally, these corridors were built for horses, pedestrians, and later, the tracks of electric streetcars.

In the 1910s and 1920s, as cars flooded North American streets, pedestrian and cyclist fatalities skyrocketed. Interestingly,the concept of "jaywalking" was actually invented back then by auto industry lobbyists to shift the blame for accidents away from cars and onto the people walking and cycling on public roads.

Today, roughly 40 to 60 people are killed in Toronto every year due to the automobile.

This has to stop.

We are proposing the removal of all car lanes on Bloor St. West, and eventually on Yonge Street and University Avenue.

In place of these lanes, we can get back to investing in more streetcars, and mixed-use paths to create safe,people-first streets for everyone, just as it was intended.