Three bike lanes in the city were set to be removed by Bill 212, and six cyclists were killed — the most in a year since the launch of the city's Vision Zero program, a road safety plan focused on reducing traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries.

Four cyclists were killed on streets without dedicated bike lanes, one was killed when she was forced to exit the Bloor Street bike lane due to an illegally placed construction bin, and one was killed on Bayview Avenue, where a multi-use trail is available. Twenty-seven cyclists were seriously injured in 2024.

Bike lanes, cycling advocates argue, could have prevented many of these tragedies.

We can look at the Vision Zero data before and after the bike lanes were installed. But, this comes with one major caveat: while dedicated bike lanes protect cyclists, decreasing the chance of KSIs (people killed or seriously injured,) more cyclists likely started using these routes once they were installed, thereby simultaneously increasing the risk of KSIs along these roads.

Take the 5.2 km of bike lanes installed in 2020 along Danforth Avenue between Broadview Avenue and Dawes Road. Between 2008 (the first year for which Vision Zero data is available) and 2019, 10 cyclists were seriously injured along this stretch of road: an average of about one per year. Between 2020 and 2024 — after the bike lanes were installed — only one cyclist was seriously injured: an average of about one every four years.

Broadly speaking, progressives on City Council have supported bike lanes over the years, and conservatives have voted against them. Another division is geographic: downtown councillors have historically been much more supportive of bike lanes than their suburban counterparts. For example, last November, City Council voted 19-7 in support of adding a bike lane on Parkside Drive that would also remove a car lane. The seven councillors who voted no — Brad Bradford, Jon Burnside, Lily Cheng, Vincent Crisanti, Stephen Holyday, James Pasternak, Anthony Perruzza — either lean conservative within City Council, represent a suburban ward, or both.

Opponents of bike lanes argue that they cause traffic congestion and impede emergency vehicles. Forty businesses in Etobicoke filed a lawsuit for $10 million last month against the City of Toronto, Councillor Amber Morely and the city’s transportation manager, alleging “negligence and nuisance” by the city over the installation of bike lanes along Bloor Street West over the past two years.

It’s not the only instance in which bike lanes are being fought over in court. Last December, Cycle Toronto and two Toronto cyclists issued a notice of application in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to challenge Bill 212. The notice claims the bill violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms Section 7 clause, which guarantees “life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

The notice states there is no rational connection between reducing traffic congestion and removing bike lanes, and that the “seriousness of the increased risk of death or serious injury to cyclists is entirely disproportionate to that ostensible objective.”

While the notice seeks to have courts strike down Bill 212, it also seeks an injunction to prevent the removal of the bike lanes before the charter challenge is heard on April 16.

On Tuesday March 11, during the injunction hearing, internal emails, presentations and an engineering report done for the Ministry of Transportation were made public. Despite being heavily redacted, the documents essentially show that bike lanes improve road safety for all commuters overall, and removing them could increase the risk of collisions for all road users by 54 per cent.

The documents also cite research that shows bike lanes actually help with congestion, and removing them may not reduce it as Bill 212 suggests.

Michael Longfield, executive director of Cycle Toronto told The Green Line in an email that the content of these documents is no surprise. “What perhaps is a surprise is that the province has known all of this all along, and yet has continued to aggressively pursue this legislation and engage consultants like Stantec against the public interest of Ontarians,” he added.

On March 14, the Ontario Superior Court ruled against Cycle Toronto's injunction, meaning that Bill 212 won't be suspended yet and the provincial government could still remove the bike lanes before the court challenge.

While we wait and see how this ongoing legal challenge will play out, we need to acknowledge that we all share these roads, no matter how we choose to commute.

As we explained in Part 1, 70 per cent of Torontonians use a bike either to get around the city or for exercise, and 61 per cent of Torontonians use a motor vehicle to get to work. The TTC had a daily average ridership of 1.3 million in 2024, and 26.2 per cent of Torontonians use transit as their way to get to work according to the latest census. This means that most people in the city use all three modes of transportation.

That’s why our guides look past the divisions, and provide concrete information that's useful for everyone’s safety.