2023 Polluter of the Year goes to……(pretend drum roll)

Mayor of Toronto Olivia Chow!

The Queen of carbon monoxide herself, The Right or Left Honorable Olivia Chow.

Oh, c’mon Robert, she’s all about green and trees and tree huggers and peace on earth, good will blah blah

So here’s why she’s the only nomination.

Bike Lanes.

I repeat:

BIKE LANES

Another OMG Robert, bike lanes are wonderful, they keep us safe peddling to work in the snow and ice eight months of the year. We all ride to the bank, the grocery store, the local tavern and liquor store, in that order, every Saturday with all the kids in tow! It’s good for the environment!

Yeah, right.

Here’s the god awful truth Big O, you’ve backed up traffic by reducing every road to 2 lanes and eliminating 1/3 of the parking spaces to create your wonderful bike lanes. And not just a little backed up, we’re talking 15 – 20 minutes extra commute time.

Bloor once had parking on both side’s and 4 lanes of traffic. Just perfect if you’re a shop owner in the Kingsway too! Plenty of room on the road and parking fairly abundant.

Now with the creation of an 8’ bike lane, a 4’ ”safety gap”…on both sides mind you….she’s cut usable road by more than 50%.

So what has this reduction in lanes caused?

Idle traffic, more idle traffic and even more idle people…the cause of city smog and global warming. Cars sitting in a single lane waiting to make a left hand turn. Or a right. Or to park.

Perfect example, as you head east on Bloor from Islington you’re basically going over the Humber, into the Kingsway or to take the South Kingsway down to the Gardiner to get to Toronto. Great way to go from the burbs. One of the more popular morning commutes.

Prior to bike lanes, you may have sat at the one light for a turn, but cars were never backed up more than twelve deep. Two lanes heading east to Toronto.

After installing these save the planet bike lanes, sat at the intersection for 7 light changes. 120 cars in front of me. Still on the west side of the Humber. It took 12 minutes to get to the intersection, to make a right hand turn. Since there is now no turn lane.

And forget the right on red, or any other color, as the bikes have the right of way and their own special cross signal, which they all ignore anyway.

So while several hundred cars sat idling an extra 15 minutes, nearly 8 times the amount of pollution being pumped out, guess how many bikes used the bike lane.

At 8:00 am

On a Monday, with 3 degree temps and a cold wind.

Yeah, you get the picture.

Congratulations Olivia.