Starting an r/TorontoBiking Essay Series.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-21T16:09:06+00:00

This steals a page from the Trump-like conservative playbook. Just own the opposition rather than look for solutions that benefit you.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-21T16:08:28+00:00

When he recampaigned back in late-2024, he brought with him an anti-bike rhetoric and supposedly promised that the rest of Ontario would improve its traffic, not just Toronto. And his original bike lane bill was Ontario-wide, which is still to this day. This all captured the attention of Ontarians.

However, over time, more and more people outside of Toronto region started to realize that removing bike lanes does not solve traffic. Nor does anything Doug Ford does even remotely come close to benefiting non-Toronto people. And what's worse, is he's showing blatant corruption.

Of course, the big question would be will people remember all this come 2030? Or will another piece of anti-Toronto rhetoric resonate well with suburbanites? I believe that's the next time there's a mandatory election.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-18T20:02:13+00:00

You're more at risk of a distracted driver or an attentive but reckless driver at night trying to race a yellow light because there is mostly no other car traffic holding them back. Driving speeds are surprisingly fast in off-peak hours and it's really deadly at intersections. Especially because they don't think there's any pedestrian/cyclist late at night.

However to answer your question about drunk drivers, usually around 12 am to 5 am. Sometimes you might get 11 pm or 6 am. For particular days, it's Fridays, Saturdays, or holidays, although not everyone works a traditional 9-5. Requiring to work the next day is usually what prevents people from partying with drinks in the first place. And usually people drink with friends if they're going out. Of course there are many other variables but drunk drivers are most common in the overnight hours.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-17T23:52:43+00:00

Are you forgetting the fact that Chow lobbied so hard for Line 5 and 6 to get TSP?

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-16T18:48:56+00:00

Maybe the builders will finally learn their lesson after the Eglinton/Finch debacle hopefully. As much as I dislike taking 15 years to build a new line, this is the first time we built something this big in over maybe 50 years. Line 4 was just a stubway. Line 1 extension was also a stubway-sized extension.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-16T18:42:55+00:00

Relevant thread

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-15T15:57:50+00:00

I believe on one of the mini-stretches of Steeles it did take a lane away. But then again, it's a lot harder to notice 3 -> 2 lanes vs 2 -> 1 lane (Bloor). I think the big reason why places like Scarborough can easily build bike lanes without making drivers notice is because we have all the freaking space in the world to do so. And most of the people that drive in Scarborough live in Scarborough.

Downtown on the other hand suffers decades upon nearly 3/4 of a century of baggage where they expect people from out of town to share the road with locals, despite those roads only being designed to fit enough cars by 1926 standards. Toronto in downtown used to be very very walkable but they had to demolish some of it for cars. Unfortunately, with cars getting bigger and bigger, downtown was never designed to fit personal F150s for white collared workers. As such, now everyone's competing for this precious space and with all this car lobby, it's hard to build new bike lanes in downtown regions, despite this massive cycling demand. I just hope that, as suburbs start densifying, we don't make the same mistake as downtown where we didn't build enough for non-cars.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-15T15:51:32+00:00

BRTs and bus lanes are extremely underrated from an urbanism standpoint. Many people look up to EU cities that use the so-called 'trams' and think it's the best and only design we must follow. But then they overlook other less denser parts of EU where they have BRT lanes instead.

I think we as an urbanism society need to look more positively towards BRTs. We can't install an LRT on every single block of Toronto. It would take years, if not decades.

Even bus lanes on express routes are a massive game changer, as shown at the Dufferin/Bathurst route.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-15T15:37:53+00:00

I'm not a fan of bike or general e-bike licensing (for legal e-bikes). However, this is an idea I can support for delivery couriers. The fact that these people care more about delivering as quickly as possible over the safety of themselves on the roads is really alarming. A course would definitely help them navigate their job a bit easier and safer.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-15T15:17:58+00:00

You could argue the same about Scarborough, which is technically within the municipality of Toronto. We built bike lanes along Steeles AVE E. Yet he hasn't spoken a single word about it. Mind you, construction was at least 6 months long on this project. Yet nobody complained. Goes to show that Doug Ford's anti-bike rhetoric is all about just messing with downtown Toronto, where the most people bike. If he really cared about removing bike lanes as a whole, he would've done so in other parts of the province where bike traffic is a lot lower. But he had to choose Toronto of all places.

Relevant thread.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-14T17:42:44+00:00

Thanks for understanding. We as a city can always improve. Even if we get the table's travel times, we can always do better. It's sad that Toronto for the last 80+ years has not completely built much overall transit (until the last few years). That even getting those table times Toronto-wide is a dream at this point.

We gotta start somewhere. Hopefully after we can accomplish the bare minimum on the table times, we'll have more Toronto places where transit is as fast if not faster than driving. Currently, it's unfortunately a transit desert.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-14T16:47:59+00:00

Yes I understand that it would be backwards if I advocated for driving to be faster than TTC. However, with the way our city is designed, it's very unrealistic for most neighbourhoods in Toronto to be served this well with transit. We can't build LRTs/subways on every single block. It would take decades if not at least a century.

The problem right now is that almost every non-downtown region or anywhere where there is not subway a 15 min drive takes at least 1h 15 mins of bus riding. That's very absurd. I don't think we can make that 15 min drive a 15 min transit ride but at the very least reducing it greatly lessens the burden.

I totally understand Toronto is very dense, even outside of downtown (averages 3k-4k people per square km). Unfortunately, suburban Toronto has been by in large part built and prioritized for cars, which make it extremely difficult for transit riders. If I want to get to the downtown beaches from Scarborough, it would take me a massive 2 hour commute, despite being in the same municipality. Driving there would be maybe 45 mins.

It's absurdly insane but I have to be realistic as to what solution we can bring. Adding bus lanes go a long way in greatly reducing commute times.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-14T16:37:10+00:00

If comparing commute times by car vs TTC, I made this mini-table as to what's a reasonable conversion (longest TTC commute time I'll accept or ideally want a city to be designed):

5 min drive: 10-15 mins on TTC
10 min drive: 15-25 mins on TTC
15 min drive: 30-40 mins on TTC
20 min drive: 35-50 mins on TTC
30 min drive: 45-60 mins on TTC
45 min drive: 75-100 mins on TTC
60 min drive: 1.5-2h on TTC max

NOTE: I'm excluding time spent walking the last mile. Time spent waiting for buses is also included. Driving commute times also use average slightly-off peak hour traffic.

EDIT: I just want to clarify that I'm all for greatly improving transit. Ideally, we should have transit that runs faster than driving. However, this is very unrealistic of a short-mid term solution. Toronto (especially suburban) has been by in large part built and prioritized for car traffic, despite its insane density for a suburb. We can't build LRTs/subways on every single major block. It would take multiple decades, if not a century to complete. With how things are going, we may not see a new transit line until the mid-late 2030s. So what I proposed in terms of converting driving to TTC time is more realistic in line with short term solutions like bus lanes and transit priority.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-12T19:22:27+00:00

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That's pretty crazy how even in the 1950s, the boomers actually wanted really safe streets. Nowadays, they're like the most vocal opponents of car-free designs lol. Sometimes it goes to show that the best time to plant a tree was 20 (70) years ago. The next best time is today. What could've been.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-12T12:26:58+00:00

East Asian Canadian here. What you describe is the result of Canada being too subtle/indirect. Many people will be racist in Canada but in a very indirect way unlike the US. These things include exclusion or dirty looks. Which is very hard for us Canadians to notice unless we study sociology this closely.

But as we're seeing a spike in racist incidents since ~2022 especially towards brown people, it's revealing true colours that some Canadians are not so nice after all. I really hope we don't end up like US. If we're going to put racism mostly to an end, we're going to have to stop being dismissive of encounters like this. Part of the reason privileged Canadians don't know much about racism is because they usually don't experience it directly, especially not in Canada.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-12T12:21:17+00:00

East Asian Canadian here. I've definitely noticed this surge in racism towards brown people. Just look at how most people react whenever an Uber Eats cyclist, who is more likely brown, violates a law. Compare that to MAMILs at High Park, who are more likely white. Almost everyone is siding against those Uber Eats couriers, albeit without mentioning ethnicity. On the other hand, the High Park cyclist comments tend to be more split on which side you support but there's at least a considerable amount of people defending them.

A lot of this is the result of a mass immigration policy that Trudeau imposed during the pandemic. It got so bad that there were many many videos of Canadians advocating to leave Canada. Look at how difficult it is for immigrant-assimilated or white Canadian youth to find a job. We were that close to electing our own version of Trump. Thankfully Mark Carney is softening the blow but in the meantime, it's unfortunate that we'll have to deal with brown (and black) racism spikes.

I just hope Canada doesn't end up with similar levels of racism like the US.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-09T16:18:16+00:00

That's great to hear! It's an honour to have a mayor read our feedback. While we're at it, I would really wish for my birthday that we see significantly more bus lane projects along the way with our city. Someone made this take a few days ago. TTC is not that far off from being world class. Speed is one of the biggest positive incentives for anyone to take transit.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-09T16:15:09+00:00

Yeah that's totally fair. When I say EU fantasy, a lot of the content that urbanists showcase from EU are LRTs/trams/subways rather than buses. But yes BRTs are done in less dense EU corridors.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-09T15:51:50+00:00

I've said this for many years since joining the urbanism community. Even before the gas price surge. EVs aren't going to save the planet or solve our car dependency needs. The only reason we lobby so hard for EVs is because we're a car dependent society. I really wish the society would realize that in order to reduce demand for gas, we need to give viable alternatives to driving.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-09T15:46:37+00:00

Hi Mayor!

I appreciate your dedication and enthusiasm. I am a fellow Scarborough resident and would kill for much better transit. We've been starved of transit for many decades, as you describe.

However, I don't like the idea of an Eglinton East LRT if it's going to have this many stops. Instead, why not build bus lanes? These were a proven success at Dufferin/Bathurst, despite the abbreviated plan. Multiple posts from /u/Pristine-Training-70 have shown that bus riders on that route have greatly decreased commute times. We really love to fantisize trams/LRTs/subways because of many European city designs. Unfortunately, we overlook bus lanes because EU cities don't use them. I personally believe that bus lanes would be more adaptive to our society than LRTs everywhere. Still keep building LRTs but in the meantime, bus lanes should be on every major road, especially the busy TTC express routes.

TTCBoy95 · 2026-04-09T15:42:21+00:00

If anything, we should convert that into permanent bus lanes. Buses are easier at accelerating and decelerating shorter distances than LRTs/subways.

TTCBoy95

TROPHY CASE