Bikes vs. Bill 212: Ripping Out the Solution

Stand on Bloor Street West in the Annex at rush hour and you’ll see something remarkable for a North American city: bikes slightly outnumber cars. A June 2025 count found 930 people on bikes using the protected lanes between 5–6 p.m., compared with 832 motor vehicles in the adjacent lanes.¹ Over a full day, more than 9,000 bike trips passed that one spot.²

Yet in 2024, Ontario passed a law whose headline idea was to rip out that lane and others like it in the name of “reducing gridlock.” In 2025, a court ruled that doing so would make people less safe without easing congestion, and struck down the removal order as unconstitutional. The lanes are still there—for now—but Toronto’s bigger transportation story remains a tug-of-war between evidence and car-first politics.

This piece walks through where things stand now: the Bill 212 fight, what the court actually decided, what the data say about biking in Toronto, and why half-measures on the ground are still holding the city back.

1. Bill 212: When “reducing gridlock” means removing bike lanes

In October 2024, Ontario introduced Bill 212, the Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act.³ The law did three critical things for Toronto:

• Ordered the removal of existing bike lanes on Bloor Street, University Avenue, and Yonge Street—about 19 km of protected lanes in the city’s core.⁴
• Gave the Minister of Transportation veto power over many future bike lanes that would replace a motor-vehicle lane on certain municipal roads.³ ⁵
• Bundled in measures to accelerate new provincial highways, including Highway 413.⁵

Toronto’s own estimates suggested that removing and reconfiguring those three corridors would cost on the order of $48–50 million, before accounting for safety or health impacts.⁶ A Canadian cycling magazine summarized the plan bluntly: “ripping out bike lanes… costs a literal fortune.”⁷

The provincial pitch was simple: bike lanes on major arterials were supposedly worsening congestion for drivers, and should be pushed to side streets “where they make sense.”⁶ But once the law was challenged in court, that story fell apart.

2. A landmark court ruling on safety and street design

In 2025, Cycle Toronto, two individual cyclists, and Ecojustice brought a Charter challenge: **Cycle Toronto et al. v. Attorney General of Ontario et al.**⁸ ⁹

They argued that forcing removal of the Bloor, Yonge, and University lanes would increase the risk of serious injury and death for people biking, violating section 7 of the Canadian Charter (the right to life and security of the person), and that there was no evidence it would actually reduce gridlock.

On July 30, 2025, the Ontario Superior Court agreed. In a detailed decision, the court found that:⁶ ¹⁰ ¹¹

• The targeted bike lanes substantially reduce risk for people who cycle, and viable alternatives on side streets are limited.
• Removing them would expose cyclists to greater danger in mixed traffic, thereby engaging their right to life and security of the person.
• The government offered no convincing evidence that removal would meaningfully reduce congestion. Ministry documents acknowledged that cycling infrastructure can improve traffic flow and safety.⁶
• The removal provision in the Highway Traffic Act—section 195.6 ordering the lanes ripped out—was therefore arbitrary and grossly disproportionate to its stated goal, and unconstitutional.¹¹

The court struck down the mandatory removal section, preventing the province from tearing out those specific lanes. But it left the broader framework intact:

• The Minister still has approval power over certain new bike lanes that reduce car lanes.³ ⁵ ¹¹
• Highway-expansion provisions remain in force.⁵
• The province has appealed the decision; higher courts will weigh in over the next couple of years.¹¹ ¹²

The ruling doesn’t say cities must build bike lanes everywhere. It says governments can’t knowingly make people less safe for no demonstrable benefit. That’s a big shift: safety and evidence-based planning aren’t optional—they’re constitutional constraints.

3. Cycling isn’t fringe in Toronto’s core

A lot of the political rhetoric around Bill 212 leaned on a single number: roughly 1–2% of Torontonians commute by bike city-wide.⁶ That’s technically true—but deeply misleading.

Bloor Street: a bike freeway in all but name

In June 2025, the Toronto Community Bikeways Coalition ran a detailed, video-recorded count on Bloor Street West in the Annex.² Their findings:

• 930 bikes vs 832 motor vehicles between 5–6 p.m.—just over half of all vehicles in that hour were bikes.¹ ²
• Over 9,130 bikes in 24 hours at that single point.²

Streetsblog USA, reporting on the same study, framed it as one of those rare North American streets where the protected bike lane carries more rush-hour traffic than the adjacent car lanes, and noted that removing it would shove thousands of daily trips back into cars or onto already-crowded transit.¹³

Bike Share: ridership more than doubled

Citywide, the Bike Share Toronto system tells a similar story of rapid growth. According to the city’s 2024 Toronto Cycling Year in Review report, Bike Share rides (year-to-date, in millions) went from:¹⁴

In the same period, the city added new stations, expanded into more neighbourhoods, and logged over 1.1 million e-bike trips in 2024 alone (up from 400,000 in 2023).¹⁴

Meanwhile, Toronto continues to build out its on-street network: 26.7 km of new bikeways were installed in 2024, more than half of them protected cycle tracks or multi-use trails.¹⁴

Put together, the picture is clear:

• On key corridors like Bloor, protected bikeways already carry as many—or more—people than car lanes.¹ ² ¹³
• System-wide ridership is doubling over a few years, not stagnating.¹⁴
• Removing or freezing this infrastructure would push growing demand back into cars and crowded transit—not “reduce gridlock.”

This is exactly the logic the court leaned on: the province’s own data didn’t support its story about congestion, but did support the safety and mobility benefits of the lanes.⁶ ¹⁰ ¹¹

4. Half-measures on the ground

At the street level, Toronto still leans heavily on what you might call “sign-based safety”:

• New stop signs announced with “NEW” placards, as if a bit more enforced idling were a coherent safety strategy.
• Painted “safety zones”, flex-posts, and school-area slowdowns that appear in isolated pockets rather than forming a continuous safe network.
• Intersections layered with turn restrictions—no left here, no right there—instead of redesigning the street so cut-through drivers naturally choose other routes.
• Flashing X-crosswalks that pour money into overhead lighting, hoping drivers going too fast on wide roads will see people and brake in time, rather than narrowing those roads so everyone must slow down.

In some neighbourhoods, residents have resorted to chalking “SLOW DOWN” across the asphalt: DIY traffic calming in pastel colours, drawn because official measures aren’t coming fast enough.¹⁵

These are fundamentally half-measures. They try to preserve current volumes and speeds of car traffic, then bolt safety warnings on top. Bill 212 is that same mindset, writ large: treat car throughput as sacred, push bikes to the side (or off the main streets entirely), and hope congestion somehow improves.

5. Streetcars, highways, and the islands paradox

The contradiction becomes stark when you look at other parts of Toronto’s network.

Streetcars stuck behind cars

Toronto runs one of North America’s biggest streetcar systems, yet it often behaves like a bus stuck in mixed traffic. It’s common to see a multi-car streetcar—with space for 60–100 people—trapped behind a line of single-occupancy vehicles creeping forward one light at a time.

At certain intersections, turning cars from side streets fill the space in front of the streetcar during the red phase. When the light turns green, those drivers move ahead just far enough to block the streetcar again, forcing another full cycle of waiting. The result: people on foot, transit, and bikes all lose time so that a handful of drivers can inch a few metres closer.

Toronto has experimented in the past with “filtered permeability”—designs that let transit, bikes, and local access through while making it inconvenient to drive straight across entire districts. Done well, that approach keeps streets open to cars but discourages through-traffic that clogs up trams and buses. Bill 212 moves in the opposite direction, protecting through-driving on main arterials while attacking the bike lanes and bus-priority designs that could actually help them run smoothly.⁵ ⁶

Highways and the islands

The same pattern shows up elsewhere:

• Bill 212 explicitly aims to accelerate major highway projects like Highway 413, even though Toronto already ranks among North America’s most congested regions and highway expansion has a long track record of inducing more car travel.⁵
• A staff report to city council in 2025 reviewed proposals for a fixed link to the Toronto Islands—bridge, tunnel, or gondola—and concluded that none of the options would be “quick, simple or inexpensive,” recommending no immediate project.¹⁶ ¹⁷
• Media coverage of that report noted the irony: Toronto can build a pedestrian tunnel to the downtown airport under the harbour, and is contemplating multi-billion-dollar waterfront and highway megaprojects, but still leaves its giant car-free park mostly dependent on crowded, seasonal ferries.¹⁶

None of this is strictly irrational if you start from the premise that car movement is the top priority and everything else is negotiable. But if your goals are safety, reliability, and climate resilience, it makes very little sense.

6. A fork in the road

The last year shows two things at once:

1. Car-first policy is still powerful.

   • A single provincial bill tried to override years of local planning and rip out key protected bike lanes.³ ⁴
   • The same law fast-tracks highway expansion and gives the Minister ongoing veto power over new bike lanes that touch car lanes.³ ⁵

2. Evidence-based, people-first planning can win.

   • Community groups organized, counted riders, dug up government briefing notes, and brought a Charter challenge.⁸ ⁹
   • The court agreed that you can’t justify making streets more dangerous when your own data show it won’t even fix congestion.⁶ ¹⁰ ¹¹
   • The lanes on Bloor, Yonge, and University—corridors where bikes already carry a substantial share of people moving—are still in place because people fought for them.¹ ² ¹³

Where Toronto goes next depends on what it learns from that clash.

One path is familiar: continue pouring money into highways, treat bike and transit projects as expendable when they ruffle drivers, and rely on scattered half-measures—extra stop signs here, a flashing crosswalk there—to paper over the safety consequences.

The other path is harder politically but simpler technically:

• Recognize that on streets like Bloor, protected bike lanes are core transportation infrastructure, not amenities.¹ ² ¹³
• Plan for how people actually move—on foot, by bike, and by transit—not just how many cars can be squeezed through each light cycle.
• Treat safety and evidence not as PR talking points, but as the boundary conditions any serious transportation plan must respect.

Toronto has already shown it can fight back when safe, efficient space for people is on the chopping block. The next challenge is to move from defending a few flagship lanes to building a coherent network—one that makes it obvious, even to a skeptical driver stuck in traffic, that the bikes flying past are not the problem, but a big part of the solution.

References

1. Patrick Cain, “Bikes Outnumber Cars on Bloor St. W. During Rush Hour, Data Shows,” Toronto Today (June 24, 2025). https://www.torontotoday.ca/local/transportation-infrastructure/bikes-outnumber-cars-bloor-street-west-rush-hour-data-10855921
2. Toronto Community Bikeways Coalition, “Bikes Now Outnumber Motor Vehicles on Bloor Street West…” (Media Release, June 19, 2025). PDF: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f07a2d573d2c84a1c7508e6/t/68564aefa5226542ddeb1630/1750485743442/TCBC%2BMedia%2BRelease%2B-%2BJune%2B2025%2BBike%2BCount%2B2025%2B06%2B19.pdf
3. Legislative Assembly of Ontario, “Bill 212, Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act, 2024.” https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-43/session-1/bill-212
4. Cycle Toronto, “Press Release: Ontario Banning New Bike Lanes” (Oct. 23, 2025). https://www.cycleto.ca/ontario_banning_new_bike_lanes
5. Good Roads, “Bill 212, Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act, 2024: Analysis and Legal Developments.” https://goodroads.ca/news_articles/bill-212-reducing-gridlock-saving-you-time-act-2024-analysis-and-legal-developments/
6. Cycle Toronto et al. v. Attorney General of Ontario et al., Reasons for Judgment (Ontario Superior Court of Justice, July 30, 2025). PDF via Cycle Toronto: https://assets.nationbuilder.com/cycletoronto/pages/8767/attachments/original/1753891585/Cycle_Toronto_v._AGO_Reasons_for_Judgment_PBS_July_30_2025.pdf
7. Canadian Cycling Magazine, “Yikes! The Absolutely Bonkers Costs of Removing Bike Lanes” (Nov. 14, 2024). https://cyclingmagazine.ca/sections/news/yikes-the-absolutely-bonkers-costs-of-removing-bike-lanes/
8. Cycle Toronto, “Cycle Toronto v. Ontario.” https://www.cycleto.ca/cycle_toronto_v_ontario
9. Ecojustice, “Major Victory in Cycle Challenge: Ontario Court Finds Government Violated Charter Rights” (July 30, 2025). https://ecojustice.ca/news/major-victory-in-cycle-challenge-ontario-court-finds-government-violated-charter-rights/
10. Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, “Policy Win: Ontario Court Upholds Bike Lanes and Validates Evidence-Based Transportation Planning” (Aug. 5, 2025). https://ospe.on.ca/advocacy/policy-win-ontario-court-upholds-bike-lanes-and-validates-evidence-based-transportation-planning/
11. McMillan LLP, “To Remove or Not to Remove: Toronto Bike Lanes To Stay for Now” (Aug. 27, 2025). https://mcmillan.ca/insights/to-remove-or-not-to-remove-toronto-bike-lanes-to-stay-for-now/
12. McCarthy Tétrault, “Out of Its Lane? Ontario Court Creates Constitutional Right to a Bike Lane” (Aug. 6, 2025). https://www.mccarthy.ca/en/insights/blogs/canadian-appeals-monitor/out-of-its-lane-ontario-court-creates-constitutional-right-to-a-bike-lane
13. Kea Wilson, “This Threatened Toronto Bike Lane Gets More Rush Hour Traffic Than the Car Lane,” Streetsblog USA (July 1, 2025). https://usa.streetsblog.org/2025/07/01/this-threatened-toronto-bike-lane-gets-more-rush-hour-traffic-than-the-car-lane
14. City of Toronto, “2024 Toronto Cycling Year in Review” (2025). PDF: https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/9599-2024-Toronto-Cycling-Year-in-Review-FINAL.pdf
15. Jonathan Lansey, “Toronto’s Transportation Tragedy: A City Stuck in Reverse,” Loud Bicycle Blog. https://loudbicycle.com/blogs/news/torontos-transportation-tragedy-a-city-stuck-in-reverse
16. Daniel Ramos, “City Staff Advise Against ‘Fixed Link’ to the Toronto Islands,” Toronto Today (May 6, 2025). https://www.torontotoday.ca/local/transportation-infrastructure/city-report-fixed-link-toronto-islands-bridge-gondola-easstern-gap-10621360
17. City of Toronto, “Improved Active Transportation and Water Access to Toronto Island Park” (Report for Action, April 29, 2025). PDF: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2025/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-255064.pdf