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Cycling infrastructure (Separated bike lanes)

MTO has the bike lane removals in Toronto on their highways program as "safety improvements" scheduled for 2026. Cost of "$25 to $100 million" and contract number 2025-2035:

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The Judge's decision on the charter case made it very clear that, irrelevant of government nomenclature in legislation or program, the removal of the three target bike lanes would be subject to the court's decision. The removal of the target bike lanes would violate charter rights due to the established correlation that was successfully argued in the case that their removal with greatly increase risk of injury and death while not effecting the stated goal of reducing congestion.
 
Milaisacat said:
The Judge's decision on the charter case made it very clear that, irrelevant of government nomenclature in legislation or program, the removal of the three target bike lanes would be subject to the court's decision. The removal of the target bike lanes would violate charter rights due to the established correlation that was successfully argued in the case that their removal with greatly increase risk of injury and death while not effecting the stated goal of reducing congestion.
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Something that needs to be said.
Normally judges give "deference" to the government if it satisfies even a tiny of the goals.
The right-wing propaganda has been pushing "judges making policy decisions" Well, theyre kinda right they shouldnt be.
Thats not the case here, The government had no evidence to support their goals. and mentioned multiple times goes against it.
remember the terms "arbitrary, overbroad and consequences disproportionate to their goals"

buried in the case is the fact that the government went out in the spring to find someone to say the removals will speed up traffic. They couldnt even do that.
If they even made up a study for them to do this with it would have been alot closer.

The point is, The government simply couldnt defend the position. They couldnt even make up a study to support their goals
If the study said travel times decrease by 50% there is definitely sway for the judge to say that is justifiable with increased risk
 
Doesn't the decision talk about the consensus conclusions of research on this topic? So even if the government manages to find one consultant who supports their position, that consultant would likely get torched under cross. And their work still wouldn't overcome the consensus.
 
MisterF said:
Doesn't the decision talk about the consensus conclusions of research on this topic? So even if the government manages to find one consultant who supports their position, that consultant would likely get torched under cross. And their work still wouldn't overcome the consensus.
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It does go without saying that finding a consultant willing to commit perjury would not be in their best interest.
 
MisterF said:
Doesn't the decision talk about the consensus conclusions of research on this topic? So even if the government manages to find one consultant who supports their position, that consultant would likely get torched under cross. And their work still wouldn't overcome the consensus.
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I still just don't understand the decision and the judge's apparent under prioritization of the legislative authority of the province, but I believe the decision says that he would have deferred to the province if they had produced any documentable evidence of the legislation achieving any specified goal the province has.

I don't particularly agree with the ruling on the basis that it's not inherent that the province produce evidence for its decision making to be deemed constitutional - but that's the standard the judge set for the province to make decisions which increase risk against Canadian's rights to safety.

While I think the judge's decision is judicial overreach - I will say that even he did not go so far as to say that government decisions must align with consensus conclusions of professionals. We are not a technocratic society. Simply that the government present some evidence of its decision making furthering its stated goals.

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The Judge basically believes that since the province is doing it "arbitrarily" that it's unconstitutional. Where I struggle is that basically any infrastructure decision impacts the safety of infrastructure users either positively or negatively and it should not be the burden of the government to intensively prove that benefits outweigh any safety risk which may be exposed for every infrastructure decision.

What I am frustrated with is the province's inability to provide this evidence regardless - the original Bloor bike lanes study itself showed travel time increases across the original corridor of 4 minutes in the PM peak, or about 36%. I'm not sure why the province couldn't have just introduced even that original study by the City into evidence, which appears that it would have satisfied the judge's requirements.
 
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innsertnamehere said:
I still just don't understand the decision and the judge's apparent under prioritization of the legislative authority of the province, but I believe the decision says that he would have deferred to the province if they had produced any documentable evidence of the legislation achieving any specified goal the province has.
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This is not what the judge said.

I explained this in previous posts.

The burden on the province is higher than that .

It requires a legitimate public purpose (which it nominally had, less congestion); it requires some proof that the remedy proposed by the legislation relates to the stated goal. The province is entitled to some deference here, but not without limit.

But the judge found a S.7 violation (life, liberty and security of the person) ; this then requires the legislation 's remedy (bike lane removal, in this case) does not cause harm, disproportionate t the benefit.

The ruling clearly states it did not pass this test.

Any benefit was too small to outweigh the harm.

innsertnamehere said:
I don't particularly agree with the ruling on the basis that it's not inherent that the province produce evidence for its decision making to be deemed constitutional - but that's the standard the judge set for the province to make decisions which increase risk against Canadian's rights to safety.
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I don't agree w/your interpretation at all.
 
Northern Light said:
This is not what the judge said.

I explained this in previous posts.

The burden on the province is higher than that .

It requires a legitimate public purpose (which it nominally had, less congestion); it requires some proof that the remedy proposed by the legislation relates to the stated goal. The province is entitled to some deference here, but not without limit.

But the judge found a S.7 violation (life, liberty and security of the person) ; this then requires the legislation 's remedy (bike lane removal, in this case) does not cause harm, disproportionate t the benefit.

The ruling clearly states it did not pass this test.

Any benefit was too small to outweigh the harm.



I don't agree w/your interpretation at all.
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we are saying the same thing here I think. The judge identified that if the province had produced evidence that the removals would improve congestion (the public purpose), it would be fine given the deference the province is entitled to.

This is clear in paragraph 94, where the government's expert witness, Dr. Haider, is described in his testimony:

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Dr. Haider instead relied on evidence showing travel time increases which occurred following the installation of the lanes, which for some reason, did not satisfy the judge (p. 90):

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Basically the judge said Haider wasn't specific enough in his review of the lanes and that the government did not introduce forward-looking projections of travel time savings from the lane removals.

My interpretation continues to be that if the province had introduced evidence that the lanes would improve travel times, the judge would have deferred to the legislative authority of the government. And regardless, I fundamentally disagree that the burden should be on the government to provide that evidence in the first place. I would be surprised if this decision stands at appeal.
 
The burden fell on the government because the government implemented legislation that the evidence showed would increase risks to the health and safety of road users. Because everyone in Canada has the right to security of the person, if the government implements legislation that harms the security of your person, it then has to show that the action is justified. The government brought no evidence of any benefit from their legislation.

As I said above, if they had found an expert who would credibly testify that X thousand drivers would save 1 minute each per day, the government would have won this case. They didn't bother commissioning that evidence, either because they knew they couldn't get it, or because their litigation strategy was completely misguided and they didn't think they needed it.
 
mike0001 said:
Now that the University bike lanes are here to stay will the upgrades to the East side of University go ahead?
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Maybe......

But let's start w/this, the decision by the court is now subject to an appeal, so one thing at a time.

Second.......something is cooking.........but that won't be made public, for awhile............sigh, politics.
 
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