Proposed Parkside bike lane caught up in city versus province battle

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The city of Toronto’s recent staff report to set up a 1.9-kilometre bike lane on accident-prone Parkside Dr. – between Bloor St. W. and Lake Shore Blvd. W. – has come just as the province is looking to limit bike lanes.

But Councillor Gord Perks, who represents Parkdale-High Park, says it’s a matter of safety.

“It’s one of the most dangerous streets in the city,” he said Thursday.

“What the report does is lay out a number of things (including) the cycle track, which is on one (west) side of the street going both north and south,” Perks said. :It asks us to approve the concept and give them a direction to put it in a proposal to put in the capital budget that we’re going to be considering in February.”

The new bike lane would mean the removal of one southbound lane along Parkside.

Perks said the city has been working on the Parkside safety issue for the last three years – since the October 2021 multi-vehicle crash that killed well-known Portuguese couple Valdemar and Fatima Avila.

The city’s estimated $7.5 million plan for Parkside Dr., however, is meeting resistance from the Ford government who the same day tabled new provincial legislation to place new restrictions on the ability of municipalities to remove lanes of traffic for bike lanes without consulting the province first.

“Let’s kill businesses,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said during Question Period on Wednesday, which was followed by a cyclist protest against the legislation outside Queens Park that night.

“Let’s go around and hop on our bicycle and go down the crowded streets that are just absolute insanity right now, on Bloor, on Yonge, on University.”

The province is said to be looking at removing existing bike lanes along the main corridors of Bloor, Yonge and University to relieve traffic congestion.

However, Perks argues there’s still hope for Parkside.

“What the proposed law says is the (provincial transportation) minister will review new bikes lanes,” he said. “It doesn’t say that we can’t do them.”

“I think the Premier is trying to score political points and has gone off half-cocked as he has done so many times,” Perks added.

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Perks said Ford and his cabinet should be far more concerned about provincial transportation projects than those of Toronto City Council.

“They have not one but two light rail projects where they don’t even know if they can open them, that’s Eglington and Finch, and they have an utterly coo-coo plan (of an underground tunnel) for the 401,” he said. “They should figure out decent transportation planning for their own projects before they start muddling with ours.”