Ontario Vows Appeal After Judge Strikes Down Toronto Bike Lane Removal

This is a reprint of an article published July 31, 2025 by The Energy Mix, an Ottawa-based community news site and e-digest on climate change, energy, and the shift off carbon (see original post here). It is reprinted here with the permission of the organization. You can read more articles by The Energy Mix, and sign up for their newsletter, by following this link.

The Ontario government is vowing to appeal after a judge ruled Wednesday that its plan to tear down 19 kilometres of protected bike lanes in downtown Toronto violates Canada’s Constitution.

“This is a full win,” said Michael Longfield, executive director of Cycle Toronto, in a release issued by environmental law charity Ecojustice.

“We won on the facts and on the law,” Longfield added. “The court accepted our argument that the government’s actions increased the risk of harm to Ontarians, and that doing so without justification breaches our most basic constitutional rights.”

In his decision, Ontario Court Justice Paul Schabas wrote that complainants Cycle Toronto, Eva Stanger-Ross, and Narada Kiondo “have established that removal of the target bike lanes will put people at increased risk of harm and death, which engages the right to life and security of the person,” CBC reports.

“The province has been pushing for the removals as a solution to Toronto’s traffic congestion, but cyclists and advocates say bike lanes are crucial for public safety and that removing them won’t solve traffic concerns,” CBC writes. Schabas concluded that removing the bike lanes won’t reduce traffic gridlock.

“The evidence shows that restoring lanes for cars will not result in less congestion, as it will induce more people to use cars and therefore any reduction in driving time will be short-lived, if at all, and will lead to more congestion,” the judge wrote. He cited expert evidence “which establishes that bicycle lanes, and in particular separated or protected bicycle lanes, reduce motor vehicle traffic congestion by providing an alternative method of transportation that is safer for all users of the roads.”

That language “affirms that government action cannot knowingly make streets less safe, especially when it won’t achieve the goal of reducing traffic congestion, and that public safety must be a paramount consideration in policy-making,” Ecojustice writes. “This ruling is a powerful vindication of what the applicants and cycling advocates have long said: cyclists are not the cause of traffic, they are among the most vulnerable road users, too often put at risk by infrastructure and policies that prioritize vehicle speed over human safety.”

The decision “makes clear that where government action arbitrarily causes harm, the rights protected by section 7 of the Charter are engaged,” said Ecojustice staff lawyer Lindsay Beck. “That’s exactly what the government did when it enacted legislation to remove protected bike lanes in the face of its own expert evidence that doing so won’t alleviate congestion and will put lives at risk.”

Premier Doug Ford responded to the decision by attacking the judge. “I believe, and the people of Ontario believe, that they elect parties to make decisions—they don’t elect judges,” he told CBC.

“We were elected by the people of Ontario with a clear mandate to restore lanes of traffic and get drivers moving by moving bike lanes off of major roads to secondary roads,” added Dakota Brasier, a spokesperson for Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria.

In the February 27 provincial election, Ford’s Conservative Party won 80 of the 124 seats in the provincial legislature with 43% of the vote and about 45% of the electorate casting ballots—giving them a decisive mandate from 19.35% of eligible voters.

In the lead-up to the court ruling, former architect Lloyd Alter cited evidence in his Carbon Upfront! newsletter that protected bike lanes attract 4.3 times as many riders as city streets with no bike lanes at all, and that the threatened lane along Toronto’s Bloor Street drew more vehicle volume during the afternoon rush hour than the automobile lanes.

“The upward trend for cycling continues in our city, as it does elsewhere when bike lanes are in place,” Albert Koehl, Coordinator at Community Bikeways, said in a release. “What’s especially impressive is that during the 5-7 p.m. rush hours, there were more bikes than cars, even though only a fraction of the roadway is actually set aside for cyclists. We are again seeing the importance of bike lanes for city residents on their way to work or school, to shop, or to go to appointments and meetings.”