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No, it's one thing to decide to put in a bike lane. It's another for a law to compel the removal of an existing bike lane, where that action (taking out the bike lane) is the action that is causing harm.

Basically, it is analogous to Bedford. From a thread by Louis Century:

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I think @evandyk is essentially correct here...........

But @Cambry Ardship 's take is a very creative, and not entirely invalid one, on its face.

My instinct here is that the province is within its rights, for the reasons Evan states. However, I wouldn't rule out the court imposing some type of process, or compelling some type of mitigation. Should the court go that route, any appeals process could tie things up for ages.

TBD.
 
I can chatgpt too and learned some things LOL
I think theres some things that should be cleared up

- The challenge has to show that the removal of the bike lanes "demonstrably and directly leads to increased risk" and is "severe, foreseeable, and avoidable" - bedford SCC decision
- Courts wont get involved in specific policy decisions unless they clearly violate rights and creates harm. - bedford SCC decision
- Courts wont force a government to provide funding - Auton v. British Columbia

It should be pretty easy to pass the first 2 points
The last one is to show that the government isnt forced to ADD bike lanes, just the removal of it.

Now goes to the Government counterargument, that is its covered under Section 1 of the constitution. This might be difficult though. Government has to hit all 4 tests for it to pass this.

- Is There a Pressing and Substantial Objective? Does it lower traffic which is the goal of the law?
- rational connection - must show that it improves traffic without harming safety
- minimal impairment? - is there a different way to solve the objective?
- weighing the harms to the benefits of removal - does lower traffic outweigh harms to cyclists?


I dunno my bets on the cyclist group knowing how little evidence the government has
 
If Doug Ford wins the court case against the removal of bike lanes on Bloor Street West, I can see the removal of the centre medium and left turn lanes. Along with a speed reduction to 30 km/h because of the loss of possible pedestrian refugee islands, and narrow traffic lanes. They could replace the segregated bike lanes (plural) with a single bi-direction lane (singular) separated by a gutter.
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When citing Bedford, keep in mind that all 6 of the judges who wrote the decision are gone. There were three dissenting judges, two of whom are left and one of whom is now the Chief Justice. The Court is really different than it was 12 years ago. And a challenge to a criminal law prohibiting certain things is also very different from a challenge to a policy decision. I don't think you can quote Bedford and say "these two very different things are the same if you cross out prostitution and write in cycling".

Cases like Bedford and Carter (the MAID case), where the court places a positive obligation to act to protect someone's security of the person, are quite rare.
 
Well, it's not a policy decision, right? It's a law that compels the removal of three bike lanes. So I think Bedford is relevant. The point of the substitutions is to show how it is an analogous situation. And I disagree that this is a case of placing a positive obligation to act to protect the security of the person. It's about preventing a government action that will foreseeably harm the security of the person. It's about stopping the removal of current safety infrastructure, not compelling construction everywhere.
 
evandyk said:
When citing Bedford, keep in mind that all 6 of the judges who wrote the decision are gone. There were three dissenting judges, two of whom are left and one of whom is now the Chief Justice. The Court is really different than it was 12 years ago. And a challenge to a criminal law prohibiting certain things is also very different from a challenge to a policy decision. I don't think you can quote Bedford and say "these two very different things are the same if you cross out prostitution and write in cycling".

Cases like Bedford and Carter (the MAID case), where the court places a positive obligation to act to protect someone's security of the person, are quite rare.
Click to expand...
Sure theres a possibility they could overturn Bedford, but precedent is precedent.
We arent america, unless theres a blatantly obvious miss theres no way it gets overturned. Even if this gets appealed the SCC, were talking at least 3 years minimum for them to rule on it.

As I noted above, just because its a policy decision does not make it immune to court oversight.

where the court places a positive obligation to act to protect someone's security of the person, are quite rare.
Click to expand...
Thats not what bedford said.
bedford was about a law restricting security of the person. It did not say anything forcing the government to provide safety.
 
You can easily distinguish this from Bedford without overturning Bedford. It would be completely novel for a court to look at a benefit that the government started to recently provide in a very limited way, and say that the government is precluded from deciding to stop offering that benefit in that narrow way. So unless the court is willing to say that biking safely is a security interest protects by the constitution and applies to every street, how does it come to the conclusion that it applies only to a few km of a few streets in one city? The few thousand people cycling on these streets have constitutional rights that nobody else in the country has?
 
evandyk said:
You can easily distinguish this from Bedford without overturning Bedford. It would be completely novel for a court to look at a benefit that the government started to recently provide in a very limited way, and say that the government is precluded from deciding to stop offering that benefit in that narrow way. So unless the court is willing to say that biking safely is a security interest protects by the constitution and applies to every street, how does it come to the conclusion that it applies only to a few km of a few streets in one city? The few thousand people cycling on these streets have constitutional rights that nobody else in the country has?
Click to expand...
Now that is a stretch, Neither the facts nor case law support this "novel idea"

- not a "benefit"
- not "limited"

Again, the government can improve safety and security, but they must have justification to remove it
It honestly is as simple as that. Courts will not mandate a government to improve safety
 
UntitledCyclist said:
Your friends hopes are one thing, but do they have any intel that would suggest this? I hope so too!
Click to expand...
The pain to remove the bike lane in many sections, with hardened infrastructure like the reconstructed sections of Bloor (Bathurst-Avenue) and University as well as the efforts to remove the bike lanes in some parts will likely make it challenging, time-consuming and a pain to remove. It's easy to see that the government is set on removing it, but take one look at the road in some sections and it's easy to see that the benefit obtained from removal is not worth the pain of removal.

Also you gotta remember, it was also possible that it was just a way to get more suburban votes. Now that he's been comfortably re-elected, he might not see this as a big priority anymore, especially that the local MPP in Etobicoke-Lakeshore was not re-elected. This is just not a fight worth fighting for anymore, especially with the courts and stuff. He's won what he needed to.

I do unfortunately see the Bloor ones in Etobicoke getting removed, especially with their quick-build implementation and design but there's still hope that they will come back in the future while still complying with Bill 212 or after the PCs are gone.
 
H4F33Z said:
The pain to remove the bike lane in many sections, with hardened infrastructure like the reconstructed sections of Bloor (Bathurst-Avenue) and University as well as the efforts to remove the bike lanes in some parts will likely make it challenging, time-consuming and a pain to remove. It's easy to see that the government is set on removing it, but take one look at the road in some sections and it's easy to see that the benefit obtained from removal is not worth the pain of removal.

Also you gotta remember, it was also possible that it was just a way to get more suburban votes. Now that he's been comfortably re-elected, he might not see this as a big priority anymore, especially that the local MPP in Etobicoke-Lakeshore was not re-elected. This is just not a fight worth fighting for anymore, especially with the courts and stuff. He's won what he needed to.

I do unfortunately see the Bloor ones in Etobicoke getting removed, especially with their quick-build implementation and design but there's still hope that they will come back in the future while still complying with Bill 212 or after the PCs are gone.
Click to expand...
These were all facts both before and after 212 passed (well except for Hogarth getting turfed). I like supposition as much as the next person, and hope too. However, I have seen no factual information that makes me doubt the plans to rip up at least parts of Bloor, Yonge and University Ave., as stipulated – bizarrely but clearly – in law.
 
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